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.
Aye he's a nasty piece of work. There's no denying that. His opening speech at Holyrood was mean and showed no humility for the absolute hammering they got at the polls.
ReplyDeleteThe light at the end of their tunnel is a train coming at them fast. They're clinging to support via family and friends and that's it. Caron's blog has taken satire to a new level with her Lib Dem love in.
Yes banana that was the one where he called the Scottish Parlaiment "this place", next he will be spying strangers and saying Mister Speaker.
ReplyDeleteHe also said he would hold (personally) the SNP to account with the tiny rump of his failed party. If this is what he meant then it must be like being not mauled by a dead sheep so much as mauled by a dead, failed, minnow!
I still laugh long and laugh hard at his great " elected unanymously" line ...... When you are the only candidate.
ReplyDeleteWhen you only returned 5 MSP's and as a party face near bankruptsy for the loss deposit money.
A supposed Lib Dem defence chap during his Westminster days but clearly his comments about Gneralsin Afghanistan coupled with the stream of lies about nuke subs in Rosyth showed him to be clueless and by the nature of his comments treating us with contempt.
A rude and vile man who insulted not only me but my family directly.
Also with a rather dodgy exp record as well.
A career politician who could not survive for more than 5 mins in the real world without the words of Cowley Street behind him and the public teat to suck on.
Apart from that a great guy ......... LOL !
What has Willie ever done to you? You really do have it in for him.
ReplyDeleteI actually think he's right and, strangely enough, I have a different perspective to you on this one.
http://carons-musings.blogspot.com/2011/05/whats-more-important-justice-or.html.
LoTF: I'm not terribly keen on his employment of Westminster style tactics. I mean to stoop to accusing the FM of racism for defending the Scottish legal system when he has only been on the scene for 5 mins is pretty awful. Where will he go next I wonder? Or will everything the FM does that does not accord with Westminster or the Union be labelled as anti-English? Really the lowest of the low...what a start!
ReplyDeleteCaron: I have nothing against Willie personally. I just find it irritating that a failed Westminster politician seems to be intent on continuing his Westminster career at Holyrood with no explanation of why he did not feel the moral obligation of facing the voters of Fife. You yourself were unable to provide an explanation for this and instead opted for the wafer thin excuse that he vociferously lobbied Lib Dem Fife party members to propel him to the top of a list. As if that was a mandate for a supposedly excellent and well like MP (or at least he clearly thought he was).
ReplyDeleteNow he seems to think that accusing the FM of racism for doing his job is the right thing to do. What will his next trick be?
Caron: As it happens I am inclined to agree with your assessment of the role of the Supreme Court. What I am not going to agree with is Willie Rennie using needlessly emotive language to lambast the First Minister for doing what 54% of the electorate elected him to do i.e. stand up for Scotland. Especially when it is as clear as the nose on your face that Rennie is doing exactly the same as he accuses the FM of doing i.e. whipping up a storm in a tea cup to forward his own unionist, pro-Westminster, pro-coalition agenda. If he is so concerned why does he not do what he said he would do and engage the FM and Justice Secretary in a debate instead of making a cynical headline grab in an effort in inflate his and his party’s punctured reputation!
ReplyDeleteThe Additional List system is one of the worst, most politically corrupt attempts at proportionality.
ReplyDeleteIn Germany it allowed Helmut Kohl to continue as a member of the Bundestag although he had been defeated in his own constituency. He was top of the Christian Democrat party list too.
It allows the party selectors to force their choice on the electors rather than the other way round.
It has much in common with the party list system used for the EU Parliament. With Ken Clarke in charge of party democracy, the Conservatives rigged their selection process thoroughly last time. Sitting MEPs, who chose to stay on, could not be opposed and the rest of the vote was rigged so that you could not just vote for a candidate/candidates of your choice. You had to vote for a full slate. Previously the members' votes could unseat sitting MEPs but that would have resulted in the most europhile MEPs losing - and that would never have done. (A disgruntled Tory told me this)
If you put any band-waggon near him he will jump on it. The more I have heard him recently the more It has turned me of him. I used to think he was a nice LD and not the opportunist that was elected on the list on 5th May.
ReplyDelete'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?'
ReplyDeleteunionist vote 53.5% Separatists 45.4%
Separatists lose by 8.1%
votes Separatists 902915
Votes for 'Union' 1064827
Separatists lose by 16192 good votes
on a 51% Turnout with 49% of Voters
(which is about 1/4 of the Scottish peoples
voting for the seperationists)
showing no confidence what so ever in the snp Misrule.
Let alone Salmond dropping his commitment to
a straight in or out of the Union referendum
to include an Indy-lite option
(where the feck did that come from)
Nah old mate getting a yes in any referendum is going to a bit harder than you nats like to admit
Alex clinging to Indy-lite concedes this rather salient fact.
Marcia
ReplyDeleteI think we all used to have a soft spot for the loopy Lib Dems. Eccentric but essentially harmless. Someone to vote for when you were a student or fancied annoying the main parties.
How quickly things changed when they got a whiff of power in Londons parliament.
Nick quickly ditched his 'pledge' to students saying we're too skint to fund english educashun. While happily invading Libya, signing away our energy security on billion pound windmills and increasing aid to India to help them buy up UK companies. Not too skint for all that nonsense.
David Laws came a cropper after a fortnight. Caught trousering £40K when his 'landlord' turned out to be his gay lover. He would probably still be at it if he hadn't been in the spotlight with his short lifespan in govt.
Then there's creepy 7 homes Huhne. Our Climate secretary who ran off with his lesbian secretary. Poor wife probably thought he was safe with his secretary being gay. Turned out she was bi. Who would have thunked it. Oh and speedy 7 homes Huhne didn't worry about the climate when he was speeding everywhere. Possibly giving points to his missus but can't remember. We all get summonses from the courts and forget about them.
So now we have a new Lib Dem leader in our parliament. No one has ever heard of him and he's determined to change that. I suspect he'll rise like a phoenix and go out like a Tavish. Maybe not back to putting his hands up sheeps bums on the farm but something similar.
Edward: the additional list system has its faults. But I can hardly decry it totally as it has served the SNP well in the first three Scottish parliaments. That is despite its inbuilt unfairness to any party that has its vote spread across the country such as the SNP. How could it ever be fair that a region has nine or ten constituency seats but only ever seven list ones? Stands to reason that if you do well in the constituencies you would always do better than if you did well on the list. In the last instance the SNP did well on both.
ReplyDeleteMarcia: just goes to show eh, give the Lib Dems a sniff of power and they go off the deep end!
ReplyDeleteNiko: we will see!
ReplyDeleteNiko
ReplyDeleteunionist vote 53.5% Separatists 45.4%
Throw Andy's calculator away.
unionist vote 50.94% Separatists 49.06%
Its not just the SNP voters as there are others.
Banana: seems he has ditched Tavish’s cherry picking of London Lib Dem policies strategy in favour of all out embracing Nick Cleggism. Well Nick was his old leader in that other place so what do you expect?
ReplyDeleteCH/Niko -
ReplyDeleteRegional list vote -
SNP/Green/Margo/SSP - 49.78%. Lab/Con/LD/UKIP/SCh/BNP/Sc Unionist/CP/NF - 46.64%.
"Neutral" minor parties - 3.58%
No time for the man.
ReplyDeleteHe must be as dumb as a post if he thinks that more Cleggism/Cameronism is the way to win back the voters that the Libs lost so dramatically in the last election.
Unlike the other unionist leaders this man actually IS the leader, not just the parliamentary group leader. He doesn't have to do what his London leader tells him; it's surely the kind of freedom that Annabel Goldie would give her back teeth for, and Iain Gray...well, least said soonest mended about Iain Gray.
If he takes the London line, ie the Tory line, he will be lucky next time round to have 2 members in parliament, him and Tavish... and then he'll have to resign and let Tavish be leader, unanimously...
...what an opportunistic joke the Liberals are.
Who cares? Another unionist party bites the dust-RIP!
ReplyDeleteRennie is just a mirror for the LibDems.
ReplyDeleteLiberal Democrat peers: oh dear
A pointless party spoiling it for real people.
The Lands where The Tories live
ReplyDeleteOh yes. He's very clever.
ReplyDeleteI've replied thus:
Speechless and shaking with laughter, I am;
Speechless and shaking with laughter.
The accuracy of you words is quite
Astounding and gives us much delight.
But the folk that warned against their stunt,
(That's us, I suppose), are so badly burnt
That there's little but ashes to start again,
But there's Alex in Scotland and Carwyn in Wales,
And someone in Ireland, one of the Gaels;
And they'll go to work in no Tory bank.
Far and few, far and few
Are the lands where the Tories live;
Their heads are hard and their hands are blue.
And they went to sea in a sieve.