Fotos on Friday

Remember when the Labour Party was like this?
 (Thanks Mister_TMG)

Now look at it...
What does he think he's in?
Looks like The Muppets to me!

And yet, Mr Average is more concerned about the guy with the pretendy sore back whose made off with
a miserable £4 000, than he is with Gary Barlow, HSBC, Royal Bank, or Google which have made of with billions .

So much for our democracy.

What I can't understand is that a man who spent so much time with Margaret Thatcher and Prince Charlie wasn't forensically examined by the secret services. Every time I hear an excuse for another establishment figure, I think about that!

DUH! Doctors? What's that then?

I suppose if you work for a compulsive liar like IDS,
you have to learn the lying trade 'Priti' damned quick.

OK, so if he gets his wall built (as if) how does
 he get his suits over the wall? (Thanks Danny)

Well obviously it is because British People are Special! DUH thicky!

Nanny, Nanny, did you do that hen house at the end?

KEIR HARDIE DIED 100 YEARS AGO TODAY

I WISH JEREMY CORBYN A SUCCESSFUL PARTY CONFERENCE, DESPITE THE NAYSAYERS

HAVE ALISTAIR AND BLAIR LOST THEIR RIGHT TO VOTE FOR CONSORTING WITH THOSE WHO DON'T SHARE LABOUR VALUES?

OR, MAYBE THEY DO SHARE LABOUR VALUES...?

At the Tory Party Conference Fringe, these two look at home together...

We'll keep the blue flag flying here.

As people, from the well known Jeremy Hardy and Mark Steel, to folk with no public profile, but with years of support of the Labour  Party (including making donations and canvassing for them), are denied a vote in the leadership election because they "don't share Labour's values", some, allegedly, for as little retweeting a comment from someone in another party, I was wondering if talking at Conservative Party Conferences would debar the likes of D and McD  from casting their votes.

As it goes, I wonder what these values that some of their supporters don't share, actually are.

Anyone got any idea what Labour actually stands for? 

And, would Keir Hardie get a vote in the current leadership contest?

I DON'T THINK THIS NEEDS ANY COMMENT...

But, for what it's worth I'll make one or two. 

The last debate was a pretty 'touch and go' thing in my opinion. I see no problem in admitting that. Darling, for some unknown reason, possibly the weeks of training, was far better than anyone had expected him to be, and, frankly, Alex Salmond, also for some unknown reason, wasn't nearly as good as we expected him to be.

The Press had already built up our expectations of Darling being slaughtered, and when he wasn't they portrayed it as huge victory for Flipper, although actually, among undecideds there was a small (perhaps statistically insignificant) move to YES.

Still that didn't get in the way of a good news story for the unionists. The press, STV (who were accused of "fixing" the audience), and the BBC, who trumpet Better Together, No Thanks, Nob Orders, U Kok, BritNat propaganda at every turn, just loved it...not thinking for a second about the debate to come.

It was, though, the kind of thing that wasn't ever going to happen twice. Darling couldn't be expected to keep the relatively high level of performance and Alex was bound to be back on form. 

And so it was.

With polls at the end of the debate showing in the range of 70:30 to Salmond, it's hard to see how Darling or Labour or the Tories or whatever it is we are up against could possibly call it a victory.

But of course you can always depend on Miliband to say something stupid and invite a knocking down. But what more humiliating knock down could you possibly get as a Labour leader, than from the great great grandson of the founder of the party that Ed Miliband supposedly leads?  Just to rub salt into the wound Ross Hardie's Twitter picture includes a Yes emblem.

Seriously I'm ashamed to say that I was an Ed Miliband supporter in the race for the leadership. Red Ed, I thought, might bring some sense back to a Labour party that had become so purple it was almost blue. How wrong was I?

What the debate showed was that their man had no answers. The best they could offer was "more of the same, only not quite so good because there is all that debt to pay off so austerity in the union, whichever way you vote". 

Darling wasn't only bettered by Alex Salmond. He was bettered by the audience. Of course there was that magic woman who put Darling right in his place over Health, hoping that next time he got a fat cheque for speaking to healthcare companies he could feel Bevan sitting on his shoulder, followed the man who asked "If we are 'better together' with the UK, why aren't we 'better together' now? 

And of course that encapsulates what we feel. 

Isn't that the question everyone should be asking?

But they tell us "don't aspire to anything very much because you couldn't manage it... You alone, among all nations, are too wee, too poor and too stupid to be independent, despite your educated population, energy rich seas and wind power, your manufacturing, fishing, food and drink, farming and tourism industries." 

What a bloody joke.

So, instead what they want us to do is to pour our money into the stinking pit of corruption, manipulation and deviance that is Westminster and get back less and less every year to run the things that we are allowed to run in this "best of both worlds" crap that they tell us we have. 

That is their idea of BETTER together. It is easily seen that their main proponents don't live and work in Scotland, and have access to massive salaries, expenses and speaking fees of tens of thousands of pounds a day.

Well, it's not my idea of Better.

Anyway, for something that needed no comment, it got a lot of my hot air...

So, I'll stop there. 

Just take this thought with you today: Keir Hardie would have been embarrassed by Labour and by Miliband. God knows what he'd think of Lamont, Baillie and Stairheid.

SNAPS ON SUNDAY

What is it? It's clout. Not much more

Yeah, whatever. What did you used to be again?

Well duh, yeah, we know this.
Only unionists seem to think it all came for the broad shoulders of Alistair Darling.
If the UK had had to bail out its banks it would have been sunk.

Yeah, and Iain Duncan Snuff might find out about you.

Well well, but Alistair said the oil would run out in 2017

Another careless government official in Downing street
forgetting that there are such things as cameras these days.

Looks much more statesmanlike now. Not the hideous clutter of before.
And maybe now they can have to good manners to find a space for
a Welsh dragon?

Sounds like plan to me

And one of Jackie Baillie's men was in the audience asking questions

Alex treats the occasion of the remembrance of the millions of dead
in the first war with the seriousness and respect that it surely deserves (even if it
would be more appropriate to  have it in 4 years' time)]
George Osborne and his cabinet colleague think it's all a big laugh.

Anyone think that people care if Cameron's heart is broken?

ARGH Foreigners. Maggie Curran's at the back of all this.

UK Austerity, one way or the other.

Oh look, Labour used to be a socialist party.
Democracy, Justice, Healthy Homes, Fair Rents?
Hmmmm....

Obviously Blair, obviously

Trying to get some Grassroots?
You don;t need the money. There's any number of people looking for seats in the
House of Old Sleeping reeps.

OK, it's a spoof, but it IS what she would want.

Never forget this. It is important.
Remember Alistair was in charge of bank regulation
 when the whole thing went BANG.
And his "friend" Brown had been in charge up to that point.

FOTOS ON FRIDAY ON THURSDAY

Mrs Thatcher was using the fishermen to get a rebate
After all the fishermen didn't live in the SE of England

A bit like the farming deal
Scotland loses out again.

Shameful and heartbreaking

Proud of this, are you Politicians?

Well, no one much listens to war criminals, so sod off Blair

Ah, a socialist in the Labour Party. Hoorah.

Lordy, you wait for a socialist for 10 years
and then two come along at once

Then of course, the disappointment is that these two Tories,
still drawing salaries, while making most of their money elsewhere,
come along and make a sunny day cloudy.

Says it all

Just sometimes, as we get closer to success,
we get a reasonable article

This is according to Hansard

Oh well, people are entitled to change their views,
and a political career needs a little manipulation
of ideals from time to time.

Butter Together

Dear Old Danny Alexander, George Osborne's boot boy

Oh don't worry Alistair, you'll get your seat in the Lords.
There's always a place for a flipping liar in there.

Well, I never

A third real socialist. I hardly believe it.

Well, they are a sharp set of old fella, aren't they?

Well the one or two that are awake are...
Three hundred a day from sleeping?
I could do that.

So we are actually doing worse than everyone else except Italy?
That's not quite how George described it, is it?

Oh stick around Mr Panda. You'll get used to the lies they tell here

Z list celebrities will do ANYTHING to get their names back in the press.
I'd only heard of a couple of them, and I'm told they were all Blair's friends.

Why weren't you asked to sing at the Games, Annie?

Do you, Stan the Man?  Oh dear. Never mind.
Better luck next time.

Congratulations to all the athletes taking part in the Games.

Win or lose, thanks for coming to Scotland and competing.

Take away a good memory of your stay here.

And Stan the... erm Man? 

Crawl back into your hole.