THANK HEAVENS FOR A PROPER LABOUR MP... AND SAVE US FROM THIS POTENTIAL ONE

It's noted that Iain Duncan Smith seems to be amused and smirks though the speech like the pompous, unthinking, unfeeling monster he is. 

Also noted that most of Ms Jackson's colleagues seem to spend their time on their phones. 

In a place where a member can be told to leave the chamber for not wearing a tie, would not it be an idea for the deputy speaker to ask members there to pay attention to the debate and leave their emails and Twitter accounts, or whatever else they are doing, to a time more suitable. 

As Glenda was pointing out, we are talking about real people's lives here.

**********

While we are on the subject of Twitter, after a Labour candidate in Angus tweeted this picture about some kids singing songs at the BBC protest at the weekend...

...the SNP office there was vandalised like this...

I wonder if there could possibly be a connection.

Perhaps Ms Wiles would care to comment?

The matter is in the hands of Police Scotland. It is yet to be seen whether there will be screams of outrage from Labour, as there were when someone stuck a small YES sticker on a Labour MPs office window. 

It seems too that she thinks that independence supporter are benefit scroungers, which is a bit of a generalisation in honesty Ms Wiles, don't you think.

It's also pretty insulting to the many pro-independence people who are working, some I know in two different jobs to make ends meet, and looking after families or elderly relatives. (Click to enlarge this picture and read the text). 

My advice to her would be to go easy on Tweeting of Facebooking. It's not your own supporters you have to impress; rather it's those who are against you whose minds you have to try to change, and you won't do it by calling them lazy scroungers or Nazis. 

Methinks on the basis of these two issues, which I came upon within minutes of one another, she's not much of an asset to the Labour Party.

Update: I've just read Stuart's piece on this. Almost undoubtedly you will have as well, but just incase, here it is.

Update July 1: Wiles has apologised for the Nazi tweet. When Tom Harris associated Alex Salmond with Hitler he lost his job with Labour. Will Wiles now be told to stand down?

**********

I've just see this, and thought I should add it.

Miliband has just been attacking the SNP for wanting to reduce Corporation Tax. Anas has said that Labour never has reduced corporation tax (even though they did, twice). But having got back home to England, and not realising that we in Scotland can read and write and actually have internet, Ed's  Labour party has announced that it's new policy will be.... yep... you guessed it... to reduce Corporation Tax.

I know it's an overworked cliché but sometimes you just have to say: "You really couldn't make this Balls up".

BRITISH PENSIONS THE WORST IN EUROPE: AND MOST WON'T QUALIFY FOR ALL THE RISE COMING UP IN 2016

The British state pension at a maximum £110.15 a week is the most miserable in Europe. Compared to average income, even Hungary and Slovenia better the pension benefits British pensioners receive, according to a new OECD report.

British workers on average earnings typically get a state pension worth 32.6% of their working wage. Italian workers, in contrast, can expect 70% of their working salary from the Italian government when they retire. In the developed world, only Mexicans receive less proportionately from the State pension than British workers.

The average European State pension is worth 40.6% of average earnings. If you want to retire comfortably on State coffers compared to those in work, one of the best countries is Austria, at 76.6% - or the Netherlands, even better, at 90.7%. Many Europeans also retire earlier than their British counterparts.

What is a more realistic level of state pension income? The British state pension should be set at £178 a week if it is to be a proper "living State pension", the National Pensioners' Convention claim. Even in the independent states of Guernsey and Jersey, the pensions are far more generous.

There are plans to introduce a flat rate UK pension of around £144 come 2016, worth just under £7,500 a year, just over half the poverty line of around £14,000, though you will need to have worked up 35 years worth of National Insurance contributions to qualify rather than the current 30 (a move the Government has been quiet on, eh Steve Webb!!!).

If you want to have the longest retirement, head for France. The average French male pensioner will live 22.6 years (27.4 for women) on average after leaving work. The average British male kicks the bucket almost five years earlier.

Ah, La Belle Vie? 

Non Merci. Mieux Ensemble. (Mon cul.)

*********

How much did they say the set up costs of Scotland was going to be?

We can't even afford the "t" in Scotland

TWO TEAMS. ONE CITY. ONE GOAL.

So, we were starting to get ourselves arranged, and we thought
they were taking photographs, so along with "Y" and "S"  (I was the E)
we held our letters up.  They weren't ready and
 at the end of the session when everyone was in place my arms
 were killing me.Turns out "S" was, as we suspected, upside down!
At least it wasn't the "E"!

Or the "Y". This is Robbie. He was in charge of "Y"

Yes, still holding the "E"... Still it at least hid my face,
although it's a pity it missed my orange and blue YES t-shirt.
Kudos to Andy Clark and Gary Crocker for organising.

Ffilm aml-gyfrannol - detholiad o leisiau o ar draws Cymru yn dangos cefnogaeth i annibyniaeth yr Alban.

Warm messages of support from Celtic cousins in Wales.
**********

Just a reminder that at 1pm in the City Square, Dundee, our two football teams are holding a rally to raise enough money for big YES banners to put up outside Dens and Tannadice. It's a great example of people coming together to do something for the cause.
**********
Finally, I know everyone who comes here also reads Wings...well, who doesn't? But I can't help but repeat Stuart's his first story of this morning. The Ukok, BT, No, Bob Orders side boasts that we share resources, pull together, are stronger together, and enjoy the best of both worlds, as part of the UK... and you know it's rubbish, but you can see why THEY think that.

So then you read something as totally unbelievably horrific as this and you think to yourself....sheeesh, well, I don't know what you think. It's probably unprintable:

“I have worked in social work for 20 years, so I am pretty hardened but we had a family come in on a Tuesday at 3pm having not eaten since the ­previous Friday.

There had been a problem with benefits and because it was a Bank Holiday weekend the mum had no money for food for her or her two children.

I watched the mum pick up and put down can after can, wondering what she doing, before I realised she was looking for one with a ring pull.

She ripped the top off and starting eating the beans with her hands, she was so hungry. At that point I had to go to the toilets and have a cry.”

I had tears in my eyes as I read it. This is a country that can afford to do up royal apartments and lease helicopters; it can afford nuclear weaponry, wars, royal protection squads for money grubbing ex-prime minister spivs. It can afford to commission new artwork for a house of parliament containing unelected aristocrats. It can (admittedly belatedly) build railways which attempt to emulate the French rail system. It can do anything that says...we are big, important and we have clout. 

But it can't get people's social security payments to them, and leaves them for 4 days with no food. 

No matter what, no child should be hungry in an oil rich, resource rich nation like Scotland.

Any decent person would want to feed that woman and her kids; would want to take them to Morrisons and buy then a cupboardful of stuff so that these children go to bed feeling fed.

But in reality of course we can't do that for all the people that this UK government has abandoned and left starving, cold or ill. 

For a start most of us simply can't afford to do it... but in any case, if we did Iain Duncan Smith would simply rub his grubby hands together, cut a bit more and talk about the Big Society, while stuffing £37 worth of taxpayer-funded breakfast down his fat neck...

The story made me more determined to work that bit harder to rid our country of detritus like IDS, forever.

We have two and a half months, then we can kiss them goodbye, forever.

Who'd not take that opportunity?

Random Thoughts...

His Nobleness the Baron Young of Somewhere or Other, Who Cares,  has decided to put his 2p worth into the independence debate.

It might perhaps have been better had he not bothered.

He announced that Scotland was a misogynist country. This is why he reckons they have only one Tory MP. It is all because of Margaret, you see. She was a woman and we don't like women here so we decided not to vote for any Tories, even men, and even though she is dead... Are you following the man's logic here?

It seems to have escaped his graciousness's attention that Eton Dave's right hand man in Scotland is, in fact, a woman; the leader of the Labour Party's Scottish branch is also a woman, and the Deputy First Minister and Minister for the Constitution is a woman too. Not only that but our presiding officer is a woman. And moreover our Queen is a woman. We have a far larger proportion of women in our parliament than the UK does or than it Aritsocraticness's house does.

Still, this is the fossil who said in 2010 that "we had never had it so good", you know, despite the double dip recession which was starving people and driving them from their homes.

He must have forgotten for a brief monte, if he ever knew at all, that not everyone is a member of the House of Horrors... 

Doesn't seem the brightest of buttons, does he, despite his very smart tie?
***************

Ed Balls apparently tweeted a picture of himself and Johann Lamont mentioning that it had been passed to him by "Anus" Sarwar... He has since corrected his mistake, but one wonders if it weren't Freudian....

What do too many tweets make, Ed?
*****************

Now, the Naysayers keep on telling us that Alex Salmond is the head of the YES campaign, so, by logic the head of the NO campaign must be Dave the Eton Boy. 

Dave has told us over and over again that there is no place for English people in this debate. They (and specifically him) must stay out of it. It is for Scots to decide. (Although I think he must be under the impression that Mr Obama and Mr Putin are Scots.)

Anyway, given his profound belief in the campaign being something for Scots alone, why, oh why does he allow people on some sort of government sponsored opportunities course for English and Northern Irish 15-17 year olds to be brought to Scotland, to campaign for the No camp?

It must be costing a lot of government money. I wonder if they have to be registered as a player in the NO campaign.

Of course these youngsters are very welcome to our country. (Enjoy yourselves and spend lots of money here in our excellent tourist facilities.) 

But I hope your tutors and course leaders have explained both side of the political argument to you, before hauling you north of the border to door knock because they can't find any grass roots activists here to do it for them.
****************

That was a cruel trick to play on Mr Miliband. Poor man, he doesn't have much luck. However, we do, because Mr Miliband has promised that he will move to Scotland as the debate reaches its zenith and he will base himself here, so that he can ensure a No vote. He also promises that the Tories will not win the next general election. (Not that ordinary people will be able to tell the difference.)

I presume that this means that he doesn't have much faith in Alistair Darling Anas Sarwar and Jo Lamont, for which I would have to say I don;t much blame him. Still he's such a competent politician himself I'm sure that all will be well.
*******************

SNAPS ON SATURDAY

Even if you are not a fan of Jean-Claude Juncker or even the EU
 it is always refreshing to see pomposity and superiority
get its own rewards

You'd think that the best education that loads of money can buy
would have equipped Mr C with the knowledge of the constituent 
members of the kingdom
of which he is supposedly the senior minister.

What a week... humiliated, right, right and centre

What an exciting future on offer.

What a good use for a waste of card.

From the arch unionist...

I doubt if they do... Put education in the hands of the UK
and it becomes the most expensive in Europe

You have been warned...

And again...
while the Westminster crowd continue to indulge themselves

Like this flipping person...

And this beauty....

Stables no less...

Slim Jim too

Oh well, that's it. We can't have America upset.
But don't worry John. You're not prime minister any more.
It won't be you that get's the spanking.
It will be the Eton Toff. They are used to that.

I bet Selfridges sacked him for being useless.

Pimp my non existent Perugia university degree...

Cabinet Meeting

It's this pig again. (Apologies to pigs everywhere).

Safe as houses now.

And he still won't debate with people. He prefers to sell his boring book.

Yes, it's true ...I am fixated with him...
or at least with his wickedness.

The cheering thing, I suppose it, that there are kids who care enough to help
their starving friends in this third world oil rich nation.
If it's the people versus the government, then at least we will stick together

At long last, a partial acceptance that it's HIS fault
and the fault of his clique

Ahhhhh....socialism

True Tommy...

And maybe it's getting through around the country

Odd that...

Odd that too...

Odd that we never heard the truth...

From the old (even if he was attacked by some mad banshee of a woman)...

...to the younger...

...to the even younger.

And I'm not into celebrity endorsements.
"Sir" Sean can think what he likes; David Bowie too.
They are as entitled to an opinion as I am.
But Ucock keep force feeding us on their celebrities like Susan Boyle
and Jimmy Crankie who
are going to, or if they had a vote would, vote no.
It doesn't hurt to point out that Elijah, Paolo Nutini, Irving Welch,
Brian Cox, Annie Lennox and even Noel Gallagher are among those for YES.

I see Jimmy Savile is back in the news this week...