Labour's Scottish Accounting Unit has been holding its conference in Edinburgh today, and the big boss flew in from London to speak.
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Some Silly Billy put the election poster for
a non-existent party in a very
unfortunate position. |
I was a bit surprised at that. After all, Jim tells us HE is the boss and NOBODY tells him what to do. And he proved it by declaring that, in Scotland, he would vote for free tertiary education and in England (where he is aiming to be an MP for at least a year), he would vote for £6,000 pa fees.
Anyway, inconsistencies apart, the imperial leader arrived and made a speech.
Strangely he failed to do what his Scottish colleagues (many of whom may be looking for jobs in a few months) asked him to do, which was rule out a coalition with the SNP.
In one of these odd quirks of fate, Mr Cameron called upon him to do the same thing, which I suppose shows that there is a great deal of common ground between the Eton Boy and the average Labour Backbencher.
I'm pretty sure they needn't worry about a coalition with the SNP. I doubt very much that it will never happen.
What could occur, and might ensure that Mr Miliband is the next prime minister of the union, is that the SNP could agree to support Labour on a variety of measures where they had common cause, where it was in the interests of the UK and of course, particularly, where it was in Scotland's interest.
It seems to me that unless you are an adherent of the Willie Bain school of confrontational politics and cutting off your nose to spite your face, that would be the sensible thing to do.
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| Willie Bain. Labour Philosopher Extraordinary. |
For the uninitiated, Mr Bain, one of the great political thinkers in his own bedsit, declared that Labour would never vote for anything that the SNP supported, on the basis that ...well, the SNP supported it.
Even if it was straight from the pages of the Labour Manifesto, they would still vote it down. Mr Bain's intellectual processes are clearly way beyond my understanding, or even that of Munguin, so we can only stand and stare, without comprehension at his theories. And we do.
However, Mr Miliband, who isn't in charge of Scottish Labour, because Jim is, trotted out the tired old line about Vote SNP, get Tory, clearly unaware that Scotland has, for 35 years, voted Labour and, for all but 13 of these years, got Tory anyway, and may just be getting a little fed up with it. It's simple Mr Miliband.
There are 650 MPs in the Commons, Scotland elects 59 of them; Wales 40; N Ireland 18, and England 533. So, which country do you think chooses the government of the day?
Miliband said Scotland couldn't afford the Tories. He simplified it for us. He said, its old, its young, it poor, its NHS, couldn't afford the Tories.
Wait a minute... Its NHS?
WHAT?
Didn't they tell us, only 6 months ago, that the NHS would only be safe within the UK?
They surely must have realised at that time that it was always possible that the Tories could win a general election, if not this time, next time or the time after... and, well, he just said it. The NHS in Scotland is not safe with a Tory government in the union.
Does that then mean that they lied to us? Alistair Sweetheart and Gordon Clunking Fist Ex-Politician Millionaire Brown lied?
Surely some mistake.
Talking about coalitions and the Willie Bain philosophy of political thought, how does Mr Miliband feel about Mr Baker's slimy call for the Tories to go into coalition with Labour to keep these damned Scots out. We know that some Labour MPs agree with that, although Maggie Curran isn't one of them. She went so far as to block me on Twitter when I questioned her.
Mr Baker (St Paul and Oxford), who apparently now goes under the title of the Baron or Dork, and is one of the sleeping partners, snoozing on the red leather benches made for aristocratic bottoms, seems to think that it is the only way to keep the UK together.
Too much vintage champagne, good port and quails' eggs at the tax payers' expense, methinks. Or perhaps just distance from any kind of reality.
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| Hic...hic sunt nobiles |
Seriously Mr Baker, your sort told us that we were an important, if somewhat stupid and feckless, part of the Brit family, and that we were all better and stronger together, pooling and sharing, in this green and pleasant land. And we, or at least some of us, took you at your word.
And now you want to do deals with your 'old enemy' to stop us from having a democratic say in the running of the union of which we were persuaded to remain a part.
If there are a substantial number of SNP MPs elected in May, that will reflect the voting in Scotland, according to your preferred electoral system. Surely, even under a lordly Tory definition of democracy, these MPs have some rights? Perhaps you think not as many as your noble self, elected by...the Queen.
When the Tories, or Labour, are incapable of forming a government alone (as they were in 2010), then one of the parties will require the votes of MPs from other minor parties to pass legislation.
Minor parties represent people in the UK too, even if they are only Irish, Welsh or Scottish people.
The Tories have just worked with the Liberals, a minority party with only 57 MPs. Why, if Scotland is an integral part of the UK would the SNP be different?
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| Another out of touch remnant of Thatcher |
I wonder if you are aware how this comes across to Scots. I'll tell you how I see it. You appear to want us to stay with you as long as we don't exercise our democratic will, and accept the failing two-party system, which is overwhelmingly English oriented.
Leave governing to you lot, and get on with whatever it is we do up here.
Let me tell you, your Nobleness, that's the fastest way I know to a second referendum on independence. And I suspect Wales, Northern Ireland and Cornwall too, if you gang up of all of us!
