THE QUESTION IS...

...AND WE'D LOVE TO KNOW THE ANSWER

Was Ruth fed duff information by her team and go ahead without checking to see if it was correct?  It happens. You read something somewhere and accept it as fact. Then embarrassingly it turns out to be incorrect, incomplete or a hoax.

It's even happened to Munguin on the odd occasion. But not in parliament.

Or did Ruth know perfectly well that the criticism of the health service that she was making was in fact nothing to do with the Scottish organisation, but in fact, about the English health service...run by her rt hon friend Mr Hunt?

I'm pretty sure that as she was doing it on our pay cheque we probably have a right to know which it is.

Now, in fairness, Ruth never put herself forward as a potential first minister. She didn't reach that high. Amazingly she actually promoted herself as a potential leader of the opposition. And she got the gig.

But presumably the leader of an opposition party somewhere deep down inside has ambition to be the leader of the country?

So, do we want an incompetent for FM, or maybe an out and out fibber?

Neither, you say? 

Thought not.

Oh, and as she was happy enough to make a song and dance about these shortcomings  in parliament, now that she knows that she got the country wrong, will she be having a word with Mr Hunt about what an all-fired mess he's making of a service that many of my friends rely upon, and are being bitterly let down by?

PINK ELEPHANTS!

By Panda Paws

There is a well-known PR aphorism. If you tell people not to think about pink elephants, under no circumstances think about pink elephants, then guess what is the one thing they can’t stop thinking about?

No matter how much you try NOT to think about pink elephants and how much effort you expend, pink elephants are all that you can think of.

(I so pinched that from Soppy Sunday – just the cutest little orang ever)

That’s why media trainers get their clients to focus on what issues they want to get across, don’t mention anything they want to avoid talking about and ignore any attempts by interviewers to derail them. Which makes the Ruth Davidson aka Conservative and Unionist Party’s constant banging on about a second independence referendum all the more puzzling. Granted the SNP have just launched their “listening exercise” but the Ruth Davidson party have been banging on about independence for much longer than that.

Maybe they think reinforcing that Britishness is already being covered extremely well by TV and the supermarkets?

Still, it makes you wonder who their comms person is and what they are playing at. Maybe they think they can scunner us by mentioning it so often we are sick of the sound of the phrase “indyref2”.

But solid Nos will never vote Yes, solid Yessers can never hear the phrase often enough and that just leaves the devo-maxers for whom never have so many been promised so much for so long with no sight of it ever happening (to misquote Churchhill who was once the MP for Dundee. I can only assume it was once a very different place. Perhaps Munguin can advise?)*

Gordon Broon has been back saying we need devo-max despite him telling us previously it had already been delivered. We’d ask him to clarify if we cared what he thought. Except we would not be allowed to – his pronouncements are delivered at invitation only events and the only way to get an invite is to be the type of person who’d never ask him why he did nothing about it when he had the power.

Speaking of comms types, Kezia has a new comms director, Alan Roden (the t is silent). He comes straight from the Daily Mail. So if you ever thought BLiS press release were incoherent ramblings, it least now you can amuse yourself looking for Daily Mail influences. Leggy pins, ample assets, washboard abs and bikini ready body being several of the more erudite phrases associated with that newspaper (sic).

It’s been said he’s not as right wing as his former employers but is very anti-SNP and ultra-unionist which suggests Kezia is trying to get the loyalist vote back from the Ruth Davidson party. The problem is that like or loathe her Ruth is better at what she does than Kezia, at least at the moment.

That said Kezia did speak well when attacking the Tories for their part in Brexit and EVEL (watch from about 5.45 in).

That was a very interesting debate as one by one EVERY leader stood up and gave the Tories pelters. And Ruth had no option but to just sit and take it. Now if only they could all, but particularly Labour who have been played like a fiddle by the Tories, realise that the Tories are the real enemy and attacked their policies (In Wales they talk about Tory cuts in the Senedd which may not be unconnected to the fact they have a Labour led administration. But in Scotland it’s SNP cuts obviously!) more often then we might have an opposition that is a damn sight more credible.

Yes, when the SNP does wrong, point that out, heck even suggest how they might get it right. Thing is the SNP might even adopt the suggestion. Which is great. Until the Bain principle means you don’t support your own suggestions and spout SNP bad instead and another couple of voters leave for the SNP or the Tories depending on their inclinations. That’s why you came third in seats if not votes. Still I suppose it is asking too much for Labour to fight the Tories, they have to conserve their energies for fighting each other and their membership.

It won’t be long now until the Labour leadership results are out (probably sooner than we think given the number of folk that have been banned from voting). It appears likely Corbyn will win again. If the membership has any sense the CLPs will then start deselecting the Blairities. Because if a house divided can’t stand, then a party where the MPs don’t represent the members view’s or support their leader is one that will never get elected. And until independence, that means more Tory governments we don’t want. And that is the elephant in the room for soft Nos – pink or otherwise.

*Ed note: Winston Churchill was indeed MP in Dundee from 1908-1922 in a multi-member constituency he shared with a Labour member; Churchill himself found it convenient to be a Liberal at that point.

He was replaced, ironically, by a Temperance supporting MP (Edwin Scrymgeour of the Scottish Prohibition Party) in 1922. I understand that as an MP he was not particularly useful, spending his rare visits to the area visiting relations, the Earl and Countess of Airlie at their nearby castle.

Interestingly he was daft enough to blank the owner of the local press, D C Thomson, when they met in the town one day. Mr Thomson was accustomed to greater respect and returned forthwith to his office to declare that Churchill should not again be referred to by name in any of his newspapers, as indeed he was not until he became prime minister and won the war single handed.

NOTE TO UNIONIST PRESS...

Dear Unionist Press,

OK, let's make this clear. I'd be the first to congratulate Ruth Davidson for doubling the number of seats her party got in the General Election (even if to do so she was obliged to sort of 'Murdo Fraser' the party...that is to say heavily disguise the fact that the Ruth Davidson Unionist Tank Party of Unionists and more Unionists and the British Conservative and Unionist party are one and the same thing).

None the less, a job well done. Whatever you want to call them, Ruth appears to have, at least to a certain extent, detoxified the Tories.

But now, let's get it in to perspective, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Unionist Press! The Tankers came SECOND, not first. They have 31 seats out of 129.  The other parties combined have 98. In short they have fewer than quarter of the seats.

The SNP alone has 63 seats. That's twice the number the Tories have got, so the claim that Ruthie and her crack team are going to drive their tanks over Nicola's lawns or, well anything much, is fantasy. They would require the 24 Labour, 5 Liberal Democrats and 4 of the 6 Greens to vote with them, before they're going to make any difference in terms of votes. (Depending upon which party supplies the presiding officer*)

And with respect, how often is that to happen?

So, we all know that you are incredibly excited about the fact that instead of being the third party, the Tankies are now the "official" opposition, but please, let's get it into perspective, shall we? That means Ruth gets to ask the First Minister a couple more questions a week and Kezia gets to ask a couple less, doesn't it?

Now seriously ... keep calm and  do whatever it is you do.

Kind Regards

MUNGUIN

PS: It might be as well to remember that good though it is to have doubled your seats, to triple you seat count is REALLY spectacular...step forward Patrick Harvie.


* Craig Dalzell puts forward an interesting idea for presiding officer in this piece. I'd be interested in what other people think of it, either here or on Craig's own excellent blog.

A Yesser's appeal to hard nosed party political 'enlightened self interest'.

GUEST POST BY BRACO

Mr D'Hondt

I am not a member of any political party but I am totally committed to the Yes movement and an Independent Scotland. 

After reading a very interesting and thought provoking post-election article over on Arc of Prosperity  these are some of my own (non party political) thoughts on the issue of d'Hondt and pro-independence majorities. I would really like to thank Tris and the Republic for giving me the opportunity to try and develop that discussion on here as a guest post.

I think, after the heat of party political battle is over, the electoral evidence is now becoming clear for all to see. The voting system, which Scotland currently operates under, is designed (and was selected specifically) in order to try and make the devolved governance of Scotland reliant on the formation of coalition politics (of some sort). This is at the heart of unionist reasoning behind d'Hondt as their voting system of choice for Holyrood back in 97. 

I.e. IF Scottish governance is made dependent on coalitions and the SNP are the only effective Independence party in the country to vote for, then it will never have a coalition partner party to form a majority government with. Therefore the SNP will be unable to pass Independence Referendum legislation while in government, no matter how popular the SNP becomes. This is central and must always be kept in mind when thinking about Scotland's current electoral system.

It also explains the reason behind the Libdem leadership's point blank refusal to enter into coalition with the SNP in 2007 (and, dare I say, Lord Nicol Stephen's shock resignation as Libdem leader and subsequent enoblement in 2008). 

It was this refusal that forced the SNP into forming Holyrood's first, 'shock horror'... minority government. Also, worth noting that even the SNP themselves bought into the accepted political narrative of the time and really didn't want to take (or see the political opportunities) that minority government could bring. 

This refusal of the democratic will of the electorate to form a coalition with the SNP shocked many of the Libdem rank and file, and was the start of Libdem electoral rot in Scotland thereafter. What it did do however, was absolutely ensure that there was no Indy Ref during that first term of enforced SNP minority rule. 

I.e Short term, the system worked exactly as designed. 

As ever, though, unionist long term thinking has been shown to be more tactical than strategic and even in those terms limited and inept, as during the period of exceptional circumstances that followed, we the Scots electorate were able to first experience successful and competent minority SNP governance, and then watch the stars align during the 2011 election as the d'Hondt system was broken (just) through what we now know was a lucky balance being struck between constituencies won and regional list votes cast. All resulting in the SNP winning an incredible (and d'Hondt busting) single party absolute majority. 

The evidence of the extraordinary nature of that result at the time was seen in the total and utter shock of even the SNP's own leadership, as well as the hilarious absolute blind panic and horror that followed from all other sections of the Scottish (and UK) political establishment. This 'breaking of their system' at the root of all the 'Holyrood-as-anti-democratic' psychosis and unionist schtick that still fills their media output to this day.

Yesterday we just saw a return to the normal way that the voting system was actually designed to operate. That is, no matter how popular a single party becomes, in a multiparty d'Hondt system, it will most likely NOT gain a majority. This is again shown to be true by the fact that the SNP voting figures actually went up from 2011 yet their seat count went down.

If all the above is taken into account and properly rationalised, then there is only one relatively simple way to ensure that democratically endorsed pro Independence electoral results in Scotland always have the ability to produce equally strong pro independence majority governance in Holyrood (along with all the democratic abilities that will naturally bring, such as referendums on Independence as often and as regularly as the will of the Scots electorate will allow).  

The answer is simple; don't try and 'game' the system by attempting to form a single super supported (and therefore super powerful) single Independence party that can somehow regularly overwhelm d'Hondt, as this strategy will inevitably risk wasting hundreds of thousands of pro-Indy votes on the list every time that attempted majority fails (750 000 votes in the case of the SNP on Thursday). Far better to simply go with the grain of d'Hondt and purposely set about helping the development and establishing of a good, strong and electorally successful moderate second pro independence party that can be relied upon to form strong and effective pro independence coalition governments with. (After Thursday, this is looking like it could be the Greens).  It's that simple.

As the main creators of our devolved electoral system, SLabour's leadership never truly saw the LibDems as an electoral threat in Holyrood, rather they viewed them as their key to consistently forming (and leading) majority Scottish governments.  Term, after term, after term. This is how the SNP (and the Yes electorate) should start thinking about the Green Party. There are many overlaps between SNP and Green party policy priorities (other than just Independence) within which a sensible and workable, progressive eco friendly programme for government could be formed.

Now that SLAB and the LibDems are up to their necks in the same d'Hondt electoral trap they hoped to lock the SNP into, it's that very same opportunity of consistently leading (though perhaps not totally dictating) the policy agenda of Scotland over many, many terms of majority government that now presents itself as the enormous prize to the SNP (and Greens as junior partners). 

All that is required is that each can somehow see past traditional UK party political tribalism. It's not happy clappy idealism that I am appealing to here but instead simple, hard nosed party political 'enlightened self interest'. This is what d'Hondt is designed to reward and it is through this (along with a powerful and autonomous YES grass-roots movement) that Scotland will quickly win it's independence.   

I think this is the lesson that the Independence movement will learn from yesterday's frustrating experience of the d'Hondt system. Hopefully all this will also be cemented in place during a term of government where the dominant pro indy party (SNP) learns to work effectively and builds strong political relationships with the other, much smaller, pro independence party that was also returned by Yes supporters to sit alongside them in Holyrood (The Greens). 

It's essential that both these parties manage to control, and then throw off, those 'me-only' party political attitudes developed and inherited from the British adversarial 'first past the post' system (essentially two party politics) and begin to adopt the more consensual, coalition based political culture that we all hoped Holyrood would help usher in (and which yesterday proved, will be needed) if timely Independence is to be achieved within the designed limitations and political realities that we the Scots electorate find ourselves having to operate under.

Thanks for a great article, Arc of Prosperity, it was much appreciated, and thanks again to Tris and Munguin's Republic for the opportunity to discuss it further in the Republic :-) 

BOTH VOTES SNP!

So, tomorrow (or today if you're reading this in Thursday) is election day. Suddenly after what seems like months of campaigning, it's here.

There's no doubt that, in terms of news coverage, it has been overshadowed by the British referendum on Europe, which the first ministers of the Celtic nations asked David Cameron to postpone so that the twos sets of campaigns wouldn't coincide, and which he, with customary lack of respect for any of us, refused to do.

Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland just aren't that important to the dodgy one.

But for us this is important. How we run health, education, law and order, the environment, transport, and much more... and later in the parliament... a measure of social security and tax policy, will be decided tomorrow (today).

This wasn't ever a "pretendy wee parliament", well not unless you lived in England or the Bahamas, or wherever Mr Connelly put his head of an evening, and it's certainly not now. This is real stuff, real politics that affect our every day lives. 

And our votes matter.

I've put off writing anything about the election until now, and coming late to the party means that it's difficult to find anything much to say that hasn't been said more eloquently or most authoritatively by others, so sorry if you've read it all before.

Opinion polls show and opposition parties have already conceded that the SNP will be the biggest party in parliament. The Labour Party and the Ruth Davidson Party (formerly know as the Tories) have openly set their sights at being the main opposition party. 

There's not even been a pretence that they were aiming for Bute House. At least not since Kez said something about wanting Nicola's job and her desk, and then even Labour people shook with laughter.

Up and down and round and round they have gone in the polls, battered by scandals from London or Edinburgh: The leader of the RD Party (Dodgy Dave) and the drawn out saga of Daddy's offshore dealings; the Tories tearing themselves apart over Europe; Labour's internal strife over Mr Corbyn; Kezia's consideration of voting for independence in certain circumstances, denied within the hour of her saying it, but jumped on by the leader of the RD party as evidence that they, and only they, were the party of the union, and of course, most recently, the engineered scandal of anti-Semitism in the London party.

So nothing is certain; we just don't know who will come second and who third. No one has had much to say about Wee Willie, but the Liberals will come in 4th or 5th, I expect, if anyone's interested. Patrick Harvie has had a good campaign and he hopes to better his parties 2 seats.

Now as an independentista (I won't call myself a nationalist, because I don't think I am), I've been happy with the idea that Nicola will be returned as First Minister, but I find all the "certainly" a bit worrying.

And this is why.

If there was thunder and lightning and snow, floods, a volcanic eruption from the Dundee Law, and a tsunami tomorrow, somehow I would go and vote, but not everyone would or will. 

Some folk will forget; some people will be too busy; the rain might put some off; the bairn's sick...or that late meeting at work on the night of the club darts competition might mean getting to the polling station is more difficult. And some will say... oh well, it's in the bag anyway, so what will one, or rather two votes matter?

So my message is, it's not in the bag. 

There are constituencies on a very slender majority. Didn't I read somewhere that one constituency had a majority of just 8?  Let's not take anything for granted. We need every vote. So please vote and,  if you've a neighbour or a friend or relation who has difficulty getting out, make sure you offer them a lift, or contact your local SNP office and ask someone to pick them up. 

Every vote counts.

I'm not clever enough by half (or so Munguin says) to write about why both votes should go to the SNP, but if you are in any doubt, both Scot Goes Pop and Wings have written about the dangers of giving your list vote to a tiny minority party.    

Like most other bloggers I wouldn't dream of telling anyone how to vote. Everyone has their own views, their own priorities, and everyone will interpret the pros and cons of tactical voting on the list howsoever they see fit. 

All I can tell you is I'm not gambling with the result. I've read James and Stuart and I know what I'm going to do.

I want an SNP government under Nicola Sturgeon, and that is what I will vote for. 

With both votes.

So good luck everyone in your constituencies throughout Scotland.

I guess many of us will be awake till the votes come in and we know our future.

HAVE YOU HAD ANY ELECTION MATERIAL?

John brought up an interesting point on Munguin's last article, and I thought that it really needed a better airing than at the bottom of a day-old story.

He wrote: You may recall that I mentioned a leaflet from a local Labour candidate which made no mention whatsoever of Labour's proposal of a tax-rise of 1p across all tax bands and I wondered if this was a 'one-off' omission by the local candidate or whether it was wide-spread by all candidates? Perhaps some of your readers might have received similar leaflets? 

I think that it would be an interesting exercise for readers who have received any party literature to share any apparent inaccuracies or glaring omissions in them, so putting up taxes in the case of Labour, or the reduction in public services that will be the inevitable result of reducing taxes in the cases of the Tories... the fact that the Tories have more or less wiped their toxic name off everything and replaced it with Ruth Davidson.

Have the Liberals or UKIP put out something that is economical with the truth... and does anyone care? 

This election, overshadowed as it is by Cameron's ridiculous and undemocratic decision to run an EU referendum campaign concurrently,  is mainly a contest for second place between two partners in the last referendum Better Together or Project Fear coalition, but let's not forget that the Greens and the SNP are sending out leaflets too. Are there errors or omissions in them?

Are  errors down to purely local decisions made by the candidate and his or her agent or are they widespread. In other words is there a "don't talk about the tax rises" type policy from head office, or is candidate Jock McBloggs leaving out things he's not comfortable with? 

(Remember, of course, that in a  doorstep leaflet you can't include the whole party manifesto!)

Oh, and  is anyone getting leaflets from RISE?

So if you get anything through your door (and you are minded to do this), please let us know.

**********

John raised another interesting point. 

When Scottish Labour proposed their tax increase policy across the board, they very reasonably decided that those earning under £20,000 should be given a rebate. 

(The inadequacies of the system currently devolved does not allow for a change in tax free allowance, the bands, nor any kind of rebate. The  questionably legal rebate proposed by SLAB  would have had to be managed by local authorities at considerable cost and a great deal of prying!) 

However, when Labour discovered that the UK tax free allowance was being raised by George Osborne to £11,000, it decided to drop the somewhat clumsy rebate proposals. This means that those earning over £11,000 will not be liable to pay the increase in taxes that Labour wants to introduce.

John,  and now Munguin, wonder why SLAB's website appears to not mention this. 

Any ideas?

************

Niko highlighted another totally separate but every bit as important point in the same Munguin article. This Guardian piece looks at how the DWP are treating people who are dependent on Tax Credits becasue they are not in full time work (including those who are on zero hour contracts, which sometimes are 40 hours or more on occasions). 

The system is operating in trial areas at the moment (something which seems inherently wrong to me in any case. All areas of "our united kingdom", as Dodgy Dave would have it, are, or should be, subject to the same terms and conditions where matters of UK-wide government policy still holds). However, it is, in the future, to be rolled out across these islands.

It's another way of smacking down the people who aren't lucky enough to have a full time solid job. They, in many cases, are the REAL strivers in the UK. The people who often get up at silly o'clock to do horrible unrewarding jobs in bad conditions, and with no security at all.  Compare them to the fat cat bankers, politicians and those who have fallen into cushie numbers because of their connections.

What a wonderful country this is if you got to a good school at £50,000+ a year, and have a daddy who can get you into Oxford no matter how thick you are, then have a word... and get you a nice little number with one of his friends.

If not, not so great!

Has the Conservative Party abandoned that name in Scotland?

Are they now the Ruth Davidson Party?

When Annabel Goldie stood down as leader of the Conservative Party's Scottish branch, because David Cameron and Fluffy Muddle wanted her gone (presumably because they couldn't walk all over her), there were two main contenders for her job.

They were Ruth Davidson and Murdo Fraser.

Murdo stood on a ticket on changing the party in Scotland, losing the toxic brand, and the automatic agreement with everything London dictated, and becoming a new, right of centre, distinctly Scottish party. Many in the party agreed with him. Many outside the party agreed with him. 

Ruth, on the other hand, was David's woman. She areed with every word he said and he used all the power he could muster to have her elected, including supplying her (allegedly), against the rules, with his own PR people. (Not that they are up to much.) 

Ruth disagreed with changing the name or the brand... She arrogantly asserted that the toxicity attributable to Mrs Thatcher should be water under the bridge. Why, she (Ruth) was just a girl when Mrs Thatcher was prime minister.

It was insulting, of course, to those who had lost their jobs, their futures, their dignity and their health becasue of Thatcher's ideological reforms, and it missed the point that the Tories became even more toxic under John Major. Indeed it wasn't until 1997, some 6 years after Thatcher had been shown the door by the Tories, that they reached the depths. In that election they had zero MPs in Scotland. In that respect they have recovered a little since then, having one MP... well, more or less. (As my old boss would say: Half a man is better than no man at all!)

Ruth showed herself as an arrogant and immature 33 year old who needed to do some growing up. But with the help of David Cameron she was duly elected and led the party to its worst result in 100 years in the UK elections of last year.

Well, now she has grown up. And there's an irony in the fact that she isn't  any longer talking about the Tories at this general election. The toxicity has still not gone away, so she's selling herself.

Ruth Davidson for opposition. Quite apart from the fact that conceding defeat some 3 weeks before the election is pretty disturbing, it seems that she has come to the conclusion that she was wrong and Murdo was right.

Murdo must have a warm satisfied glow.

Ruth is counting on being the second party. The official opposition in parliament after the May election.

By pinning her party's fortunes so firmly to her own identity, she must realise that any failure in this regard is likely to fall fair and square on her shoulders

If Kezia Dugdale remains the leader of the opposition for the next five years, will Ruth fall on her sword?

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it

By Panda Paws

Alastair Campbell has a new interview out in the Guardian’s Scotland pages from which we quote:

“Campbell suggested that the SNP received uncritical coverage from sections of the media, in stark contrast with SNP supporters who argue that the media – in particular the BBC – displays bias against the party.

"He said: 'I do think the SNP have managed to cast a spell on large parts of the media. They certainly don’t get covered in the same way that we did when we were in government.' "

(Well I had to get an orang-utan in somehow!)

One commentator pondered, rather politically incorrectly, if he was back on the drink. But this is Campbell we are talking about; since when does the truth matter to him when spinning a yarn. The only other explanation is that the common sci-fi trope, beloved of Star Trek in particular, and a pet theory of theoretical physicists everywhere, is true – parallel universes do exist. 

There is one where the MSM is on the SNP’s side, one were Dundee is filled with No-voting, SNP-hating people and the number of failed Labour candidates is so high that the odds against two of them being picked to pose questions isn’t astronomical. 

And then there is the one the rest of us live in. 

What makes his epic 'SNP bad' rant even more odd is that it came during the launch event for his old pal Ken McIntosh’s bid to retain his Holyrood constituency seat, Eastwood.  

Ken has two claims to fame, first Ed Miliband had no idea who he was, and the second, he was beaten by Kezia Dugdale for the SLAB leadership (let that sink in folks).

So it was just a ploy to discredit his pal’s nearest challengers for the seat you ask? 

Well no. The polls suggest that the Tories will win Eastwood. It’s certainly a big target for them. But was a word said against their closest rivals and erstwhile Better Together colleagues? No, a big fat no. 

It was SNP bad all the way. 

Meanwhile, Ruthie the tank commander is making a blatant play for those Labour voters that are staunch Unionists - solidarity not being a big thing in Tory circles. And if Ken does lose his constituency seat there is little comfort on the list.  Three seats predicted for Labour and he is 4th on the list. 

Still there is always his previous occupation as a BBC producer, but would they accept someone with close Labour ties?

A BBC Producer with Labour Ties?

Perhaps he can get a job producing a segment for the Scottish Six called “It’s shite to be Scottish, but even worse to have Icelandic telly”

Hat tip to Wings!

One day I hope SLAB will wake up and realise that their real enemy is the Tory party. I suspect, however, that day won’t occur before the 5th May nor indeed the 24th of June.

Until then it might help their cause if they at least realised just how toxic the Alastair Campbells of the world are and that just because they have a Scottish name that doesn’t mean they know heehaw about Scottish politics or its MSM for that matter.

OH REALLY, RUTH, GET A GRIP...

Probably the most offensive thing in this is the use of the word "decent".

RUTH DAVIDSON IGNORING PEOPLE

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS ON MR CORBYN

As a Scot I tend to dislike the British national anthem because it represents the UK. If I hear it on radio, I turn it off. 

Additionally, as a republican I'm unlikely to be enamoured of a song in praise of a system of government that I think is outmoded, undemocratic and ridiculous, especially as it is a creeping and obsequious as it is.

So I think you can be fairly sure that you will NEVER hear me sing "God save the queen". In most circumstances I wouldn't even stand while it was played. (I would if I were at a Scotland England match and the English were using it as their anthem.)

Whether Mr Corbyn does or does not is a matter for him to decide.

But in the great scheme of things, what he does during the anthem isn't terribly important. 

By that I mean that we have a government absolutely set on getting rid of the Human Rights Act.  We have a government which is working to get rid of most of the freedoms that trades unions fought hard for. We have an incompetent liar as the minister for Work and Pensions causing deaths by the hundreds and lying about the figures. These are important.

The UK government is also hell bent on going to yet another war in the Middle East, seemingly oblivious of the chaos that the last three have left in their wake. At the same time it is reducing the armed forces, relying on volunteer territorials, and spending more than £100 billion on a weapons that will never be used. That is important.

Of course that list in not exhaustive, but it will do for starters...

In comparison with this, whether or not Jeremy sang the queen's song is a matter of such piddling unimportance, it really barely registers and only small and empty minds would find it in the least worth a mention.

Yet all day today, I'm told, this story was the BBC lead on all their newscasts and it was headlined in numerous papers, some of which are not renowned for showing respect for the queen themselves.

Some journalists too, were whining that it was a mark of disrespect for the armed forces.

In what parallel universe does that make any sort of logical sense?

None. It's complete nonsense. It may have shown a lack of regard for their commander in chief, but it indicated nothing more than that. 

Personally I can't help thinking that sending troops into an illegal war, with poor equipment, second rate kit and clothing, and a lack of support helicopters shows a bloody sight more disrespect that not singing GSTQ.

I think that allowing physically and sometimes mentally damaged troops to return after wars and give them as little as possible support, allowing them to become homeless or sanctioned by the Department of Death and Pensions leading to their death from starvation, is decided less respectful than not singing any bloody song at any time ever.

(Incidentally, now might be a good time to remind anyone who hasn't already bought it that Mark Frankland's 'Great Food Bank Siege' is still on sale and all the profits are still going to his food bank. Relevant here becasue the story covers the plight of two ex-soldiers fallen through the system, ignored by the government and left to deteriorate in a life of isolation, nightmares, drugs and drink... It's a cracking read!)

And when they weren't quibbling about this perceived insult to our brave boys, they were outraged that Mr Corbyn's top button wasn't done up and his tie had slipped down exposing some of his throat!!!!!! 

Listen to yourselves, you idiots. What in the name of heavens does that matter to any sane person? You sound like 19th century maiden aunts.

This, is what we should be concerning ourselves with. Austerity that makes money for the super rich, leaves many of us with simply less, and completely abandons the least favoured.

I don't agree with everything Mr Corbyn stands for, not by a long way, but I'd rather have him and his followers in 10 Downing Street, if that accursed place has to have a say in our governance, than any of the other people who have been there all through my life. 

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Warlike person, Ruth Davidson somewhat rashly tweeted this (below) today. Presumably in respect of Mr Corbyn's meeting with, or being praised by these names.

Gerry Adams Martin McGuinness Cristina de Kirchner Hamas Did I miss anyone?

Is this a help Ruth?

Augusto Pinochet, who was fond of torturing women
by introducing rats to their undergarments, and who dropped his enemies
into the Pacific Ocean from aeroplanes, but who allowed Maggie
to fly from his airports in order to thwart his deadly enemies
in Argentina.

The late King of Saudi Arabia, the regime which chops of hands and
heads with abandon, but does buy a lot of arms from England.

The King of Bahrain, who put down the Arab Spring uprising in his country and imprisoned doctors who treated the wounded, but also spends billion in England
on more arms so that he can do it again if need be.

The lovely PW Botha, PM and President of Aparthied South Africa.

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And one last gripe on the subject of Mr Corbyn.

Could the BBC stop referring to him as "the left wing leader", or if they feel that can't manage that, then could they start referring to Cameron as the "right wing prime minister"?

You know, just for a wee bit of balance...

Oh wait. It's the BBC...silly me!