IAN MURRAY AND THE WILLIE BAIN CONVENTION

"It is a long-standing PLP convention that we do not support motions put forward by the SNP". So said that great political thinker of our times, Willie Bain.

When I said thinker, I meant, well... dim ex MP. 

Cameron's new slogan is about a country living within its means. What could go wrong?

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with a nice sensible slogan that suggests the country should live within its means....? 

Well Murphy's law states that what CAN go wrong WILL go wrong (OK, we know, but that's a laugh for another day) and after Die Straße in Deutschland, you'd have though that someone with the most expensive qualifications money can buy, in England, would have thought twice before spouting off... after all something might go wrong...

Like this, for a start. I mean, no one expects Mrs Mountbatten to get take visitors to McDonald's, or get the Co-op in to do something like Auntie Jessie's funeral tea, but come on, Liz, for a country with £1,500,000,000,000 of debt, this could hardly be said to be living within our means. 

Canapés and a glass of Asti Spumanti from Tesco at £32 a case is enough, surely, to stop them getting dehydrated.

Then there's this little beauty of a £13 million ski lodge being bought for Airmiles Andrew, perhaps in the hopes that he'll spend a little less time with teenage girls. No one knows how Billy Bunter and his ex wife could afford the money, given that she is permanently broke and pimping herself (or him) for cash, and he hasn't any money of his own, given that he spends everything he gets and has to get his mates to bail out the ex!

So the assumption has to be that his mother is forking out for it... and where does she get her money, remind me?

We should never forget that we are still punching well above our weight militarily. You'll remember how proud of that Cameron was when he came to Scotland to tell us that we wouldn't be able to afford to do that if we were independent. Assuming presumably that we'd all turned into public school oinks with an Empire fixation and would therefore want to!

We need to take into consideration too the replacement of the Nuclear Weapons that Blair admitted were only for show and prestige. That's £100,000,000,000 and counting. Heaven forbid we would lose any prestige. I simply couldn't stand the embarrassment, darling!

Of course we could also make a small saving here and there on Mr Pickles travelling expenses. His expenditure on private hire of cars has mounted to £500,000 in the last three years. What the hell has he been doing? Taking a world tour? 

It seems Mr Pickles doesn't like public transport. Or maybe it doesn't like him!

Still, the comforting news for Mr Cameron at least is that the English Health Service is cutting the number of cancer drugs that will be available to the public. That should put us back on the straight and narrow. It's pretty rotten news for English cancer patients but that's unlikely to concern that government much.

I'm sure too, that Her Majesty will ensure that we don't waste any precious money paying the fines of errant, elderly, overweight, playboys who enjoy over active sexual appetites.

STOP LYING, JACKIE

Alex Salmond: "Our vision of an independent Scotland is one of a country engaging fully with the EU and the broader international community, co-operating closely with our friends and neighbours in the UK".

Jackie Baillie: “He should spend less time telling us why he hates the UK and more time being honest about the consequences of separation. Maybe if the first minister had credible answers about what would replace the pound, how our pensions would be paid and what would happen to the funding for our schools and hospitals if we left the UK, his separatist campaign wouldn't be trailing so badly in the polls.” 

Aye shut yer ears Jackie, and put your ear plugs in.
You could be all three wise monkeys if it were not for all the evil
that spews from your mouth.

Heaven give me strength.

OK Jackie. Mr Salmond is sick to the back teeth of having to explain this to slow learning MSPs...so I'll do it for him.

It's very simple. What will replace the pound is, er, the pound. 

Cabinet ministers from the London government have admitted it would be economic madness not to share the currency from the point of view of English business if for nothing else. The governor of the bank of England has said he can make it work, but that the decision must be made by politicians.

In any case, economists have pointed out that we can use the pound whether the UK likes it or not.  With their approval, we help pay off their massive debt; without it,  we don’t.

How will our pensions be paid, Jackie? Well, once again, the British government has explained this when your attention was wandering. They have said that it is responsible for pension for everyone who has paid into the system (that's National INSURANCE for you; you pay in all your life, then you get something back, not much I agree, but something). 

It has been said by ministers in the UK parliament. 

It has been written by the DWP (the DWP for heaven’s sake) in letters to people who have asked what would happen to their pensions. 

Evil place, full of hatred

From the minute we are independent our own government will be responsible for  collecting taxes to pay pensions. Just like other countries do.

How would we fund our schools, etc? We would fund our schools and our hospitals and all the other things that we have to fund in the same way that every other country does. 

I mean seriously, have you travelled, Jackie? 

Have to been to Iceland, for example? Tiny place: population of Edinburgh. They have schools. Yes, they do. They have universities too. Their people are highly educated, for free. Even the right wing parties in Iceland laugh out loud at the idea that in a modern technological age people would have to pay fees to go to school and college. Most Icelanders speak 3 languages, some a deal more. 

Have to been to Luxembourg? Tiny place: population of Edinburgh. They have a highly educated workforce and a brilliant health system. Their kids have to learn three languages just to live in their tiny country. And then they usually learn English on top.

Oh look, a small northern independent country that has buildings
University of Iceland

They have schools and hospitals and social security and all sort sf other things in other countries in Europe. Somehow, although it may be a mystery to you, they manage without the UK to show them how. It seems to me that Scots might be able to manage that themselves... you know, if Latvians and Italians and Danes can manage it, why not us. We aren't a sub-species.

Seriously Jackie. There are two possibilities. Either you are plain thick and you haven't understood all the answers that have been given and given and given again… or you are being deliberately obtuse and lying for Ed and David and now Nigel. You guys just love the the comfortable position that you are in any the likelihood of an aristocratic title at the end of a trough swilling career.

I hate to tell you, but in the eyes of “ordinary people” you don’t have a reputation for being particularly thick, so I guess… it seems like the second.

But while we have your attention, can we have an answer from you?

 

Glasgow maybe

You've been asked this over and over again but you've never come up with a good answer.

Why is it that you support the spending of £100 billion on mass killing machines to be stationed near Scotland’s largest city, when Scots’ share of that money could abolish child poverty and starvation within a few months, close soup kitchens and give people a new start?

Surely it's not because you relish the idea that one day one of your mates will get an instruction from the USA to kill millions of people in Moscow? 

Scotland today

If you won’t answer we must assume that in your book having “clout” is more important than miserable kids living in abject poverty. You and Mr Cameron. Two disgusting peas in a disgusting pod.

SUGGESTIONS ARE THE LEAKY MINISTER WAS HAMMOND...

....THE MINISTER WITH A DISTINCT RESEMBLANCE TO HIS LEAKY SUBMARINES

JUST A FEW OF THE THINGS THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK...

The GERS figures came out and,
without stopping to consider why they were not so good,
the Naysayers were whooping with delight
to see their own country that little bit poorer.
They obviously hadn't read Derek Bateman on the subject.

Nor had they considered the large part
played in the story by this fool and his deputy. 

Gordon came out with a pile of impracticable propositions for  Devo-max,
which somehow never occurred to him when he had the power to do something about it:
that is before he was an ex-politician and would be Tony Blair world traveller with a strange charity with a propensity to pay out rather a lot for his travel and hotels
and rather a little for good causes!

YES... that's the one Gordo. You're just a little ex-politician

Of course we've been leaking radioactivity all over the place from the
UK's ticket to the top table, and they neglected to tell us about it.
But we also discovered today that some idiot managed to fire a missile,
fortunately a blank, within the secure area itself!
Pip Pip Hammond has told people there are no contingency plans
for Scotland leaving the union,
 because it's simply not going to happen.
Maybe he should stop making speeches and concentrate
his efforts on making sure that his navy stop firing missiles at Scotland
before a live one goes off and blasts Glasgow to Moscow.

What could we do with that money? Half a million a day!

Can't be seen to be too poor to afford new fighters.

No one has agreed to renew them yet , but still they
spend hundreds of millions on them.
Never mind the starving kids; they aren't the Tories' class,
and they are Scottish, so they doubly don't matter...

And then there was the news that Tony Benn died today:

Yes, think of all the help that we could have given people with the money
we wasted on these jets and missiles we are just as likely to fire
 on ourselves only a few meters away from the nuclear subs!

I didn't always agree with him, particularly over Europe and Scotland's independence.
I couldn't work out this international socialist's fear of his mother
 (who was Scottish) being a foreigner,
particularly in light of his wife being American.
But he was, without doubt, a towering figure in left wing politics.
An hereditary peer who fought to divest himself of the incumbrace of a title.
Now there's a novelty for Labour. Today they are falling over each other trying to get their backsides on a red bench. Eh Alistair?
RIP Tony Benn.

We were reminded of what it would be like to have a government
that cared about us... as opposed to the US

Yes, even Mr Carlaw began to see just how silly things were becoming...
and that's quite something.

This was probably what did it.

But, it wasn't all politics...

The puppy arranged for breakfast in bed

Robbie took kick boxing lessons from Ruth

The cat decided that it wanted a word!

And spring sprang!

WORDS OF WISDOM FROM ROBERTSON, NOBLE OF SOMEWHERE THAT SPEAKS FOREIGN

Writing in the Washington Post and quoted in the Telegraph, Mr Robertson of Port Ellen has warned of the damage Scottish separation would cause to the UK on the world stage. He reminded them, and us, that UKOK was the “United States’ oldest and closest ally”.

So here we have it. Mr Robertson is worried about the standing of the UK on the world stage. 

How Tory and patrician. 

He doesn’t appear to be in the least interested in the future of Scotland. He may be right that Britain is the USA’s oldest ally. He might remember that the very fact that they are two separate countries, and thus able to be allies, is due the fact that the Americans threw the Brits out.  

As for closest ally…well, I don’t know. They are the most useful one, because they will do virtually anything the USA tells them, whereas other allies, like France, Germany, Japan, Korea, etc, tend to have minds of their own and can only be pushed so far.

Robertson said the global balance of power would be “substantially upset”, by a split, especially if the Nationalists pushed ahead with their threat to expel Trident, and the “ripple effects” would not be limited to the UK.

Incidentally, it’s not a threat, as I see it, Mr Robertson; it’s a promise. 

And how would the global balance of power be affected? 

As I see it, Scotland houses, for the UK, a small number of nuclear missiles, tiny by comparison with the West’s overall arsenal. The UK in fact has 225 missiles, with only 160 being active.  The USA has 7,700 with only 2,150 active. This can be measured against Russia’s 8,500 (1,800 active) and China’s couple of hundred. 

The UK’s total arsenal is controlled by the USA. Not only would Britain never dare use them without America’s permission; it actually couldn’t use them, because they employ the American delivery system and thus require the Pentagon to supply the firing coordinates. 

The British stockpile, small as it is, is not independent. It belongs to America in all but name (and expense). 

What difference would it make if Scotland rejected it? If English lives were thought to be too important to risk having thedodgy stuff anywhere near even small English towns, they could be transported to America, which in any case controls them and indeed counts them among its own.

The noble old buffer goes on to say that ‘separatist’ movements in Spain and Belgium might also succeed in breaking away, leading to a more fragmented, more unstable Europe. A continent more likely to produce “strife and dissension”. So independence of a tiny unimportant northern nation might cause world war three?

Does he seriously think that Catalonia and Belgium are dependent upon Scotland to decide what they will do with their futures? 

The Catalans have already announced their referendum. They have massive support. They will almost certainly vote for independence, Scotland or no Scotland.

Belgium, a strange mixture of Dutch speaking Flemings and French speaking Walloons, has never really worked as a state. The country has spent years without any effective government, even longer than the basket case iraq after our interference. It is only a matter of time before something  will have to be done to provide two countries for two very different peoples.

But typical Brit, he thinks that everyone in the world waits to find out what Great Britain will do... He obviously hasn't been talking to the Chinese recently!

Mr Robertson also accused the SNP of offering Scottish voters a “real pig in a poke” because key issues such as EU membership and currency cannot be resolved until after a ‘yes’ vote. 

But that's not true. They can be resolved; but UKOK doesn't want them resolved.

The UK government (the only organisation with the power to do this) won't ask the EU for a ruling on Scotland’s membership, because anyone with any common sense can see that, as Scottish people are currently members, Scots law complies with all the requirements of the EU, and Scotland is rich in oil, water and green power, it would be ridiculous to think that this expansionist organisation would do anything other than jump at the chance of Scotland’s membership. If they asked for a ruling it would almost certainly go against them.

As for the currency situation, we know that although the UKOk government isn’t for negotiating, the governor of the Bank of England, who understands finance, is very eager to talk to the First Minister, as was his predecessor.

 “Britain’s friends around the world need to pay attention. A dangerous historic event might soon be upon us — with few people outside the UK even noticing.” says the Noble one.

Britian's friends? Hmm, well we'll leave that one, because we can't prove much one way or the other, but I doubt they need a calculator to count them. 

But why would it be dangerous Georgie? What’s dangerous about a country with little in common with its neighbours, breaking up with them and running their own business as part of the EU or EEA?  Is it dangerous that Czech Republic and Slovakia are no longer together? Is it dangerous that Hungary is no longer a part of the Austrian Empire? Should we worry that Bulgaria, Poland Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia no longer are part of the USSR’s sphere? It’s not like we are about to declare war? Is England?

The Washington Post has previously warned in an editorial that Scottish independence would weaken America’s foremost ally and create a “less stable world” because Scotland would be too small to “contribute meaningfully” to world security.

I find that interesting. Presumably then the USA requires Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Faeroes to join together. After all surely these countries are far too small to contribute to the USA’s plan for the world. What about the Benelux countries? Probably they should all get together with Germany and Austria so that they are big and powerful. Or is it just countries that do exactly what the White House tells them that should be allowed to be powerful?

I mean, never mind that Scots have to live under a succession of governments implementing policies repugnant to us… as long as we aren’t upsetting America. It’s the least we can do to keep calm and suffer.

 “The United Kingdom has always punched above its weight diplomatically and militarily. A break-up would have a serious effect on its role in the world — all the more so because Britain’s nuclear-deterrent base is in Scotland,” chunters his nobleness.

Perhaps Mr Robertson would like to remember that punching above our weight has cost us dearly. The punching above our weight has involved massive military spending; money which might well have been used to maintain standards of education and health, transport and infrastructure which are well behind those of Western Europe.

But of course, wee George, who got himself a cushy little number in Brussels at an enormous salary together with a handy berth in the British elites’ retirement home, isn’t bothered about that kind of shortcoming. That only affects unimportant little people without titles.

Lord Robertson also challenged the Nationalists’ assertions that a separate Scotland would keep the Queen, the pound and EU membership with the same opt-outs as the UK.

Well, George, she’s Queen of Scots as well as being your English monarch. The Australians keep her too, and the people for Papua New Guinea adn they are not a part of England. 

As it happens, the pound is our currency too. We helped pay for it, and as doubtless, you'll be wanting us to take our share of the monumental debt the London governments have built up, while punching above your weight, perhaps you should think twice about trying to deny it to us.

Of course we could start our own currency and watch your pound fall through a hole in the floor: a heavily indebted country with no industry and no resources. 

As for the UK opt outs… I think you probably already know that these were bought at a price. So no, I don’t expect we can have them… but then we also won't have to pay the price that Mrs Thatcher paid quietly for them. You don't think she got the better of Kohl and Mitterrand, do you?

A spokesman for the pro-UK Better Together UKOK campaign said: "This is an important intervention from the former Nato Secretary General, a man with experience of the realities of international affairs. The SNP idea that everything will change but nothing will change simply isn't credible.”

That’s just too ridiculous to even poke fun at. 

Mr Robertson was a placeman sent to Nato by Tony Blair in his second job as Mr Bush's poodle because Mr Cheney wanted a patsy at Nato; a handyman who would do what he was told. Mr Robertson, somewhat flattered at getting such a highly paid job, well above his reasonable expectations, and a 'freeloader for life' title to go with it, dropped his constituents that only shortly before, he was so proud to serve as MP and dashed to the comforts of world "power" in Brussels.

He's a funny old stick. You’ll remember that he is a baron who recently informed us that we have no culture and no language. It was unfortunate that he said that, because the idiot chose for his aristocratic title, the name Port Ellen on the island of Islay, where a large number of the population speak Gaelic as their first language. 

It's a point that, you'd have thought such a ‘man with experience of the realities of international affairs’ might have thought about before he told us all that their language didn’t exist.

U KOK UP more like!

SNAPS ON SUNDAY

(YOU THOUGHT I'D FORGOTTEN)

Gotta love Alistair 5 homes...

A bit cruel  and heartless for a dalek

Many a true word spoken in jest

And it does, Dave, so sod the poor. 

Someone do the maths. 1 Englishman equals how many Scots?

I'd like to airbrush him, with a taser 

He's a Tory. "Odd" is his middle name.

Soon they will be able to get rid of Second Class carriages altogether. Only the Cameron classes will be able to afford to travel. Fortunately although the rail fare increases in Scotland were diabolical, they were at least a little less than this.

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Bravo Ted....

Best not to protest, lest the Stasi get their hands on you. Being an MP's son is only protection if you are NOT from the Green Party 

No wonder we didn't buy it... It came from Blether  Together ...need I say more. Must be something to do with the "societal contamination"!

You've been warned

I suppose it depends who you are and how you look at it

I wouldn't count on him if I were you, Dave. He'll fairly soon see through you. 

"Liberal Democrats believe...." bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha

Yeah...he was talking about societies that are civilised. We are talking about the Tories. There's a difference.

And finally, courtesy of CH.... and of Snotty... 2 pics

Click images to enlarge.