RENNIE’S LOONY LIB DEM LIES

Failed Westminster wannabe and Holyrood newbie Willie Rennie has made the most ridiculous assertion that Alex Salmond is an Anglophobe over his spirited defence of the Scottish justice system in light of recent Supreme Court rulings in the Cadder and Fraser cases.


Mr Rennie ex MP for Dunfermline and West Fife (until the voters of Fife got rid of him in 2010) list MSP for Central Scotland and Fife and newly anointed leader of the much reduced Lib Dems accused Alex after he said that UK Supreme Court “second guessing Scotland’s highest criminal court” was “totally unsatisfactory”. Rennie said the comments were more about “Anglophobia than Scottish Nationalism”...."we have the SNP jumping on any bandwagon that will further their causes of independence." Is Rennie such a crass hypocrite that he does not see the obvious point that he is jumping on exactly the same point to further his pro-Westminster, pro Nick Clegg Unionist agenda? Does he not think that with 54% of the vote, and seats, that standing up for Scotland is exactly what the First Minister should be doing?

Those with a mind to sling mud and have any reasoned debate descend into a tit-for-tat slanging match along the Westminster model (like Rennie) might counter with an accusation that Mr Rennie is the worst kind of Quisling that has not the faintest notion of what consensus politics is.


Let’s examine Mr Rennie’s position. Failed MP; told to sling his hook by the voters of Fife in 2010. With nothing better to do he vociferously canvassed the members of the Lib Dems in Fife and Central Scotland to propel his name right to the top of their regional list, without bothering to stand in a constituency, thus reducing the list system to a sort of Scottish House of Lords where rejected politicians, like Rennie, can get another seat on a gravy train without the moral obligation of a constituency endorsement. Because the Lib Dems did so disastrously that their failed leader tucked his tail between his legs and retreated to Shetland, he took his chance and stood unopposed as leader. Now he thinks that by importing the sort of beer garden politics of Westminster and cosying up to Nick Clegg and the coalition he will restore the Lib Dems to their pre-2011 Scottish position. The man really must be a half-wit!


Picture: Rennie off to Westminster with his mentor.

SOME PEOPLE NEED A LAWYER TO TELL THEM WHETHER TO PEE OR BLOW!!

I tend to get a bit cross with people when they get shirty about human rights. Of course there are a shed load of people who abuse the precious rights which we in Europe take for granted, but as those who either remember the war or have studied it know, when a population is denied their human rights, they can sometimes find themselves in a nasty situation, or even a gas chamber.

Oh that couldn’t happen to us, I hear you say. We’re British!

Uh huh? Well, I say, if you’re quite confident that the likes of Blair or Brown or Cameron wouldn’t whip your rights out from under you feet quicker than you could say old age pension, then fine. Personally I wouldn’t trust any of them an inch.

As for the Human Rights legislation, well, like any legislation for the good of people, it is capable of being misused and abused by those out to make a quick buck for themselves. Usually lawyers, because many of the muppets that get into taking the mick with these laws would have difficulty putting on their own socks in the morning. It is the” no win; no fee” lawyers I blame and the sooner that nonsense is made illegal the better. If you think you’ve been wronged, put your money where your mouth is!

Anyway... this is a lovely example of attempted abuse, possibly thought out by the complainant himself this time.

It concerns Fife landowner, Duncan Black, aged 48, of Cupar, who was caught by police drink driving. Black argued that police had breached his human rights by asking if he was prepared to take a breath test at the roadside without a lawyer being present. He claimed that he should have been entitled to legal advice, as an extension of the recent Cadder ruling, where London’s horrifically expensive supreme court ruled that the Scottish way of allowing police 6 hours with prisoners before lawyers were called, was illegal (an argument I agree with).

The sheriff, however, rejected the argument saying:

"It is clear from the decision in Cadder that it is aimed at interviews where there is an interrogation and a question and answer session designed to elicit evidence which may be incriminating on its own or to get other evidence," the sheriff said. "That's not what happened here.

"I accept it may be said the accused is disadvantaged by not having a solicitor present, particularly when asked whether to have a blood or urine sample, but the question is straightforward and the accused can say yes or no."

Black was found guilty of drunk driving, fined £900 and banned for a year, a rather steep fine for one with a low level of alcohol in his breath (44mics.). So be warned. The sheriff may have handed down a harsher than normal sentence because he found the human rights argument a waste of the court’s time.


Pics: (1) Blowing in the bag. This of course is not Black. Picturing him blowing in his bag and kissing adieu to £900, and his licence, in the sure and certain knowledge that his next insurance bill will be a whopper, would indeed be a gross breach of his human rights. (2) The Supreme Court. America has one and, as my granny would say, Blair” couldnae see green cheese but his een reelt”...so they had to have one too, and now it appears that Scots law may be decided by this court! The shame of it. I say "expensive" in the story, because they used to use rooms in the House of lords, but when Blair set this up it moved to another building and cost a king’s ransom to fit out. Nothing but the best for the nobs! (3) Perth Sheriff Court. Another lovely building in a beautiful city.

Oh how we laughed and laughed and laughed...... and then, of course, we cried.

The 3 ex-Labour ex-MPs who were accused of fiddling their expenses have gone and got themselves a bucketful more of taxpayers’ money to help pay their legal bills... and it comes to them just a few weeks before the introduction of means testing for legal aid.

Chaytor, Morley and the inappropriately named Devine are accused of diddling the taxpayer collectively of around £60,000 with a variety of ploys such as false mortgage claims, rent claims and false invoices.

They are, under current rules, eligible for legal aid to fund their defences and that includes unbelievably the argument that they too superior to be tried in an ordinary court with ordinary people because they are...erm were ... politicians. One of the arguments that we will be paying for them to put forward is that they are covered under the English Bill of Rights which has never been revoked. It’s great what REAL money can do. Ours.

If they take their legal appeal all the way to the English Supreme Court, which, of course, now that we are paying, they would be mad not to do, the total cost of prosecuting the four (including Tory Lord Hanningfield), could exceed £3 million. We wanted them tried and now it will cost us millions to put them behind bars for a collective 'alleged' fraud of around £60,000.

David Cameron made much of the decision to granting them legal aid. Hanningfiledalso in the dock, but with different solicitors has not (at least yet) applied for the state aid. Mr Cameron also noted that they had unsuccessfully asked that they should be spared from standing in the dock when they appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court last month
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He said that there would be a review of legal aid under a Tory government and said that there would not be legal aid available for MPs who are accused of fiddling their expenses. I’m not sure how he’ll manage that as I think that English law is based on “innocent until proved guilty” as is our own.

The three have engaged some of England’s top, and most expensive barristers, who charge hundreds of pounds an hour. I thought that when you were on legal aid you took whatever was going even if it was rubbish.

That’s the way it works for ordinary people.... but I keep forget these people think that they are on the same level as the Queen, who as I understand it, is not above the law, but IS the law and therefore cannot face justice in one of her own courts

The politicians could face up to seven years in jail if found guilty of stealing taxpayers’ cash. But who’s betting on that?

Pictured: The prisoners at the bar, except of course they aren't prisoners, them being who they are.