THINGS AREN'T LOOKING TOO GOOD FOR BLAIR

It's not often, indeed very rarely, that I can say that I agree with George, but this time... well, what can I say? He's right.

And Alex is on this big time. Of course I more often agree with him.

As Mr Salmond says, it's not just Blair; it's members of his cabinet, MoD, Civil Servants, Number 10 staff, and probably most of all, Jack Straw.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I was interested to read that the USA has despatched 12 F15 fighter jets to Iceland and The Netherlands in a bid to deter Russian aggression.

I thought we were spending up to £200 billion of hard working families' tax money (see, we can do that too) so that Russia wouldn't be a threat?

If Moscow is so frightened of our nuclear capacity why does the West need to threaten them with American bombers?

I'd have thought that it was high time there was a summit meeting between the Russian and American presidents, although there will be those who would argue that in his last year, Mr Obama has little authority. In nine months the reigns will be in someone else's hands. Heaven help us if it is Trump's. 

Or maybe this is what it's all about? A genuine cross party fear of a Trump presidency?
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Interesting comment today in the Mail (yes, who'd have thought it) by Peter Hitchens. 

To his great credit it seems he's having second thoughts, and very desperate ones too, about the mad Thatcherite (and Blairite, Brownite, Cameronite) passion for privatisation.

He reflects on how it has ruined his country. As always with these refection type articles, there is an element of "la vie en rose" (I mean seriously, no one looks back lovingly at British Leyland, do they), but there is a considerable amount of good common sense in what he's saying.

Nothing is about service; everything is about making money, and yet we are putting at risk our health service, or at least the English are, and in doing so putting at risk the service that we all rely on to a great extent at some points in our lives.

Contracts in social security awarded to private companies are measured by results that can be quantified, not by results in compassion or satisfaction. 

It's become a very different union from that which existed before the Thatcher revolution. And on balance it's not really a better one.
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Interesting tweet I came across this morning! I reckon that 6000 jobs in an exaggeration (UK government's figure was far smaller), and that 15,000 is underplaying the job losses. 

 

Russ‏@DickGraceless

The argument for #trident is that is costs £120bn and saves 6000 jobs The argument against #steel is it costs £1.5bn and saves 15,000 jobs

Of course there are more arguments than jobs in both cases, but SLAB's best argument for Trident is not that it makes Scotland safe, but that it supports (I think Baillie said) 11,000 jobs.

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While we are talking about steel, I see the old argument rehearsed so frequently by Ms Lamont has shown its face again. The Forth Crossing is being built with Spanish and Chinese steel. This is becasue the bulk of the order for steel is for a type of steel that is no longer made in this country since the Tories shut Ravenscraig. The diminution of steel making in this country has been going on for a long time. No British company tendered for the work, because they couldn't provide the standard of materials required. Of course the Scottish government could have done a Thomas Bouche and made the bridge out of unsuitable materials... after all, that ended well!

Oh yes, and there there's this... 

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"Oooooops, them pesky kids stitched me up!!"
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I thought this was an interesting Facebook comment...

Nicholas Roach commented on an article.

Yesterday at 11:52 · 

Let's be clear; the "special relationship" that's so often trumpeted (every pun intended) as vitally important is only "special" when it suits the US to consider it so.

Every major European country thinks they have some sort of "special relationship" with the US, and changes of presidency effects them very marginally - unless and until, of course, the US elect a serial chancer and known dingbat to the Oval Office.

The Trumpet is such a chancer and well-known serial dingbat.

Trump is not likely to forgive nor forget that his "plans" to lay waste whole swathes of the Scottish coast were thwarted, his mindless opposition to a few offshore wind turbines was defeated and the little matter of a several hundreds of thousands of people who signed a petition to ban him from the UK may colour his opinion.

All the above and more are likely to sway his decision (should the US electorate be stupid enough to vote for him as POTUS, that is) to treat us to another round of that, oh so one-sided, US-interpretation of the "special relationship".

  

We only have a special relationship with the States if there's something for them to gain; you know, such as:

1 the UK cravenly following them into a series of unwinnable and largely illegal wars, 

2. the UK being their tame and caged attack donkey and main disrupter-agent within the EU,

3. being required to sponsor Turkey's application to join the EU,

4. making sure that TTIP has absolutely free rein to pillage and prosper from our public services, or what's left of them, unlike some of our more enlightened and less impressionable neighbouring countries, and,

5. the reciprocal deportation system which only works in one direction - deportations to the US to face justice happen often, the other way around, they never happen at all.

Whoever becomes the next POTUS will, as always in recent decades, call all the shots, hold all the cards and have a pair of loaded dice in case the other two don't achieve exactly what they want, when they want it and how they want it, and who will be the fall-guy in case things go wrong - and they so often go wrong, don't they?

If Trump is elected, the question everyone asked in the 1950/60s changes:

It used to be:

Shall I dig a nuclear fall-out shelter?

now becomes:

How deep shall I dig my nuclear fall-out shelter?

Just imagine the near future: Trump in the US, Cameron/Farage in the UK, Marin le Pen in France and a plethora of lesser fascists erupting around Europe - not a happy thought, I think you'll agree?

Discuss...

THEY'VE DONE IT: PUNCHING ABOVE THEIR WEIGHT TO THE GATES OF HELL

Oh well, it is done... The British Empire is yet again at war.

And how they cheered and they clapped, although clapping used to be, or so we were told, discourteous. Perhaps we misunderstood, and it's only discourteous when second class members of the house of Commons do it. Fine when Eton and Oxford Toffs do it.

So, they voted with their consciences, and that's all you can say. And if or rather when, it all goes wrong, I hope their consciences are strong enough to take it. it's on their shoulders.

As Alex Salmond said (see Wings article), there were many good speeches. I was impressed by people who were asking why, as Salmond and Corbyn did, we weren't trying to deny Daesh their finance, their weapons, their communications systems. People from opposition and government benches alike.

At the end of the debate in scenes that will be broadcast around the world, people saw our Hooray Henrys cheering and shouting for joy because they're off to kill people from the Middle East again. Well not them obviously... the plebs do that for them.

I suspect that this scene may be used in the recruitment material of the Daesh movement. 

Scotland voted 57-2 NOT to go to war, but hey ho...there we are again pooling and sharing the vast financial expense of punching above our weight while our people queue up at food banks and our OAPs have the second worst pension in the developed world, leading to deaths for malnutrition and hypothermia. And now we'll also have to pool and share death and destruction.

I'm not sure at the moment how Wales or Northern Ireland voted, but I know that this is not being done in Scotland's name. Of that much I'm proud. 

Of the rest I am deeply deeply ashamed.

WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR? ANTI SNP HEADLINES!

A man who might be expected to know something about the area.
But as Craig Murray will tell you, they never listen to people who know anything about anything.

Aye, so you will be.

Playing soldiers while other people suffer.

What would a country like Saudi Arabia need £3.9 billion of arms for?
Oh yes, ISIS.

I wonder if he has worked that out yet.
And worse, whose side he will be on when it's all over.

If only you would lead.

Sums him up. Please, I want to be Winston Thatcher and
 Margaret Churchill all rolled up with Tory Blur.

For those who have a passing interest in the truth, Alex Salmond did indeed unveil his portrait today in Edinburgh at lunch time.

He had attended First Minister's Questions in his capacity as a MSP, and afterwards hosted a reception for veterans. He also briefed MSPs on the Syrian situation. 

He knew about the Syrian situation, you see, because he himself had been briefed the evening before by the Cabinet Office (along with some other Privy Councillors), of exactly what the Prime Minister would say. There was no need for him to be in Westminster.

It should also be noted that when The Prime Minister makes a statement, the leaders of the opposition parties are required to give a response. That would be Mr Corbyn first  (not Hilary Benn), then Angus Robertson (not Alex Salmond). That's the way it is done. You'd have thought they would know that kind of thing.

The Prime Minister has said that a debate will be held next week on whether or not to go to war.

Mr Salmond's duties in Scotland were pre-existing. The notice of the Prime Ministerial statement was made latterly.

It says something for the state of the press and of the opposition parties that the best that they can do to fight the SNP is to tell half truths and apply innuendos to the comings and goings of Alex Salmond.

Perhaps if there were a policy or two from the opposition parties in Scotland... and I mean policies that don't fall to pieces within an hour, the newspapers would be able to propose a better and brighter future for us under Labour or the Tories.

 As it is, of course, all any of them can do is bleat SNP bad.

WHEESHT, WOMAN!

So... yesterday the press was alive and crawling with criticism of Alex Salmond's "behave, woman" comment directed at a Tory minister during his speech in the Commons. 

This despite the fact that it is a perfectly normal thing to say in certain parts of Scotland, and could equally have been  "behave, man", had Anna Sourface not been female.

Now, it's fair to say that Eck probably should restrict himself to speaking the Queen's English when he's in the English parliament, because Scottish expressions are likely to be misunderstood by the main stream London media. However much we are a part of this union, they don't speak our languages and they don't understand the way we say things. We should rememebr too that they a gie easy offendit!

We, however, do understand theirs, and these comments could be interpreted as anti Scottish, even if they were said in jest. 

They are not offensive to me because, honestly, even if I put a great deal of effort into it, I simply couldnt find a tiny part of me that gives a stuff about what some stuck up Tory woman from South Cambridgeshire thinks of us.  Still it's hardly the way to show respect for fellow countrymen, which is presumably what she considers us to be.

I look forward to the press making as much of that as they did with Alex.

I wonder too if, given today's announcement, following the post mortem, that Charles Kennedy's untimely and sad death was caused by haemorrhaging which in turn was brought about by long term over-consumption of alcohol, that those people who took to Twitter to blame the SNP for 'killing him', would like to issue apologies, or at least retract their tweets, and consider looking for careers outside of criminal pathology at which they are clearly not very good.

LESSONS HAVE NOT BEEN LEARNED

I've had it in mind for a few days to write something about some of the interventions that have been coming from London politicians and commentators about the SNP.

So many of them have now put their two pennyworth in that it seems to be almost impossible to keep up...

Sarah Vine, (close mate of Cameron's wife, and wife herself of the funny looking, snippy wee man who reminds me of a Hogwarts house elf, and who managed to lock himself in a toilet on his first day as Chief Whip) warning that the SNP with its small numbers of MPs in a British parliament, would turn the country into a communist dictatorship.

We all know about Mr Major insisting that no one who is not standing for the parliament should be allowed to pass an opinion on the subject. His announcement of where he is standing is expected shortly.

The along came Boris, with his usual lack of tact and diplomacy, to liken Nicola Sturgeon to king Herod, the bloke, you'll remember, that had all the kids in his country killed, lest one of them turn out to be competition to him in the king stakes.

Then you get Cameron announcing that he intends to set up inspections of the work of the Scottish parliament... So much for the most power for any devolved parliament in the world, anywhere. Way to get our approval, Poshboy.

 Anyway, I've spared you from my thoughts becasue I saw THIS and could never have bettered it. 

Every day someone launches an attack or vitriol at the SNP or at Nicola personally. 

What I can't understand for the life of me is why, over the last few months, they haven't learned that that kind of thing doesn't actually do a lot of good.

OK. In the referendum they alternately love bombed us and blasted us with hatred. A teary-eyed Cameron one minute saying how it would break his heart if Scotland left (presumably because whatever else he was remembered for ...very little I suspect... he would go down in history as the prime minister who lost Scotland)... and the next they screamed at us that we would be broke within a month, they'd take our currency away from us, bar us from EU membership and put up barbed wire border posts. We really were too wee, poor and stupid to do what Iceland could do with its 400,000 population.

None of that worked. The more they ranted, the more the YES numbers rose. From 22% at the beginning to over 50%. They panicked, got Gordon to come out of retirement to promise Federalism, because they had known all along that that was the most popular option... and, as we know, they won the day 55/45.

But we also know that the day after the queen purred down the phone at him, Cameron stuck a great big evel knife in Gordon's back. Voting on English laws in the UK parliament would exclude Scottish MPs. (Not desperately unfair in my opinion: why should a Scottish MP vote on English matters for which he has no responsibility to his constituents?) But effectively this meant that Labour would almost never again really be in power, even if it won a UK election. The Tories would nearly always be able to vote down Labour's legislation for England, because the Tories would nearly always be in an English majority.

Game, Set and Match, Cameron.

The Eton boy famously said that he had Alex Salmond bagged, stuffed and mounted on his wall after the referendum. Given what has happened since he may well live to regret that!  What he really had on his wall though, was Ed Miliband. And Ed had signed the vow, and Gordon had made it credible. Sheesh, how they must have broken out the good Bolly that night.

If I'd been in any of the major English-based parties at the beginning of the campaign for May 2015, with the SNP in the ascendancy, I think I'd have been looking back at the near past to see if I could learn from the mistakes that were made which led to a post referendum situation where the losers were the winners; where the SNP was the third largest party in the UK with probably around 14 times the number of members in Scotland as their nearest rivals, Labour. And the Greens had at least as many members as Labour.

I might well have ruled out another vow. I'd certainly have ruled out Gordon "I guarantee all this.... oooops" Brown.  And I think, given its obvious popularity, I'd have ruled out gratuitous insults of the SNP and its leadership.

Who do they impress, these insults? I wonder if even solid Labour voters like to hear Sturgeon being likened to a child murderer by a posh boy whose party has overseen thousands of deaths of our poorest people by cancelling their social security payments just weeks before their deaths. 

Maybe some people are amused by these things, but you don't convert floating voters with that kind of talk. 

If you don't believe this, look at the debates where the unionists ganged up on Nicola and Patrick, or just Nicola, and then look at the SNP membership spike that followed them.

I can't quite work out why the London parties are so intent on committing political suicide.

In the referendum campaign I always thought that they would find a way at the end to scupper our hopes. 

I couldn't, of course, guess what it would be. You'll remember that I proposed it might be a terrorist plot to bomb Holyrood, foiled by the might of the British Empire's secret police. (Not difficult if they had organised it.) 

Or maybe the death of a senior but expendable royal.  

Or the wedding of Harry to someone or other, anyone will do,  and great rejoicing and celebrations throughout the land. 

I must admit I never saw coming the Vow or the Clunking Fist guaranteeing it.

I still think it quite possible that they have something up their sleeve for a couple of days before the election. 

Please let it be Gordon again. That would just be so funny.
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PS.... A propos de Gordon, I have just read this tweet from Iain:

Iain Macwhirter ‏@iainmacwhirter  9m9 minutes ago

It's #indyref 2! "All we need is Gordon Brown trundled out like Mons Meg for one last blast against the Nats". My Herald column tomorrow.

ANYTHING TO HELP OUT AN OLD FRIEND...

Munguin kindly agreed to do some
publicity for Mr Salmond's book

...So he kept a copy for himself.

But, seriously, big thank you to Alex Salmond for being a great sport with Munguin, and for an interesting evening talking about this book, the referendum campaign, and the future. Even if you didn't agree with his politics, he has to be one of the most engaging speakers you've ever heard.

Midweek Mélange

It won't stop them trying to blame Thatcher on the SNP, but it's nice to know the truth.

Right. So 105 years later... and the House of Lords is still there!
How's that working out?

Well, you won't be able to until we are independent, but you could help the Labour party fulfil their promise, if a little late...

Bizarre that there are so many Labour MPs decrying this budget, when Ed wouldn't change it at all...

As usual, nail hit firmly on the head.

Don't worry Rachel. We know that you metropolitan lot can't be annoyed with the unemployed.

Lynton Crosby or John McTernan. I get them mixed up.

Somebody tell Jim Murphy that this man existed?

Mark yourselves out of 100.

Poor old posh Ed.

|We know this. They know this. But they cling to the idea that the 'Great' in Great Britain means something other than
simply 'Large' by comparison to Bretagne (Brittany).

So how can this non legal entity be a separate party with its own leader and different patriotic Scottish policies
when it cannot even be sued for wrongful dismissal?

Isn't it funny...?

When will we see Tory Threat...? far far more worrying.

Amazingly, as they feel so strongly about it
they are going to make them illegal.

David Cameron is reported in the Daily Telegraph to have told friends he regards SNP leader Alex Salmond as "bagged, stuffed and mounted on my wall".  Might have been a tad premature.

WHY DO THEY KEEP TALKING ABOUT A COALITION THAT HAS BEEN RULED OUT?

Why do the Tories keep on about how unthinkably bad a coalition between Labour and the SNP would be for the UK?

As far as I understand, Nicola Sturgeon has ruled out any such coalition. Alex Salmond said the same thing yesterday on the Marr show. And Ed Miliband appears to have officially ruled it out too.

In the event of a hung parliament the SNP has said that it will not do a deal that will put the Tories into Number 10. 

It has not said that it wouldn't do a similar deal to put Labour in... and, let's be honest, one of them has to be there. Clegg, or his successor as Liberal leader, is not going to be the Prime Minister.

The reality, as I understand it, is that every government has to be able to get a budget through parliament.  That means getting it through the Commons as the aristocrats are not allowed to overturn a budget. That is the essential in whether or not a government will work.

An arrangement whereby Angus Robertson's team would negotiate and agree on a budget, is surely something that would allow Miliband to go to the Queen and say that he could command a majority in the Commons.

After that, without a coalition, any party can vote on those things with which it agrees, and vote against those things with which is does not. The SNP would vote on law which broadly met its social democratic principles and against law which did not.

Surely that is the way it should work in any case, unless you apply the Bain Principle, whereby you refuse to  back an individual policy on the basis that it has been initiated by a party you hate.

There is no rule that says you have to back a particular party all the way. Even within the present Tory/Liberal coalition there are issues where the parties have not backed each other. (Most notably the Tories refused to back the Liberal changes to the House of Lords, which would have seen some element of election, and the Liberals refused to back Tory changes to the House of Commons, which would have given them an advantage over Labour.)

Mr Miliband has not yet even been asked if he would accept this kind of arrangement. Perhaps it would be an idea for someone to ask him?

The SNP has said that it would vote on English-only matters where there was a consequence of these policies for the funding arrangements in Scotland. Surely that is only fair. If an England only policy is going to result in a alteration to the funding in Scotland, then that affects the Scottish population and Scottish MPs deserve a voice.

Equally it seems reasonable that matters which have no consequence in Scotland, should be left to English or English and Welsh MPs to vote on, as appropriate.

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SNAPS ON SATURDAY

Puts a whole new meaning on
 "It's a crime that he's unemployed".

Good to see that we punished the people who caused the last crash,
and are causing the next one. Oh wait...

Aye Danny, you're important right enough.
You and Gideon together. What a team!

Dave, solver of problems.

How does this man function in the real world?

Another of Danny's right wing mates.

Yeah, nice one, Anas...

I see that the guy with the 8 (it was 10) YES badges
was pulling Dimjim's chain!

Two cheeks of the same butt.

And they will support you on Trident too.
You're practically the same party.

See Eck  got a new job?

That's Britain. As it always was, and always will be.

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It appears that the opposition don't understand finance or the various constraints put upon the Scottish government by Westminster. 

It also seems that no one reminded them that the underspend had actually been reported to parliament in June of last year. Does their finance spokesman not pay attention to finance matters?  

As has been demonstrated so often in the past, their researchers don't seem to be up to the mark. 

Sadly, none of the other parties seem to have a grasp on finance either, otherwise they would surely have pointed out the error of the Labour attack, which Dugdale threw, yet again, at the First Minister on Thursday.

I thought it was worth putting up John Swinney's comments about the underspend in full: 

The Scottish Government firmly believes Scotland will prosper best when all revenue raised here stays here.

Meantime, there is an obligation upon us to ensure what funds the UK Government does allocate to Edinburgh are managed responsibly. That’s why this government ensures that we put every penny we receive towards improving the lives of people in Scotland.

In contrast, Brian Wilson’s comments (Perspective, 10 January) betray the same problems understanding ­public spending that must have bedevilled the Labour Party when they managed Scotland’s finances.

Mr Wilson’s colleagues managed to forget to spend £700 million in one year and left more than £1 billion in a Treasury bank account which could have supported our economy and public services.

Thankfully the SNP secured the release of that money.

I can assure Brian Wilson, and your readers, that if the £444m of underspend he ­refers to was all money over which I had control, then every penny of it would be being invested properly to mitigate the impact of ­Westminster cuts and welfare reforms.

The £444 million underspend against the annual accounts-based budget, ­reported in the Final Outturn Report and in the media last week, also reflects variances in Annual Managed Expenditure programmes and other technical non-cash accounting budgets – for example depreciation and impairments.

So such underspends therefore do not reflect a missed opportunity to spend more on public services – much as Mr Wilson and his Labour ­colleagues try to claim otherwise. The reality is that the  fiscal underspend the Scottish Government has available from 2013-14 to invest in public services is only 0.5 per cent of our budget, or £145 million.

Far from keeping it a secret, I announced it to Parliament in June, and confirmed that it would be carried into the next year – and that every penny would be allocated to support people in Scotland.

On top of that, some £31 million of financial transactions was also brought forward to support vital investment in housing and regeneration. This is funding restricted by Treasury rules and can only be used for the provision of loans or equity investment beyond the public sector and has to be repaid to HM Treasury in ­future years.

We agree that Scotland’s schools and hospitals are worthy of the best possible levels of investment and, until we are responsible for our own financial affairs, they deserve better than the successive real-term cuts to which Scotland’s budget has been subject and which the Labour Party clearly intend to continue.

JOHN SWINNEY

Deputy First Minister