Letter to the Honourable Mr Docherty MP
I understand that you have recently made a comment about people having to choose which one of their grandparents would be "foreigners" if Scotland votes to leave the UK.
I just thought I'd let you know that I do not have any problem with one of my grandparents being foreign.
You see I have travelled outside of the British Isles and, on occasions, I've been left with no alternative but to meet foreigners.
But, don't worry. They are not disgusting or terrible. In fact some of them are really quite nice and smell quite fresh. Among their number there are those who even learn to speak English so one can have a nearly civilised conversation with them.
I know, however, that it is a big issue in Labour party circles, with people as distinguished and universally respected as Tony Benn worrying that his mother would have been a foreigner had this independence malarkey happened 40 years ago (I assume that being American doesn't count as foreign, otherwise he wouldn't have married Caroline and put his own kids in the invidious position of having a foreign mother), or people as ...well people like Margaret Curran, who was worrying that her son, at university in England, would turn overnight into a foreign person.
So I write to put your mind, and that of Margaret, at rest. Unfortunately Tony Benn, otherwise one of my heros, died recently... so he will be at rest anyway.
I went to School in England and I worked in France for a while and, on both occasions I became a foreigner overnight (once quite literally, and once in a more esoteric way) but on neither occasion was there any lasting damage and on both occasions, when I came home to Scotland, I unbecame foreign...just like that.
So, foreigners really aren't that bad. Please try not to worry.
Not British of course, and some may even come from banana republics... ie republics where bananas are grown... but heigh ho, one can't have everything.
Pip pip.
Hugs
Hugs
Tris....
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He was somewhat bemused to find this email in this inbox:
Aye, they are looking for a speaker for the Better Together campaign.
No wonder they are falling behind if they are asking ministers in the Scottish government to speak for them...
As Humza said... what a shambles of a campaign!
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Plymouth MP, Oliver Colvile, (nah, me either) is almost daft enough to get a job with Better Together. According to Political Scrpabook he has been seen delivering leaflets through doors in his constituency with the following information:
I mean, most people with more than one badly damaged brain cell would have worked out that that woman is poison with Tories at the moment.
Duh, Ollie!
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And this is just for a laugh... like you haven't already choked on how thick some folk are...
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Next time you talk to Humza Tris tell him to accept. Can you imagine the fun and uproar there will be when he stands up to speak, on the Better Together side of the platform and starts waxing lyrically about the benefits of Scottish independence. LOL
ReplyDeleteAlas, Arbroath, tiz not I who moves in elevated circles of government ministries... but the furry one ... However I'll pass the message. Can't help but agree with you...
DeleteI suspect they may have mixed him up with Anas Sarwar.
Aye well Humza Yousaf...Anas Sarwar I can see how they'd make that sort of mistake, I mean neither their Christian names or Surnames start with similar letter so it is obviously an easy enough mistake to make...NOT! LOL
DeleteI'm afraid Mr Docherty is someone I hadn't heard of before, so I can't say why he is frightened of foreigners. Having lived in a couple of countries other than the UK and having met people unfortunate enough not to have been born under the sun which never sets, I can assure him they aren't that scary. If he wants, I could introduce him to some, and I promise to hold his hand and help him get over his panic attacks at meeting them. I promise they won't boil him in a cauldron then eat him. I've never been eaten in other countries.
ReplyDeleteMr Docherty is unfortunately my MP, he replaced the adorable Willie Rennie. Now I can feel for him as I believe he will see himself as a foreigner as he hails from Cumbria I believe. As he was elected for Dunfermline it obviously did not bother the constituents who did not regard him as other than another Labour MP flown in to fill the seat.
DeleteI too wish that Humza had accepted but as an honest man it would have stuck in his throat.
PS. I wish Humza had accepted the invite.
ReplyDeleteOur experiences are the same Moray. So if some of my relatives turned out to be foreign I'd have no fear of popping round to see them. I could be relatively sure not to end up in a ragout!
DeleteI'd never heard of him either, but maybe he was bitten by a foreigner when he was little.
*****
Yeah, it would have been a laugh if Humza had accepted their invitation. He could have talked about the advantages of being in a union with another country which was at odds with us in most political views and which we subsidised.
If he was having difficulty filling more than a few seconds of his speech, then I suspect that the word "clout" would have come in handy.
Everyone else seems to use the word a lot... even if the actual clout never seems to be much in evidence.
Ha ha ha brilliant, imagine sending an E-mail to Mr Yousaf, asking him to speak for Better Together, that really does sum up the unionist movement, I often imagine the BT brigade all crammed into a car of sorts, cruising around Glasgow or Edinburgh, trying to contemplate a plan of action, and then this wonderful image of the Keystone Cops pops into my head, and a wry smile appears on my face.
ReplyDeleteTakes a special kind of carelessness to do that, doesn't it?
DeleteI'm not sure, given how many people turn up for BT events, that they would be CRAMMED...not unless it was one of these Smart Cars...
Dear Mr Munguin's Republic
ReplyDeleteWe of the Better Together campaign and have noticed
your ever increasing profile in the Independence debate.
And we wish to ask you join with us to counter the untruths
and distortion from the yes campaign.
Noting your loyalty to both the union and the Scottish
labour party over many years
We await your positive response.to our request
asap at
http://bettertogether.net/
Ermine robes and large expenses await you
Dear BetterTogether.hairnet
DeleteThanks for your invitation.
Munguin is delighted that you thought of him for this role.
He is sending under seprerate and confidential cover, a list of his fees and expenses. (This letter comes in at 150 guineas.)
Yours
Tris
Lord Munguin's humble and loyal servant.
The Cypriot niko under one of his many aliases.
Deleteps. Can I be Munguin's batman?
Well, yes, but you do understand it's an honorary position... There is no remuneration!
DeleteHow come all these 'Labour' politicians (sniggers) look like conservatives, Liam Fox.?
ReplyDeleteMaybe they are indeed Mr Fox, or his young friend Mr Werrity..
DeleteThis would involve the collection of multiple salaries.
And expenses.
Tris
ReplyDeleteI really find the foriegner stuff distasteful to be honest and if I remember it was started by Darling and took up by Curran. It really says a lot more about them than us and it implies that Scots are racist that they could be frightened into voting no so they don't look racist by not wanting to make their family and friends foriegners. It really is disgusting and how the media don't really have a go says even more, as you know my wife is from Ghana so my kids are all mixed race, I find the whole argument insulting to me as a Scot and a human being. People are people no matter where they live, it's just that in this horrible country some are more equal than others.
Bruce
It's a really strange, and for me quite revealing trait in Labour (and to be honest, I don;t remember anyone from either the Liberals or the Tories pressing this point... and that seems odd at least from the Tories).
DeleteI too find racism, for that is what it is, really distasteful.
It's as if they actually believe that the kind of "nationalism" being offered is actually the right wing nonsense of people like the BNP, Marine Le Penn or the mad Norwegian bloke who shot all the young socialists in that dreadful affair in Norway, because they were pro immigration.
I don't see colour or religion, gender, ability, language, or sexuality in a person. If that's what you're looking at, then you are missing what makes the person a person, so I find labour's obsession with "foreigners" not only offensive but intellectually insupportable.
Thanks heavens I wasn't brought up in that narrow minded way. That must be a real burden to carry with you, adn I actually feel sorry for bigots like that.
Docherty is not the brightest light on the tree. A couple of years ago he started a campaign to have a statue of toxic Tony Blair erected at Westminster.
ReplyDeleteHi Bill...
DeleteJeeez, what a dimbo. Who puts up statues to war criminals and mass murderers or people who oversee the boom to precipitate all busts, or even people who manage to turn the whole Labour movement on its head in the pursuit of fame and FOPRTUNE and a congressional medal.?
I take it his statue idea got laughed out of existence?
Apart from the statue, Mr Docherty seems to spend an inordinate time on matters concerning the Catholic Church. Also better known for taking the First Minister to task over Gay Marriage when the said FM was opening the New Eco School here in Dunfermline.
DeleteNow I used to regard Willie as a no bad MP, that is before he became "leader" of the Lib Dems in The Scottish Parliament, but he was a better MP than this yin.
Was he against marriage equality, Helena?
DeleteIf so I think he'd find that his hero, the mass murdered of Iraq and he would be at odds.
Willie simply isn't leader material; he's more a follower. He, more than any other Brit party leader in Scotland has the autonomy to do his own thing, and yet he would seem to be willing to follow Nick to hell...
So Labour are in a panic due to the polls being neck and neck, and apparently their amassing an assault on Scots this week, with Gordon Brown giving one of his infamous lie filled speeches in Glasgow on Tuesday. Brown will try and scaremonger on pensions again,( If nothing at least he's consistant about his lies).
ReplyDeleteEd Miliband is also flying up to Scotland (Copying Tory tourists) fly up lecture, fly down again, no doubt the words "Broad shoulders and "Pooling resources" will on the agenda again. Thankfully honest Labour members are seeing through the lies and voting for YES, as a vote for independence isn't a vote for the SNP but a vote for self-determination, of Scots by Scots, for Scots.
ha ha...
DeleteI was reading somewhere that the "Top" Tories (I wonder if there are bottom Tories!) are despairing of Alistair Darling and his lacklustre campaign.
They thought they could safely leave it to his 'safe pair of hands' apparently and now they discover that he's not popular in Scotland and has failed to make an impact.
They haven't got a clue what to do. The other two people supposed to be running BT are Charlie Kennedy, who if I remember has done nothing, except criticise them for their negativity and lies, and Annabel Goldie who, apart from hosting Mr Darling at the Tory conference, has also been notable for her absence.
They tried the Lords... and the first day old Robertson made an ass of himself with the third world war and the collapse of civilisation as we know it speech, and now the idea is that, as Gordon Brown is universally loved and respected in Scotland (like I said, they are out of touch) he can come and lecture us.
So he is going to talk about pensions... the same ones as he completely ruined 15 years ago.
He's going to work well with Alistair darling seing that they can't stand each other.
No one seems to have noticed that not only is their message negative and full of lies, the people they send to deliver it, failed dismally in government and are as dull as ditch water.
It's noting to do with the SNP, you're right...although I noticed that one of the papers today says that they have a disgruntled ex-YES campaign employee who says it is all a front for the SNP...
I don;t think it is. I see loads of people from LfI, and Radical Independence, The Green Party and the Liberals who want nothing to do with the SNP, but they don't want their country run for the sole benefit of the rich people in London.
Could of been worse at least he didnt call them .....STRANGERS
ReplyDeleteThere would be an irony overload if anyone from Westminster called any one strange Niko.
Delete