BLOOMING HIBISCUS!

A while ago ago, in one of our Soppy Sundays, Juteman mentioned that he had planted a hibiscus. And smarty pants here (that'll be Tris) told him that it would never flower.

He bet me that it would, and we came to an agreement that if it didn't flower he would donate to charity on my behalf, and if it did, I would donate to charity on his behalf.

So then this happened:

And so  Munguin accompanied me to Morrison's this afternoon and we bought some stuff for the local food bank

If you are in Dundee, St Salvador's in the Hilltown is a good alternative to Trussel (Every Town Should Have One) Trust Food banks. Although it is run by the Episcopal Church there is no obligation on anyone to be a church member, to come to a service or indeed anything else. Need is the only criterion.

If you want to make a donation while the church is closed, you can leave it at Maxwelltown Centre next door. They share a kitchen with the church.

Hearty congratulations to Jutie for getting a Hibiscus to flower in the climate of Dundee. I shall redouble my efforts for next year.

Talking of food banks the great news is that Mark Frankland's First Base food bank in Dumfries has reached close to his target of £10,000 (indeed with tax relief the sum is actually over the £10,000 mark).

Fantastic news. Congratulations Mark!

JUST A WEE WORD...

...To point out, in case you missed it in the side bar, that Mark Frankland is fundraising urgently for First Base in Dumfries.

Fund raising is a 24/7/52 job. Isn't it heartbreaking that in the supposedly 6th largest economy of the world we feed millions by charity, otherwise they would starve to death. Proud?

I know that some of you have supported Mark in the past and I'd hate you to have missed it. Here's the link to the story, and here's the link to the appeal page.

Aye, well... hard question and I'm only a government minister, not programmed for hard questions from ordinary people. Where's the exit and my ministerial car?

If you can publicise the appeal on social media, it would be hugely appreciated too.

Thanks...

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE

I had intended to write something today about the outcome of the Hillsborough hearing.

That was until I read Mark Frankland's piece on it.

Now you'll know already that I'm a big fan of this guy, not only as a writer (his books are gripping reads, and available on Amazon) but as a food bank manager that goes just that step or two farther and provides for his clients more than just something to eat.

So I look forward to his posts, even if sometimes they make me angry, or sad, or just despairing of the United Kingdom and its foulness, and invariably make me cry.

It turns out that Mark was there that day in Hillsborough. At the match. 

Mark actually witnessed this stuff, and because he's Mark he got involved; wrote to his MP and ended up giving evidence to the court.

I'll not tell you more. 

It's a far better idea to read his own account, which you can do here (if you haven't already). He's a writer. He makes it real.

Suffice to say, I'm ashamed, once again, that we live in the kind of country where cover up by people at the very top is how we deal with incompetence and deceit in the very people we pay to competent and honest.

Any suggestion that leniency should be shown to people who put the football fans through this is, of course, beyond the pale in my opinion. Apparently the Daily Mail suggested that it may not serve the ends of justice for elderly men to be tried and possibly jailed for these crimes.

Nonsense.

We allow policemen and women to have a measure of power over us. We accept a similar, although different, situation for elected officials.  In return we have the right to expect them to behave as if they deserved that privilege.

When they fall short, we need them to be dealt with in the most severe fashion. 

Thatcher has form on covering up horrific crimes.

Of course it doesn't happen. When MPs and Lords stole money from the state in far larger amounts than any benefit scrounger, a few, a very few, hapless misfits that no one liked were thrown to the wolves and imprisoned for short periods; Hanningfield served as little as 9 days for the theft of thousands of pounds, before he was released to continue with his fiddling. 

I wonder how many DWP clients who've fiddled that kind of money could say the same.

At the same time people who stole from us to have their moats cleaned or their duck houses maintained, their wisteria removed or their hanging baskets watered, got off Scot free.

This though, was murder, by some other name. That's more serious than stealing a few million.

Senior police, no matter how old and frail need to be made to pay. Politicians compliant with orders from the top (Thatcher) to hush it up and blame the fans for crimes, including inventing preposterous stories about urinating on, and picking the pockets of, dead bodies, likewise. 

It's no good saying that speaking up would have ended their careers. So what? They were condoning murder, and we were paying them to do it!

Oh yes, just one final thought... what did they tell the Queen... these right honourable???? privy councillors? 

THE GREAT FOODBANK SIEGE IS NOW AVAILABLE

For those of you who missed yesterday's post, or got bored reading half way down (I don't blame you), I just wanted to let you know that Mark Frankland's book "The Great Foodbank Siege" is now available on Amazon Kindle.

For those unaware of the background to this book, Mark's blog is available here (or in the side bar). 

Basically, Mark, as well as being a writer, is an independent food bank manager. He runs "First Base" in the town of Dumfries.

First Base hasn't got the support network of The Trussell Trust food bank, a national group of foodbanks with the rather dubious slogan "Every town should have one". What they do, they do alone, with the help of volunteers and donors.

If you read back through his blog you'll learn about some of the lengths Mark goes to get food to give the people of his town, the contacts he has built and some of the tribulations of his job. It's worth a read.

First Base supplies an amazing 5,000 food parcels a year in a town of around 50,000 people.

Mark tells the background to the book on his blog far better than I can here, so I'll leave you to read it there.

I've bought it and it's a page turner. A ripping good story for the not unreasonable price of £3, which after Amazon's share and VAT will net the charity around £2. Exciting too. I was reading it out loud to Munguin last night and he was hiding under the duvet!

We need to do this folks, or the foodbank won't last beyond January.

So if you have a Kindle, or you can download to your Kindle App, please give it a look HERE, the Amazon page.

And, it would be great if you could tell your friends, tweet it, put it on Facebook or any other media you use, and finally, you might write a wee review on Amazon. These reviews make a difference to sales.

I know Mark, and more importantly, his clients, will be incredibly grateful.

Thank you.

HAMMOND'S A BIT OF A LIABILITY REALLY, AND THAT'S ONLY ONE OF HIS MANY FAULTS

I've never had much time for the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond.

I first became aware of him when I watched a Despatches programme back in October 2010, which showed that he had transferred a deal of his investments to his wife in order to avoid tax.  And a considerable amount of tax too. Experts said at the time that there could be savings of around £180,000 for every million in profit that was made. Not a bad saving for him. 

But pretty despicable for a Cabinet minister in a government cutting everything to shreds.

Even after that I was barely aware of him and his doings. He has a seemingly well deserved reputation for being dull as ditch water. 

I put him down as another typical selfish rich Tory with little understanding of the world and a huge opinion of his own importance. 

He seems to have spent his life insulting and upsetting people, but typical of his type it never seems to bother him and it doesn't seem to have done his career any harm.

 

Pretty much he's saying "up yours"

Conveniently this article, which appeared the other day, shows a bit more about his abilities, or rather lack thereof. I was particularly shocked (if not a little amused) by the picture above taken at the talks where John Kerry hammered out a deal essentially between America and Iran over their nuclear programme and the rest of the countries just agreed.

You’ll note, incidentally, that he has positioned himself right next to the American Secretary of State (his de facto boss). 

Those of you conversant with the protocols and manners of the Near and Middle East might know that the “thumbs up” signal that Hammond is giving is considered extremely offensive in Iran. Apparently it’s a bit like giving the ‘middle finger’ to someone here….so sort of “Go spin on it!!!” 

Just what you'd expect from the FCO.

Now, as foreign secretary, surely a job for a far more competent man, given its dependence on diplomacy, compromise and good relations, noner of which he seems to be even aware of, much less accomplished in, he has weighed in to the debate over Calais by claiming that millions of migrants pose a threat to the EU’s standard of living and social structure, apparently using the term “marauding migrants” to describe the desperate people at Calais trying to get to England.

 

They need help. They are humans like us.

He said: “So long as there are large numbers of pretty desperate migrants marauding around the area, there always will be a threat to the tunnel security. We've got to resolve this problem ultimately by being able to return those who are not entitled to claim asylum back to their countries of origin.”

Hammond said EU laws meant migrants could be “pretty confident” that after setting foot on EU soil they would not be returned to their country of origin. “Now that is not a sustainable situation because Europe can’t protect itself, preserve its standard of living and social infrastructure if it has to absorb millions of migrants from Africa.”

Of course something has to be done.  Only a fool would think otherwise.

But Mr Hammond considers himself to be an Anglican: the English version of Christianity. Like so many politicians, he claims to be a man of faith.

Maybe as a Christian he would like to consider a Christian approach to the problem instead of referring to these people as if they were a bunch of wild animals. Who does he think he is? Katie Hopkins?

As I said in the comments on a previous post, all these so-called Christians at the head of the UK, including the Queen and the prime minister, might like to ask themselves..."what would Jesus do?", instead of using JC as an election tool.

In many cases these migrant people are fleeing from countries in which the "great" European powers (mainly Britain and France) have dabbled over the years.  Hammond didn't mention that many of them are trying to escape the mess that the Americans, Brits, Italians and Spanish left behind in Iraq and also a Syria overrun by IS, thanks to the chaos of region...or the mess that the French and Brits left after interfering so disastrously in Libya, and leaving behind complete chaos.

Now I know that not everything can be attributed to the interference of the West and in particular Britain, but a fair amount of it can be. Time after time we imagine that the likes of Blair, Brown, Cameron and Osborne know better how to govern Middle Eastern or African countries, when they don't. 

The Queen maintains that every action she takes is guided by Jesus's teachings. So is she opening up her house to people displaced by famine, poverty, war?  Aye right!

And telling the public that these countries have appalling regimes which must be changed just won't work any more when we know that they happily sign massive weapons deals with the Saudis and Bahrainis. 

I don't pretend to have a solution to the migrant problem, but I didn;t choose a career in international politics. However, I'd venture to suggest that Mr Hammond might like to get together with other UN members to see what they can do to stop the traffickers. 

These people who sell freedom and bliss in Europe and in particular the green and pleasant land, where they assure potential customers that everything is as near paradise as you can get. 

It must seem like dream to someone living in fear of their lives in a broken country in North Africa or the Middle East, just as it did for Brits leaving the UK for better countries at various economic downturn/persecution stages of British history. 

But these salesmen lie, just like the ads you see on the telly that tell you that you can take 20 years off your age by using this new cream... and only £60 a jar!

Meeting with other leaders won’t solve the problem, but it might go some way towards stopping it at source. Of course, it won't placate the UKIP faction.

 

Oh just a bit tighter, Mr Bush

We should remember too, that most other European countries, some of them even more broke than we are, have already done a very great deal more that Britain to resettle people fleeing from the horrors of broken regimes that we helped break… Maybe Britain has to take its share of the responsibility for the mess it has left behind it in its leader's search for a Congressional Medal.

 

Some commentators would have you believe they all want to come here.
Not really.

In the meantime Cameron, who has already tried to tone down Hammond’s rhetoric, might like to look to see if the “leader of the house” job could be made available to Hammond.  That’s where failures as FCS usually go, isn’t it?

It’s time we had a proper Foreign Secretary, up to the difficult job that awaits him. 

Oh look, we are being overrun...

I'm thankful that the Minister for External Relations in Scotland, Humza Yousaf, treats the situation with a great deal more decency than his British counterpart. Maybe one day soon he will be the Secretary for Foreign affairs in an independent Scotland.
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PS: Just found out that The Great Foodbank Siege is online and on sale now.

Will write more about it tomorrow.

Here is the link. Please help if you can.

Mark talks more about it here on his blog.

THE GREAT FOODBANK FIASCO IS FOLLOWED BY "THE GREAT FOOD BANK SIEGE"

You will doubtless remember the fracas a week or so ago when the altogether hapless Viceroy of Scotland was invited to open the new Trussell Trust food bank (moto: Every town should have one) in Dumfries.

It turned out not to be one of his brighter moves. He had already ignored an invitation from the manager of the existing food bank in the town, First Base, on the basis that he was "one of these yes supporters".

Anyway, the day at Trussell went badly for Muddle. 

Not only was he met by protesters outside the food bank (including out own intrepid reporter, Arbroath), but once inside, having said his few works to the assembled dignitaries and just about to sample the generous fare which Trussell had laid on (''food bank feeds cabinet minister!''), one of First Base's volunteers asked him why he hadn't accepted the invitation to visit their food bank. (I wonder if it was because the food THEY have is for the victims of his government, not its ministers, and he'd only have got a cup of tea and a digestive there.) 

Anyway, in response he muttered a few words even more incoherently than normal (Aye, well...err...), and did an Iain Gray, but him being a minister of the crown, and there being no Subway in sight, it was oot the door and into a waiting car.

Fluffy's day didn't get any better though when it was discovered that the food bank wasn't in his constituency and he had broken various polite conventions on working in another MPs area.

Anyway, all this is a preamble to my pitch.

Mark's First Base has a funding shortfall of £15,000. Simply put unless it raises that money it will close its doors in January. It doesn't have the national weight of Big Charity Trussell behind it.

However, he's not the kind of guy to let stop him, so, wearing his other hat as writer, Mark sat down and wrote a book based on a Secretary of state's visit to a food bank, and his subsequent kidnap.

It's not available quite yet, but you can hear a preview here, read by Mark.

https://www.spreaker.com/user/franklandmark

Warning: There's a good few sweary words in it. Give it a miss if you're easily offended.

If your not easily offended by that sort of thing, you should give it a listen... I thought it was hilarious.

It will be out in a few weeks, and although I can't guarantee Mark will read the rest of it to you, you will be able to read it for yourself on Kindle for just £3, £1 of which will go to Amazon and £2 of which will go to First Base Food Bank so it can keep going and keep feeding people that this government has let down. With the benefit changes, I suspect that that number will grow  and grow in the coming year.

I'll unashamedly plug it here till everyone has bought a copy...:), but I know you won't mind.

VISIT FROM THE VICEROY

So, yesterday the ever-inept David Mundell (Fluffy Muddle as Munguin calls him), having accepted an invitation from Trussel Trust, turned up to open their new food bank in Dumfries.

There are so many stories about the bold boy's disastrous day, I don't know where to start.

But I'll direct you to this account of his visit and its background written by the manager of First Base, the independent food bank that operates in the town. I'd urge you to read it. Mark writes very amusingly!

I also urge you to read the "Scottish" Daily Mail's account of the event, which is literally quite unbelievable. 

And if your blood pressure with stand it, some of the comments from their readers. Clearly these people swallow the lies that their chosen newspaper lays out for them on a daily basis. 

Here's an example:

Strange how the SNP take no responsibility as normal. They are the Government here not Tory party. . They have the power in Scotland. This is their core support out their [sic] Everybody's fault in the world apart from themselves. The true face of the nationalists. Bitter angry and full of hate. These people need to take a look as [sic] Ms Sturgeon and Co. That is [sic] any off [sic] them can leave London for 5 minutes and visit their constituency. At least Mr Mundall [sic] has the courage to show his face.

Erm, yes, if only for a few minutes!

The Mail's headline screams that the Scottish Nasty Party (yes, it says that... It's clearly competing to take over where the "Daily Sport" laid off) strikes again.

By the time you get down to the sub headlines (the bullet points for the hard of thinking) it has admitted that it is anti-austerity campaigners who were responsible, although it can't help but add, yet again, for the benefit of the dim, that that includes the SNP. 

I'd take being anti-austerity as a badge of honour, but it seems that being against people starving is a bad thing in the eyes of the good Lord Rothermere's Mail.

The account goes on to say that these activists (again stating that they included SNP people, without saying who else was there) forced him (Fluffy) to flee by the back door. 

But the video shows that what appears to have forced him to leave the place in such a hurry, was a polite question from a lady who was in the building, asking why he had accepted the invitation from Trussel Trust to be involved in this food bank, but had refused a request by First Base to visit their food bank. (See mark's story for all the details.)

According to the Mail Mundell looked visibly shaken. It's not my place to offer advice to the great and the good...or indeed Fluffy... but, if a polite question like that has the effect of visibly shaking you, then maybe politics, or any other job which is public facing, is not for you.

Our own Arbroath was at the event, and has provided Munguin with links to some of the articles that covered the story. She was herself interviewed by numerous organisations including television! 

As she points out in the comments of the last story (linked above), it seems that Mundell is not even the MP for the location of the food bank, and that that may be a protocol faux pas.

Maybe some of you can help in this matter. I've a dim recollection that MPs are not permitted to take part in public affairs in any constituency other than their own, unless invited to do so by the member for that constituency. In the case of ministers (which by default, if not merit, Fluffy is), whose jobs clearly involve national or pan national responsibility, whilst they can appear officially in any constituency, it is considered good manners to get permission from the serving MP and to invite him or her to join them at the event.

It would be interesting to know if that's true or it I dreamed it. And of course, if the MP was invited to come along...

Oh, and it's worth noting that in Mark's story he points out that there was a spread laid on for the people at the launch. 

How ironic is that? 

Can't help feeling that a food bank should have been saving every bit of it food for people who needed it, not for overpaid MPs and thier retinues, with ministerial salaries and expenses to keep them in ice cream.

Incidentally, for those of you who didn't read the whole of Mark Frankland's article, he goes on to talk about the perilous financial state of First Base.

In order to survive it needs another £15,000 before January, and it has no obvious way of raising that money.  So Mark, who is, as well as being a food bank manager, an author, has written a novel "The Great Food Bank Siege" which will be published on Amazon Kindle in a few weeks time at the price of £2,99 to raise some money.

Munguin will be buying a copy!

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Terrifying mob of middle aged people shouting "shame on you", and plenty of police to keep them away from the sainted viceroy.