A blitzkrieg, says Alan Bissett.
In last two days, Tories have raised the retirement age to
70 (don't expect Labour to reverse it).
The unelected House of Lords have stripped the Scottish
Parliament of control over renewable energy (a sign of more to come)
And Central Scotland is being opened up by UK Govt for gas
fracking without consulting the people who live here.
WAKE UP, SCOTLAND, AND END THIS!
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This fine figure of a man, the demoted Mr Lansley, has just charged you and me for overnight stays in an hotel in London when his home is only 1 mile from parliament.
Now, I cast no aspersions, but, when MSPs from Dundee have to get home 70 or so miles every night from Edinburgh, I'm wondering what it is that keeps him, a man clearly in the peak of physical condition, from managing the one mile or so from work to his house, in the town with the best provision of transport in the whole of England.
It's most mysterious.
I wonder what his second wife, Sally, thinks about it...
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TOP FALKIRK TRADE UNION OFFICIAL SAYS YES
ReplyDeleteReasonable people who don't have a vested interest or just love to have to complain as it in their blood realise tha voting YES is the only solution to save Scotland from enforced serfdom.
It has started.
ReplyDeleteIf it's not a career, I suspect that they will come, bit by bit.
I have always thought that we would reach a point where a trickle from Better Together to YES would appear. I think we have reached that point.
DeleteFirst we had a former Labour Glasgow councillor and a former Glasgow mayor.
Next we had a current Labour councillor in Edinburgh and now we have the chair of Falkirk Trades Council.
I just wonder:
a) who will be next
b) how long this trickle will continue before becoming a stream
c) how long the eventual stream will last before turning into a flood
Yes, I agree wit that. Bit by bit as the argument gets more and more negative, people who naturally thought themselves to be unionists, will start asking themselves why.
DeleteIt is I suspect, one of these things that many people just take for granted, especially people of a "certain age" who were brought up in a very homogenous British postwar 50s 60s even 70s environment.
They take being British for granted. That the No side are being pushed to give intellectual rather than emotional reasons for being a part of the union, and seem to rely on the word "clout" almost exclusively, some people will question if that is enough of a plus to balance all the bad things.
Of course if you are expecting an aristocratic title or if you hope to one day hold an important position in the British government, and actually profit from the "clout", that may be good enough reason to swallow it.
Id say, though, to people like Curren or Lamont for example, that they probably haven't the least hope of being a part of anything like that. Most of them aren't up to it, and some are simply too old.
Even in this day of ennobling everyone and their dog, shadow secretaries of state are unlikely to make it to the red benches and the best British state pension any freezing pensioner in the country could ever imagine.
Off Topic.
ReplyDeleteNelson Mandela died today, as I'm sure by now you will know.
The word is a good deal better place for him having been in it.
Millions of people can testify to that.
I'm not sentimental about people in their 90s dying.
It's what happens.
But, though I never even saw the man from a distance much less met him, I feel some sort of personal loss tonight.
He was old and he was sick. But he was an immensely strong man.
He had had a hard life and yet he lived on when by rights he should have died some time ago. I wouldn't be surprised that he decided that it was time to let go.
He was a friend to so many people and he will be missed around the world but it is hard to imagine the grief that will be felt in South Africa.
H was a friend to Scotland too. I'm pretty certain that if Mr McAskill ever had any doubts about whether he was doing the right thing in adhering to the letter and spirit of Scots law, when he released Al Megrahi, it must have been a comfort and reassurance to him that Nelson Mandela agreed with his decision.
I'd be proud to think he agreed with any of my decisions.
RIP President Mandela.
The world needs so many more politicians like you.
I'll pop this in here.
ReplyDeleteGood one.
DeleteWe really shouldn't allow him to get away with all the hypocrisy.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/from-terrorist-to-tea-with-the-queen-1327902.html
We need to remember that THIS is what the Tories feel about Mr Mandela.