DAVE REWRITES HISTORY AND TELLS HIS FOLLOWERS HE WAS RIGHT ALL ALONG

David Cameron has patted himself on the back for getting it right over Scotland. "It was the right call", he is reported to have said. 

Scottish Conservative Party Meeting

According to the BBC he was addressing a “packed - and jubilant” reception for Scottish Conservatives at the party's annual conference in Birmingham. (That must make a nice change from the usual half empty hall.)

(Warning: You may need to avail yourself of a sick bag for this next bit.)

Cameron talked about his sleepless night as the results came in on 19th September.

"I tried to go to sleep. It wouldn't work. I was sat (sic) at 3 am in the morning (sic) in the press office at Number 10 Downing Street.

"At about four o'clock my children came down. Nancy and Elwyn.  Elwyn was wearing some tartan pyjamas. (The child is 8 for heaven's sake. It is stretching the bounds of reasonable possibility that even a privileged rich boy sent out for tartan pyjamas and chose to wear them that night. Oh, and David, we don't actually do much tartan here. That's for the tourists and day trippers.) 

Och aye, the noo, we a' wear the tartan and talk like teuchters
and we only eat porridge and oatcakes.

"They knew how worried their Dad was - and they cared deeply about it too. And they watched result-after-result come in and I must say I now know the definition of relief.” (I'm finding it hard to believe that an 8 year old and a 10 year old really cared enough about Scottish independence to get up in the middle of the night attired like something from Brigadoon and make their way from the flat into the offices at No 10 Downing Street. Does no-one look after these children?)

Head teuchter fae
Rothsay

"Going to bed as prime minister of the United Kingdom and waking up as prime minister of the United Kingdom." (Don't get too used to it. Boris is creeping up on you, and he may be a buffoon, but... he's twice the bloke you are. As a thought, at this point, I know the Queen is on holiday in Balmoral, and of course that is in Scotland, and therefore barely connected to the rest of the world, but would it really be necessary for the Prime Minister to deliver the message that the UK was safe, personally. I mean, we do have the interweb up here...and she does have an enormous staff.  Added to which she's getting on for 90. You woke her up in the middle of the might to tell her? Prrrrrrrrrr...scratch!)

He said he had been inundated with messages from around the world from "friends" of the UK "delighted that we have decided to stay together but also impressed that this country would do it in such a clear, fair, open and democratic way". (I'll give you that one. Although most of the countries that congratulated you, probably made the break for your empire themselves, so that's a bit odd.)

"In politics they say you should never gloat and that is normally right, but there is one small one. (You've pretty little to gloat about Mr Cameron, so enjoy it while you can. But do remember that it's likely to come back and bit you on the butt.)

"We had a very clear strategy, a very clear plan, When Alex Salmond was elected into Holyrood with a very clear SNP majority, we could have ducked the fight we could have tried to put off what he wanted to do have let him have illegal referendum after illegal referendum." (That would have ignored a rather large elephant in the room. Sorry Alex, that came out all wrong. I didn't mean you!)

Boss teuchtar

He went on: "We could have let him, rather cowardly I think it would have been, break up the union by stealth. (Well, you could have, but rather like Spain, you would have looked like an autocracy, trying to hang on to the cash cow and refusing to listen to the will of the indigenous people, and almost certainly you would have lost, as Spain will.)

"That was not the choice we made. We said 'one question, one referendum'. Fair, legal and decisive. (But then you had to promise what you had sworn you wouldn't promise. You won, but you had to go back on everything you stood for in order to do it.)

"And let's not forget - in the dying weeks of the campaign - there were one or two people who were beginning to wonder whether that was wise. Let's just say now, loudly and proudly - it was the right call!" (Well Dave, you were one of them, according to your conversation with the ex Mayor of New York. You remember the one you had to apologize to the Queen about? The one where you also said you would sue the polling companies for giving you ulcers, because we were winning until your volte face?) 

Mad teuchter.

He stressed that the "vows that we made about further Scottish devolution.

They will go ahead." (Well, we await them with interest. Just remember that you were working hand in glove with Gordon Brown over this and he promise Federalism on your behalf. We await it with eager anticipation.)

The prime minister also said the Conservatives have a "huge political opportunity" in Scotland to win more seats at next year's general election. (Yes, that may be true. But this is mainly due to the fact that being in coalition with you has caused the Liberals in Scotland to implode. Estimates are that of the 11 seats they currently hold they will lose 9, 3 of which are likely to go to the Tories because they are in "Liberal" rather than "Democrat" country. You might have gone on to say that Labour's association with your party will likely cost IT dearly with the bulk of the seats looking like going to the SNP, on current reading. Munguin's Republic will be carrying shortly a guest post by Dean on this subject.)

He said: "We have got some targets in our sights." (Well yes, we all do, but so often these things don;t come to pass... for all of us.)

He also praised Ruth Davidson for her part in the campaign. (Well, I suppose someone had to.)

THIS IS A LITTLE ODD...

Somewhat disconcerted by the massive increase in the number of SNP, Green and SSP memberships, it seems that Labour may be trying a wee fight back. According to this fellow he voted YES, but he won't be joining the SNP. Fair enough I'm sure well over a million people feel just like that.

But wait...I can't be sure, but it looks to me like Mr Davy was actually voting no, and was, indeed, an agent for the No campaign, and there is his authorisation to enter polling stations and a NO rosette.

I could be wrong of course. Maybe there is more than one Braden Davy in Aberdeen who is politically motivated. And maybe they all have the same picture on their twitter accounts. 

Or maybe this is just a big set up to fool us all.

Never let it be said I don't consider all the possibilities.

I just wonder why Labour won't tell us how many members they have now.

WE VOTED FOR TORY RULE, SO WE MUST ACCEPT IT

Well, we Scots voted for Tory rule, so we should suck it up gratefully.

Ewww, Gids, you're looking rough.
You should get more expensive stuff.

George Osborne, bless him, has just announced that he will save the £3 billion cost of bombing Iraq, killing lots more people and stirring up even more hatred against the West, Britain, and therefore Scotland, but putting a two year freeze on working age benefits.

Benefits were set many years ago to be the lowest level of income you could reasonably live on and were, therefore, traditionally raised annually by the rate of inflation. As the published rate of inflation was always far less that actual inflation, particularly for the poor who have a far narrower band of purchases over which to spread the inflation…  rent, food, electricity and gas, bus fares, clothes…all of which seem to rise relentlessly, people generally got poorer and poorer.

Last year when inflation was laughingly quoted as 2%, working age benefits were allowed to rise at 1%, and now with a war to pay for to keep in America’s good books, George finds that the £3 billion cost can be met by cancelling even that megre rise in working age benefits. This of course will affect working people too, who depend upon top ups from the state to make their poverty wages stretch all week.

Doubtless Duncan Smith, McVile and Fraud, the SPIV aristo, will be rubbing their evil hands together in glee. That should get the unemployment numbers down when they start to die of malnutrition or the cold.

He also wants to build a powerhouse in the North… 

Oh Inverness I though… or maybe even Wick? 

Nope. Wrong. Manchester and Leeds! 

Oh well, I guess that Gideon didn't do geography at school and doesn't know his North from his armpit. 

Or maybe he knows in his, well I was going to say heart of hearts, but that’s clearly not likely, maybe he just feels in his water that Scotland won’t be in the UK by the time they build their railway. 

The Noble Digby

Ex Labour minister, Digby Jones, who introduced Gideon, says that “we” all want the low-paid to get more money. But it has to be earned. Otherwise inflation goes up. Presumably unlike when his type get massive pay rises and bonuses.

He says he wants an end to the situation where half of school leavers do not get grade C or above in maths and English, which is very interesting, because he doesn’t seem to know how to achieve that.

He says that you do not set “the poor” free by giving them money but by giving them an education. I wonder if he knows how many people working on minimum wage plus a few pence are working on tills in Tesco and Asda, and having to claim in work benefits.

Not only is not everyone capable of getting As and Bs in Maths and English (never have been; never will be) but, even if we all got  As in Nuclear Physics, Latin, Ancient Greek and Metaphysical Poetry , there aren’t enough jobs out there, that pay enough money for what he patronisingly calls “the poor” to be patronisingly “set free”. 

Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau 

And John Redwood, says that companies should be penalised if they campaign for staying in the EU, which is also interesting. I mean if your company is dependent on the EU for most of its sales, or indeed is a company from Asia which has situated itself in the UK in order to access the 500,000,000 EU market, isn’t it a little unreasonable to stop them campaigning to stay in business?

Isn't in any case, the Tory Party itself, planning to campaign against leaving the EU?

And shouldn’t John Redwood go and join Nigel Farage in UKIP and stop pretending that he’s a Tory?

Oh, and I think, Mr Redwood, that people who become secretary of state for a country and don't bother to learn enough of its language to sing its national anthem, should also be penalised. Hard.

The party faced embarrassment after a memorandum sent to MPs reminding them of the price of groceries that ordinary people have to buy with their own money, including bread, milk and Mars Bars, was leaked. The list was designed as an aide-memoire in case members were quizzed about prices and the cost-of-living crisis. 

Back in the real world I was speaking to the manager of the food bank today. He is so grateful to so many people for their donations. Massive amounts form the local derby match and from the Churches' Harvest Festival.

They do, however, need more Long Life Milk and no matter how much they got last week, they will need more for next week.

Our fellow Scots voted  by 55- 45 for more food banks. The least we can do is to try to make sure that they have some food. 

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN? STILL, OFF TO WAR WE GO...

How the Sunday Mirror reporter must have laughed (or maybe cried) when she received a text of Brooks Nomark with his pants down. Seemingly the ex "Minister for Civil Society" whatever that is, thought he was going to be getting it on with some sexy young Tory activist... but was mistaken. 

Now he is spending more time with the family with which, hitherto, he clearly wished to spend less time.

Corrr.....

It says something about the man's ego that, given that he is past his first flushes of youth, he would seriously think that a young lass would be interested in looking at texted pictures of his privates for the sheer joy of it. Did he never think.... nah... can't be... must be an ulterior motive?

Anyway, what was the minister for civil society at all? 

Answers on a post card.

In more general terms, isn't the Tory Party Conference going well... sex scandals and defections to UKIP. Even the thought of killing foreigners hasn't cheered them up this time.

Never happier than when they are killing Johnny Foreigner

Ha ha ha ha ha,... you need to ask that?

That's about it...

Bless it, where would vinegar lips be without the Daily Mail?

SO THERE WAS A SMALL GET TOGETHER IN EDINBURGH ...

...And in Glasgow they collected food for the Foodbanks, because Scotland has now been put on the back burner while the Tories lose people to UKIP and send people to war yet again, in the mess that they left Iraq. This is clearly much more important to them that Scotland is. 

Niko will say... you lost, give it up. 55% of Scotland wants to be British. 

I say, OK, we will do that, when the Public School Boys start to comply with what they promised in the last days of the campaign when they were sure they were going to lose... and what swung it for all the people who really wanted devo max anyway.

OK, that's not me (I don't want to be at war right now), but I accept that it's what overall Scots wanted. 

They did right at the beginning before Cameron ruled it out. (He has form on this... you can have a referendum on voting systems but you can't have the one you all want on the ballot paper; you can have a referendum on Scotland's future but you can;t have the option most of you want.) 

And they did when the party leaders promised something like it ... no sorry "vowed" it... and when Gordon touched down briefly in Scotland, between 5 star hotels, and promised that he would guarantee devo max... as near federalism as you can get in a state where one country comprises 85% of the population. 

As soon as Gordon starts guaranteeing this, and the government starts delivering it, we'll stop hounding them to do it. Simple.

And no. It won't do to say that we will have to wait because the country is at war. It seems to me that most ministers are not involved in this war (more's the pity). They can get their pretty little heads around the problem.

The next deadline approaches, Cameron. You missed the first one. Don't do it again. 

Just in case you forget us...

Lots and lots of us...

All over the place...

Yes, we know no one in Westminster gives a flying one
that people are starving. They'd much rather be off killing
Johnny Foreigner, while supplying arms to the enemy's
backers. But in Scotland we do actually care.
Let's support people who are being starved
to death by Westminster's policies.
Oh and Edinburgh does food banks too...

*****************************

I thought it was worth reproducing this piece from the Guardian (without permission of its author, Kevin McKenna, but with a suitable link). 

The Guardian used to  be a Labour paper. Lord knows what the Torygraph is saying about Labour now.

Jim Murphy’s “scary monsters” tour of 100 towns during the independence referendum campaign encapsulated many of the reasons why the Labour party is all but finished in Scotland. Murphy, a man who has pocketed a small fortune in legitimately claimed expenses from Westminster in his 15 years there, would have had us all believe that his Herculean task of completing the tour in 100 days was all about saving the union. And indeed his narrative, like that of Alistair Darling, was all about how small, vulnerable and cowering Scotland is and why a curfew must eternally be imposed upon it.

But let’s be honest with each other here. This wasn’t really about his new-found enthusiasm for the union. It was, instead, a three-month job interview for the post of leader of the Labour party in Scotland. As Murphy began to embark on his bizarre urban peregrination around the country it began to dawn on several young Labour MSPs why, in the previous several weeks, they had been solicited to have cosy lunches with some of Murphy’s acolytes in a few of Glasgow’s more chichi restaurants.

The most troubling question that may be asked about Murphy’s tour is this one: you’ve been a Labour MP for 15 years, Jim, so why didn’t you ever get up off your arse during that time to conduct a tour of 100 towns to highlight urban deprivation and social inequality? You waited far too long to show you cared about anything beyond your career and, when you finally did, you chose the wrong subject to get all passionate about: the British state.

The same can be said about Labour in Scotland and could probably pass as its epitaph. Because, if something very drastic and very radical doesn’t happen to the party in this country soon, then it is effectively finished as a serious political entity and will become a party of the undead. It will be condemned to spend the next two generations in the same twilight zone as that occupied by the old British Liberal party throughout the 20th century.

Those Scottish nationalists experiencing problems in accepting the independence defeat are gleefully portrayed as stumbling through the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief model. Some grief. Seven years ago, their party remained in opposition in its own devolved parliament. Since then, it has become the natural party of government in Scotland, having achieved an overall majority of seats and having come closer to bringing the British establishment to its knees than Hitler, Napoleon or Christine Keeler. Its membership currently sits at around 70,000, almost three times what it was on 18 September. If Carlsberg made political defeats…

It is Scottish Labour’s party chiefs and its senior strategists who need to acknowledge, and quickly, what has just happened to them and to face reality. In four of their five most impenetrable redoubts, their core voters rejected the most intense barrage of anti-independence propaganda that any had ever encountered. They lost Glasgow and North Lanarkshire, for heaven’s sake. For two years, every Scottish MSP and all the Westminster ones that matter hectored Labour’s most loyal voters with wave upon wave of attacks on Scottish independence: only Labour at Westminster can deliver true social justice; there are too few of you adequately to foot the annual care bill; your pensions are at risk. Yet still, almost 40% of their supporters rejected these lines.

Gordon Brown was wheeled out at the last to entreat the comrades to win one more for the Gipper while displaying a love for the NHS largely invisible during his 13 years at Downing Street. They saw through him, too, and left Labour’s King Lear to reflect that his greatest political achievement was to play a cameo role in keeping David Cameron’s career alive.

Labour’s recently elevated aristocracy, Baron Reid of Cardowan and a retinue headed by their lordships McConnell of Arran and Robertson of Port Ellen also suffered to come down among those folk they once knew and talked too of social justice and building communities. Margaret Curran was the first to wake up to the nightmare when she declared that Labour must reach out to its heartlands. There is no satellite navigation system sophisticated enough to guide them to these long-forgotten places.

Already I hear some of them claiming that the lost 37% will be back in due course to “kick the Tories out”. They are deluding themselves. This time around, disaffected Labour people aren’t simply registering a protest vote. They are actually joining the SNP in droves. Many of the 37% of their voters who voted yes were initially disowned by their own party, or their existence actually denied. Then they were hounded out of their constituencies and demonised as nationalist stooges. They will not forgive such treatment easily.

Many others were sickened at watching their party acting as swordbearers for the baleful forces of the Conservative party, big oil, big business and the landed and undeserving rich during the referendum campaign. The sight of Labour people singing and dancing with Conservatives at having preserved the established order of things will not be erased soon.

Ed Miliband will require all of his 41 Scottish Labour MPs to be returned if he is to have any hope of winning an overall majority at Westminster next year. Yet how many of them would survive a backlash from among the 1.6 million who voted yes and who have effectively renounced the Labour faith?

In recent days, I’ve been rebuked by some chums in the Labour party for deploying the term “careerist” to describe them. Leaving aside Murphy and his 100-day job application and Baron Reid and Baron Foulkes of, ahem, Cumnock and their exalted Labour lordships McConnell and Robertson, I’m willing to concede that “careerist” doesn’t apply to all Labour stalwarts.

So here’s a challenge to the good and able Scottish Labour MPs at Westminster such as Gregg McClymont, Tom Greatrex, Ian Murray and Anas Sarwar. The party in Scotland, gentlemen, is on a life-support machine. How many of you care enough about it to give up your Westminster careers and come to its aid at Holyrood?

SNAPS ON SATURDAY

Let's lose him...

What the hell did he have done to his landlord's lavvy that cost
nearly £5,000?

We pay for his private accountants to do his tax returns?
Why? Do they not have PAYE in the House of Commons?

Well, what do you think?

Seems to me to have mistaken YES voters for
whatever the hell he's got on his top lip...
He looks like a candidate for Ukip.
Oh, and would you look at his avatar? What the hell?

Why not? It makes a LOT of money
and no one from parliament or the lords or the royal family
ever gets killed. It's a win win for them.
And it takes the Jocks' minds off this damned separation thingy.

I can reasonable vow that.

What a bloody insult to Pigs and Dogs.

Enjoy a wee bit of showing off, Dave?
Love to watch you eat humble pie when the old
girl gets her hands on you. To the Tower.

Hmmm... Labour are a bit confused about all this
NHS stuff. Probably too complicated for them.

THAT'S ASDA PRICE ?
Well, they can keep it.

Unless you starve all of us it's just not going to work.

It's Coco the Clown

Typifies the difference...

Worry Labour. You used to be able to count on this voting fodder
to ensure your gravy train lifestyles.

So, that didn't take very long.
I hope the queen cuts your head off

RANDOM THOUGHTS

So, let’s see…

That’s nearly a week since the referendum and so far:

The vow or pledge or whatever it was, has been put on hold by Labour because they have discovered that the poor are poor and they need to do something about that all over the UK. 

The Tories have said that they stick by the promise, but they have to include England, Wales and NI in the devo plans, however, don't worry, they will stick to the timetable of it being ready for the General Election in the UK in May next year. So clearly they think it's going to be a fairly easy job.

Massive Fail. Again.
Just as well he's incredibly rich and doesn't need the job

No one cares what Nick Clegg thinks because Willie Hague has been given his job...and in any case, he is insignificant.

Labour has announced a raft of policies, like increasing the already pathetically low and utterly unlikeable minimum wage by 25p a year, freezing child benefit, taking away the pensions’ winter payments and coming down like several tonnes of bricks on the sick, the skivers and the dispossessed so that they will learn to think back to Iain Duncan Smith and the McVile creature as some sort of very ugly fairy god mothers.

YES

They seem to have no comment on the fact that the retirement pension is the lowest (bar Mexico's) in the developed world, and a good £80 a week less than that in Eire, Guernsey or Jersey.

The Tories, for their part, have promised England that they will reduce the amount of money that Scotland gets under the Barnet Formula, leaving out that that is what they have been doing year on year.

Someone found a massive amount of oil in Scottish waters and oil is going to last a lot longer than 2017 as Alistair Darling once suggested.. 

Ah, that makes it all clear then

We are about to go to war in Iraq for no particular reason. In these matters it is always a good idea to read Craig Murray. I suspect there is always money to be made from wars when your biggest export is weapons, and you sell them to everyone.

The Bank of England says that it is likely that interest rates will have to go up rather sooner than they had thought, so the more expensive mortgages that they warned you would come in an independent Scotland, are on the way in the UK.

I'm hearing that the prime minister has been forced to apologise to the queen for breaking the convention that their conversations are private, and for showing that she did hold a political view on the future of Scotland. 

You tell her, Dave....

I understand too that the queen has issued a statement saying that she hopes that Scotland will come together again. I would respectfully suggest that the queen sends for his bunch of vowers and tells them that when they make a promise they bloody well keep it.

Nothing to worry about. We're in good hands

And Ineos has secured a licence to frack Scotland. Comforting to know that they are such a well managed and responsible company.

ERM... WHAT?

Scottish Labour is not a political party any more that Yorkshire Labour is a political party. It is a branch office of the British Labour Party.

In reality, although they did elect Johann and Anas as their leaders, any matters of importance are dealt with by London, where the authority lies. 

And even before the referendum if is unlikely that they were Scotland's largest party. Prior to Friday the SNP had just over 25,500 members. Although Labour won't tell us how many members they have in Scotland (apparently it's a secret) someone on Twitter guestimated that they might have around 13,000-14,000, or just over half the SNP's number.

Since the referendum and Mr Miliband's assertion that there are more important things to do than bother with the vow (what is he doing, competing for the Nick pledge broken promise prize of 2014 or does he just want to find out if Gordon Brown has lost his Nokia aim, now that he's been made to be a liar?) the SNP's membership has soared to over 60,000 (Just heard from Roseanna Cunningham ast 22.00 hrs).

And for extra measure the SNP has 494 politicians in Scotland, whilst Labour has 485. 

Labour tells us that they have had a few hundred people join in the last few months though, so it's not all bad for them...

The only way they can be Scotland's largest party is if we are talking about British Labour with a couple of hundred thousand members... but in that case, aren't Milibean and Harperson their leaders?

MOTOR MOUTH CAMERON BLURTS OUT QUEEN'S VIEW ON REFERENDUM

He's not really prime ministerial material.

STV reports that David Cameron has been overheard talking about the queen’s reaction to the news that Scotland had voted No in the independence referendum. 

Bloody SPIV Cameron, he's really not our sort of person.

Cameron was talking to former mayor Michael Bloomberg whilst in New York for a UN meeting, and microphones picked up him saying that the queen "'purred down the line" when he relayed the news.

His exact words were… "The definition of relief is being the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and ringing the Queen and saying 'It's alright, it's okay'.  She purred down the line."

So now we know that the Queen was on Better Together’s side.

We already know that during the campaign she authorised her grandson to announce his wife was pregnant, although it could easily have been kept quiet for a few more days, and we also know that so-called newspapers interpreted something she said to people at Crathie Church as indicating that she was on the No side.  But now we know straight from the mouth of her English prime minister that she was against the Yes campaign or 45% of the Scottish voters.

It is particularly  unfortunate that Cameron should decide to share private and confidential discussions between him and the queen with Mr Bloomberg, especially in a public place where microphones were in evidence. Cameron's government have been instrumental in removing senior members of the royal family from Freedom of Information legislation, in order to keep their interfering with the process of government secret from prying Guardian reporters. It seems a little unfair that facts kept from the British taxpayer who fund the queen's family's luxurious lives, should be randomly shared with foreigners who happen to share Mr Cameron's right wing politics.

I’m sure that the queen will be mindful in the future that when she tells him anything, he is likely to brag about it to anyone who will listen.

He went on to complain about the polling companies having given him ulcers with the close polls. He said he wanted to sue them.

So the lesson from this is, if you want a knighthood or a seat in the House of Lords, polling companies’ management, tell Cameron what he wants to hear. And if you’re the queen, don’t tell the loud mouth anything. He is, as my granny would say, a gossiping old fishwife.

So that didn't take long

That's the trouble with trying to be the same party
in two really different countries.

Practising for a coalition with UKIP?

Who indeed...? Anyway, don't you worry your, erm, pretty
little head about it. There's cereal plates that need washing.

Bless him, David Torrance get's Salmonded!

++++++++++++++++++++