RANDOM THOUGHTS

Thanks to Bugger le Panda for reminding me on Twitter that The 'Hon' Marie Rimmer MP, is in court tomorrow on a charge of assault against a YES supporter during the referendum campaign.

As Aesop said: You are known by the company you keep. If I were either of them I'm not sure I'd be too happy about that.

So, erm, Angela, which one is it? It can't be both.

Theresa May, you say?

Oh do go away, Straw Man. The Hague is nice at the time of the year.

How many of these rusting subs must we keep in Scotland?

When will they be decommissioned?

THE DAILY MAIL AND JACKIE BAILLIE SINK TO UNPLUMBED DEPTHS

Admirably, Ms Baillie, in this tweet back in June, shows her concern and support for women who suffer from breast cancer. 

Rather less admirably, today she takes part in a Daily Mail Tory hate fest against Dr Philippa Whitford MP, whom the Mail accuses of being on the make becasue, over Christmas she did a few days work at her local hospital while fellow surgeons were unable to work, because of ill-heath, I believe. (Staff illness is something that would be avoidable even if Ms Baillie were cabinet secretary for health. No one wants a sick surgeon wielding a knife over them and regulations on this are pretty strict.)

Prior to being an MSP, Ms Baillie was employed in administration work with East Dunbartonshire Council and Strathkelvin District Council. She may therefore be unaware that medical doctors and surgeons are require to keep their skills honed in order that they may be able to continue to work in their speciality.

It seems not to have occurred to the Mail that, had Dr Whitford not been prepared to take these shifts, there is a real possibility that sick women might have had to have their operations postponed. Presumably then they could have counted upon Ms Baillie to roundly condemn the government for cancelling operations.

Stuart Campbell covered this very fully with his customary competence this morning, and of course we can't add anything to that. Nonetheless, such was our contempt for the article that we just couldn't let the subject go with out expressing our disgust.

The fact that Dr Whitford claimed a salary for operating is seen as a issue. That that salary is some £50+ per hour was seen as a further issue. But surely that is what surgeons earn. We seem to remember that Ms Baillie's erstwhile colleague, Mr Straw, demanded far more for using his influence, whilst a member of another place. The Editor of the Daily Mail wouldn't get out of bed for that kind of money.

We wonder, incidentally, if a Labour government in Edinburgh would slash top doctors' salaries?

No, thought not.

By all means oppose, Jackie. By all means have a go at what you see as inadequacies in the Scottish government's programme and how they implement it. It is far from perfect and we need good opposition. 

But this isn't good opposition.

This is you being crass, cheap and nasty. SNP bad no matter what they do, because they have our salaries and our positions, eh?

Update: I've just seen this blog from Craig Dalzell, who knows Philippa Whitford personally.

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND A NEW FRIEND

Earlier today, on the previous post, Anon suggested this blog post, and a response to it. I read the link and felt moved to offer a comment of my own. But as I started writing and the comment got longer and longer, I though it would make a reasonable post on Munguin's Republic. It drifted away from the topic a little perhaps, but, hey, that's how my mind works. For what it's worth, here it is. You might find it a little less disjointed if you read what inspired it first.

Gordon Brown apparently fails to see that if you have a finally balanced referendum result in the offing; and if you then conspire with a Tory prime minister, with only 1/59^th of the representation of the country, to deliver a 'vow', a package of measures previously specifically ruled out by that very Tory prime minister, if that ‘vow’ changes enough people's minds that they vote for the new "most devolved powers in the entire world" otherwise described as "as near federalism as you can get when one country in the state holds 85% of the population", and if, on the day after the referendum, people find out that they have been duped by that poorly represented Tory prime minister,  and the most trusted Scottish ex prime minister (EVEL, with which I totally agree, but the Labour party doesn't, indeed electorally CANNOT), and if in the following months a rfarce of a consultation takes place and delivers almost none of what was promised… and that even those powers which looked like coming,  are watered down to the point that they are all but  invisible, it is hardly surprising that there will be a distrust and dislike of the party which guaranteed all of the above.

I realise that the British public is a deal less volatile than some other, but at some point a desire for some sort of new politics, something promised over and again at each general election and never delivered, is bound to take a hold.

There comes a time when there is a desire for a cessation of rule by a never changing  elite, shown over and over to be corrupt to the core in almost all aspects of its daily doings from the relatively trivial attempts to line their pockets, and in doing so work against democracy (Straw, when touting for future employment, as one recent example, admitted influencing EU discussions on behalf of a client, when he was being paid by us to work for the UK) , to the infinitely more serious matters of murder of children.

In Scotland, the somewhat distant London-based parties and their "elder statesmen" should try to remember that it is not the SNP (nor the Greens, the Scottish Socialists or Radical Independence) who are behind this movement.

It is, in reality, the ordinary people of Scotland. It is, as Jim Murphy called them, "Glasgow Man".

A demographic which was previous attached at the hip to Labour, has seen, at long last, that Labour has no real interest in them, save for using them to ensure the ongoing income and rise to the top of people like Maggie Curran, Dougie Alexander, Jim Murphy, Iain Davidson and their likes.

Glasgow man has latterly come to the conclusion that for all he has voted Labour for all these years, because as one guy said to me "It's the party of the working man", he, Glasgow man, seems to have become comparatively poorer, and conditions in which he lives, still produce areas where life expectancy is well under 60 years, poorer than many parts of the developing world, or war zones like Gaza.

Labour deserted Glasgow man because he was expendable. (Where else was he to go? The Tartan Tories, a reputation they liked to foster, but based on something from the dim and distant past?) 

For power, as Mandelson said, you had to get the vote of the Home Counties and the South East, and you weren't going to get that spending their taxes on poor people in social housing in inner-city Glasgow or Dundee.

What actually has happened is that Labour has moved farther and farther to the right. Would Keir Hardie recognise Labour now?

Possibly the final insult (and one predicted  as a disaster by many on the left of Labour) was the election for some weird reason, of a right wing, Blairite, Henry Jacksonite, war enthusiast, Scottish branch leader. Loathed by the left, almost as much as Blair himself is, his election marked the real end of Labour in Scotland. We told you we wanted to move to the left, and you elected a right winger for the leader... What?

It happened more or less at the same time as the most left leaning, anti war, pro equality, leader of the SNP ever, came to power. In Scotland the Tories being nowhere; the Liberals now a part of history; UKIP having managed a brief success in the EU elections, only to have themselves represented by an ignorant racist who doesn't even live in Scotland, and has a particularly virulent strain of foot in mouth disease, the new real politic, as Curran would call it, is Labour on the right,  SNP on the left.

The grandees of the Labour party need to look to themselves for their failures, rather than blame the SNP for their success. Labour ceased to be the party of the working man a long time ago. If you don’t represent your constituency, there comes a time when they will go vote for people who will...people whose agenda is not dictated by the need to win Tory seats in the South East of England.

And frankly it doesn't help if your top people from both the main English parties having begged us to stay with them, are now saying pretty much the same things about Scotland not having the right to send SNP members to London. Exercise your right to vote for whom you want, under our FPTP system, and you will cause a crisis.

Seriously, if they haven’t worked out how damaging that is to their cause, no wonder they are in the tanks. 

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Yesterday Munguin and I made a new friend. We had a great afternoon talking politics with one of our family of readers. AH, Abu Haimi, came all the way from Malaysia to see Scotland and, obviously, Munguin. Thanks for coming to Dundee and spending the afternoon in what I know was a really hectic schedule. It was a great afternoon, and I hope we'll have more time together next time you're here. Safe journey home for you and your lovely family, AH.

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I'm not much of an historian, but I seem to recall reading that the Daily Mail was relatively supportive, at least for a time, of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. 

Neither am I much of a royalist, but I also seem to recall reading that one very spoilt and unpleasant prince they had in the 1930s, a man who appeared to be incapable of keeping his clothes on for any length of time if there were married women available to bed, when he found he couldn't have his own way about marrying his bit on the side, who had a history of "trading up" her partners for something better, a certain Mrs Simpson, decided to reject the crown of England and his destiny as king, in favour of aforesaid woman.

It seems that they too as were pleased to be received as a royal duke (and ex-King) and his not so royal wife, to meet with Adolf Hitler. 

It might well then, have suited the Daily Mail for Edward VIII, an apparent Nazi sympathiser, and his pushy wife, to stay on the throne. So for them the abdication was, indeed, a real crisis. They lost their man and got George VI and his formidable wife instead.

Whilst we are on the subject, don't you think some people should probably take more water with it:

Now Kezia, you really can't say you weren't warned, when the First Minister herself told you. So presumably, like a good manager, you have been monitoring his tweets. What do you think if this doozie?

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Finally, let's spare a thought, and maybe some money, for the terrible disaster of the Nepalese Earthquake.

MIDWEEK MONTAGE

J Straw and M Rifkind need to re-apply

Why?

A guide new MPs may find useful.

Hmmm... that didnt last long.

So, why would it matter?
It's the same with benefits, which is why universal benefits
are fairer.

If you must have a second job, so that you have experience outside
parliament, this is the kid you should have.

Or maybe this one, but try not to hold your nose as the hoi paloi
passes by.

Pass the hat round for poor Malcolm...

Why? Just why?

They are actually proud of their progress...
Bloody amazing.

We're all in it together, right?

Absolutely. They wouldn't do all this stuff if they thought that they were likely to get caught.
As Mr Howard says, "Prison works".

Maybe Dennis, that's because they don't want anyone caught tax dodging

WHY?

It's true, isn't it.
A few years ago students in England protested at the massive hike
in student fees. Someone poked Princess Parker Bowles with a stick.
The establishment was outraged.
But you don't hear much vultures waiting for little boys to die.

Oh to have be born Icelandic instead of British.

RIFKIND, THE STRAW MAN AND LABOUR CANDIDATES IN SCOTLAND

How can Jack Straw say that he behaved honourably when he admits that he was being paid £60,000 a year by a company for whom he had EU directives changed.

Do his constituents need that kind of money to get things done? 

If EU rules need changing then surely MPs should work towards that without expecting a bung! 

Straw (you'll remember him as the Westminster wooden top that wanted to make it illegal for us ever to have another referendum on independence. A real democrat!) is standing down at the election to spend more time with... well, whatever he spends time with, presumably as the Noble Lord Jack of the Straws. 

He has insisted that all he was doing was looking for work for after that date. That may be above board and within the rules. But admitting that he had EU rules changed in the past is surely not.

Still the good thing for his future career is that well respected elder statesman Tony Blair has his back. Who could ask for more?

As for Rifkind, I fear his coat is on a shoogly peg. He is chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of the House of Commons, overseeing the doings of MIs 5 and 6 and GCHQ. He's a massive security risk if he's been up to no good, and the Prime Minister has apparently refused to say whether he has confidence in his ability to do that job.

Ooooops!

Update

Mr Rifkind has bitten the bullet, resigned from the chair of the Intelligence Committee and will stand down as an MP. Now he will have all the time in the world to get on with selling himself to the highest bidder.

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Who'd want to be a Labour candidate?

It seems that today's (or maybe yesterday's) gaffe from Labour in Scotland is that they have advised people to vote tactically in areas where either the Tories or Liberals have a chance of beating the SNP.

In other words... if you live in any of these areas vote Tory, or Lib Dem.

That must make the candidate feel wanted, loved, supported and that he is performing a useful function for his comradely party.

Labour would rather the right wing Tories or their right wing little helpers got seats than the centre lefty SNP got them. 

If I were the candidate I'd be tempted to stand down right now instead of spending cold nights on the doorstep trying to explain to people that they shouldn't vote for me.

Update

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WAKE UP, SCOTLAND

A blitzkrieg, says Alan Bissett.

In last two days, Tories have raised the retirement age to 70 (don't expect Labour to reverse it).

The unelected House of Lords have stripped the Scottish Parliament of control over renewable energy (a sign of more to come)

And Central Scotland is being opened up by UK Govt for gas fracking without consulting the people who live here.

WAKE UP, SCOTLAND, AND END THIS!

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This fine figure of a man, the demoted Mr Lansley, has just charged you and me for overnight stays in an hotel in London when his home is only 1 mile from parliament.

Now, I cast no aspersions, but, when MSPs from Dundee have to get home 70 or so miles every night from Edinburgh, I'm wondering what it is that keeps him, a man clearly in the peak of physical condition, from managing the one mile or so from work to his house, in the town with the best provision of transport in the whole of England. 

It's most mysterious.

I wonder what his second wife, Sally, thinks about it...

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THERE COULD BE AN ASSAULT ON OUR PERMANENT SEAT IN THE UNSC

Oh no, anything but that...

click to enlarge

CAN WE PLEASE START TREATING SERIOUS MATTERS SERIOUSLY

Last week, on a radio show hosted by Victoria Derbyshire, a Sue McGregor or Sarah Montague wannabe, the English Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, said (and I paraphrase) that there are no rapes that aren’t bad and no rapes that aren’t wrong, but that some are worse than others.

It caused an outrage which has persisted through the week and into the weekend.

I forced myself to listen to the interview and I could find nothing actually wrong with what he was saying. Even if Ken Clarke’s delivery was a little laid back and clinical, rather than emotional, it was not offensive in its content. And what he was saying was surely correct.

People, quite rightly, feel very strongly about the subject, but, politically correct to say it, or not, there are some rapes that are far worse than others.

This is because rape is defined as all sexual activity where consent has not been given by both adult parties. It ranges from frenzied sexual attacks to consensual sex with a person who, because of age, is not LEGALLY competent to give consent, and all the statistics include both extremes, and all those in between.

Given that the age of consent varies within Europe from country to country, we have the ridiculous situation that, if a Frenchman of 18 and his 15 year old wife, on honeymoon in England, indulge in intercourse, then according to English law, (and Scottish for that matter) he will have raped her, because she was not old enough to give her consent. It may be offensive to English sensibilities, and wrong under their law, but it is surely very different from a rape which involves a violent attack in a dark alley by a complete stranger.

It is right that this, and pleading guilty, thus sparing the victim the further violation of reliving the event, should be reflected in sentencing. This is the general sense of the argument that Ken was trying to get over. It was not offensive. It was common sense.

As a result of the interview there have been calls for Clarke’s resignation from government, led by the opportunistic Ed Miliband.

Worse still Jack Straw, who never apologised for anything when in office, said that he would have apologised and that he would have been moved to another job (not sacked, just moved to another job) had he been in that situation. Presumably if you cock up one job in Labour, you are sent to another department so you can do it there too.

Meanwhile, it has gone almost completely unnoticed that on May 16, Nadine Dorries said in an interview with another daytime interviewer, that child abuse could be reduced if the victims had been taught to say “no”.

Now I’ll admit that I haven’t seen Dorries’ interview (nothing on Earth could persuade me watch Vanessa ‘does my bum look big in this’ Phelps), but it seems to me that her comments (if reported correctly) were very much more offensive than those of her senior colleague.

Maybe it’s just that everyone ignores or laughs at anything Dorries says, as a matter of course.

I don't make a habit of supporting Conservative English cabinet secretaries, but I do so in this case, and I deplore Labour for jumping on a “populist” bandwagon.

Rape is far too serious a crime for this petty politicking and point scoring political correctness. It might help if we could talk about it like adults.

"THIS IS A MATTER ENTIRELY FOR THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE", LIED DAVID MILIBAND AND JACK STRAW

The UK government, pssinly aided by a member of their royal family, advised the Libyan government on how to deal with the Scottish government over the release of Mr Al Megrahi. Then they were economical with the truth about it so that their “friends”, the Americans (the ones that think they are pathetic), wouldn’t be cross with THEM, but with Alex Salmond instead.

Documents released by Wikileaks show how desperate Western governments were to do business with the massive oil economy of Libya. They illustrate in detail how Brit ministers and officials were determined not to let Libyan anger over Megrahi’s imprisonment get in the way of money that was there to be made from a business relationship between the countries.

Blair even went to Libya and met with Gaddafi in his desert tent, all huggy and kissy, and signed a prisoner transfer agreement, although, as the only Libyan prisoner in the UK was in Scotland, and the responsibility of the Scottish government, it’s doubtful that he had the right to do this . But why would Tony Blair ever bother with what the law said when there was money to be made?

However, in October 2008 Megrahi was diagnosed as suffering from cancer and within a week Bill Rammell, a junior Foreign Office minister, had written to his Libyan counterpart advising him on how this could be used as the grounds of securing al-Megrahi’s compassionate release from prison. You have to admit it, Labour can move pretty sharpish when there’s a buck to be made, and good taste goes right out the window when there's a sniff of cash.

The FCO immediately wrote to the Deputy First Minister of Libya giving details of the process for requesting compassionate release from a Scottish prison. The Scottish government knew about this as the FCO had had to check the details with them.

The leaked document, from the Americans says that: “Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told Jack Straw that he will make the final decision in this case. Salmond told Straw that he would make the decision based on humanitarian grounds, not foreign policy grounds.

The Qatari government was also involved in making representations to Edinburgh, and Washington was said to be concerned that they (the Qataris), as one of the richest nations in the world, were offering financial incentives. The Qatari response was: 'That is ridiculous; it was not necessary to offer money. It was all done within Scottish law. We offered no money, investment, or payment of any kind’.

Did the Senators not have this information when they, somewhat imperiously, summond our First Minister to appear before them?

Another American document shows that Prince Andrew and even the Queen may have played a role. It reports: “He, Gaddafi went on to thank his 'friend Brown’, the British Prime Minister, his government, Queen Elizabeth, and Prince Andrew, who 'against all odds encouraged this brave decision’. Gaddafi noted that the UK efforts would positively affect 'exchange’ between the two countries.

So, all the released papers square with what Alex Salmond has said all along (except that Salmond told Straw that HE would make the decision, whilst he told everyone else that it was Kenny MacAskill who would take it).

A comment from Iain Gray would, at this point, be interesting, if not (almost undoubtedly not) helpful. Doubtless, however, if asked, Mr Gray would simply mention that it sounded like another SNP broken promise and a personal humiliation for Alex Salmond. Yawn.


Pics: Mwa mwa dahling, Gaddafi and Blair’s love in in the desert; First Minister’s story is borne out by Wikileaks; Qatari money, the cash that really talks, but we didn’t need any of it. The law was enough; Blinky Straw, the man with the moral rectitude of a tape worm.