EU-wwwww

by Panda Paws

Is it 24th June yet? 

I, for one, am fed up hearing about the EU referendum and the constant 24 hours non-news cycle. I will not be influenced by anything Boris Johnston says but worryingly some people might be. However, the most worrying thing is that the Scottish elections on 5th May are being sidelined, as are the other elections taking place on the same day.

When Nicola, Leanne Wood and others complained about the timing being disrespectful of the devolved areas in this family of nations, the kids were told by daddy Cameron to go to bed and were given no supper. The Yoons mocked their objections saying “are you cybernats too stupid to follow two elections at the same time”. Well, no we aren’t, but it appears that MSM are, since hardly a word has been said about these important elections.

And it’s not like there aren’t interesting things to discuss. The UK Elections twitter account has just predicted another SNP majority with 70 seats. Okay several polls also suggest another supposedly “virtually impossible” majority, so it’s not the first. 

But it’s their other predictions that caught my eye -the Tories to be second on 25 seats with Labour a dire third on 22. 

The Greens to get 6 (list) seats, though unfortunately only one in Lothians meaning the excellent Andy Wightman, a land reform campaigner would miss out. Definitely Holyrood’s loss!

Furthermore it predicts that Willie Rennie will not be back as the LibDems would have no list seats in the Mid region on this poll. Tragically UKIP are predicted to gain 2 list seats. How much of this will be due to their excessive media coverage because of the EU referendum? Or is it that the ultra Yoon vote is leaving Labour and coalescing around the Tories and UKIP further damaging SLAB who have already lost yes voters to the SNP? 

Please discuss, or rather don’t, as MSM goes into Project Fear 2. Floods of migrants, jobs lost, floods of migrants, national security threatened, migrants, economic instability, migrants. Did I mention immigration? 

Asides from the immigration angle, it’s déjà vu all over again. Stephen Hawkins you were wrong it is possible to travel back in time – to September 2014 in this instance. Only this time both sides are being forensically scrutinised rather than just one. Hence proving the theory of parallel universes where things are almost, but not quite the same.

On a more personal basis, my constituency is predicted to change hands, Labour to Tory. The Tory candidate will convert from list to constituency. The Labour incumbent would become unemployed. Labour are predicted to get three list seats and he is fourth. Oops. 

Obviously polls are not results and things can change between now and May, but one would think the local media might a bit more interested in these events. But no, it’s EU this and EU that with a soupçon of McGarry detained – unfortunately in Turkey, and my how the Scottish media became deflated when that was made clear, and SNP cuts which miraculously in other parts of the UK are Tory cuts.

It’s clear to me that the Scottish elections are of great import, at least to the folk that live here, but will people even know they are on before the polling cards arrive? Will turnout – traditionally not great- be lowered even more leading to those Yoon calculations about just how few voters voted SNP. Funnily enough, it will be a higher % than voted Tory in 2015 but those calculations never make it into the Yoons’ spreadsheets. 

Or is it their abacus?

Murraysaurus:  distinctively and tastelessly marked
making him easy to avoid

Clearly it’s not going to be the Unionist extinction event that May 2015 was where the only dinosaurs left were the Murraysaurus with its distinctive markings; the Fluffy Muddledon, a particularly ponderous and slow species, which roams close to the green and pleasant land that it longs to enter and be accepted in and the Liarsaurus a treacherous and untrustworthy big beast with a distinctive cry of “help me Rona”, that inhabits the Far North. 

But that doesn’t mean that the Scottish (sic) media should ignore the Holyrood elections almost completely.

Yes, the EU referendum is important. But first things first. May comes before June, at least on my calendar.

JUST A FEW RANDOM THOUGHTS

Hmmm. Wee change of mind then, Gordo? 

I'd not do the horses if I were you, George.

sooo, we're worse off, but you're a Lord.
I think we see what you were up to.

All that lovely Scottish money being spent in London.
All these top executives with six figure salaries.

Ridiculous organisation.
Should be reduced to one tv station and one radio station.
And a maximum of £10 licence fee.

Don't know which is worse!

Achievements? ...and you've had so many John.
Just look at Jim Murphy's bid to be FM.
Snigger

Dumb and Dumber?

Can't do it. Kez has already spent it on... oh, loads of stuff.

You have to wonder when it wasn't.

Be wary of big charities with big offices and
 eye watering salaries for their executives.
And watch out too for begging letters from charities that don't operate in Scotland. RSPCC; RSPCA, etc.

But we aren't building them for the old or the disabled, becasue they would cost too much money. We'll just need to find a bin for them.

Gross? On no, we couldn't stand 144 of them.

Here stands a proud man. 

One of Munguin's mates, I have no doubt.

Munguin's suggestion for replacing the Tories.

I see George's image consultant who got a 50% pay rise has left him standing pigeon toed or is that "toad"?.

You must run into old Nigel Lawson over there, Jon.
He's running 'Britain Out' from his home in France.

That is how it all works...

Any doubts now?

YOU CAN ALWAYS TRUST THE SUNDAY MAIL...

Hmmmm.... This is the Sunday Mail's Interpretation of the findings. Quoted below from Lalands Peat Worrier are the comments of Lady Paton, one of the judges in his trial (with additional commentary from LPW).
It is possible, of course, that the Sunday Mail knows more about law than Lady Paton and Lalands, but somehow I doubt it. So it is, more than likely, just a pack of lies. A attempt to make any unionist, even a self confessed liar, from a party which Malcolm Bruce tells us, lies as a matter of course, look better than the sad old lying cheater, desperate to hold on to his £75,000 a year job, that he is, was found by law to be, and actually admitted he was in any case.
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"Rejecting Carmichael's evidence as lacking credibility and reliability, the judges also concluded that the northern isles' MP's lies were motivated by his tough election in Orkney and Shetland.

"Lady Paton writes: "the inescapable inference, in our opinion, is that if the SNP became a less attractive prospect, the first respondent’s chances of a comfortable majority in what had become a “two-horse race” in Orkney and Shetland would be enhanced," holding that she was "satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the false statement of fact was made for the purpose of affecting (positively) the return of the first respondent as a Liberal Democrat in the constituency of Orkney and Shetland."

"A strange kind of vindication to be trumpeting from the lawns of Parliament Square, you might well think."

If this is "a good week"; something the Liberal Democrats are proud of, with Mr Rennie and Mr Farron appearing on tv and radio giving him their complete support, I fear for them. Open acceptance of a liar and a cheat as a senior member of the backbench team, is an affront, even to what little democracy there is in the UK. And that is what he is, even if technically they could't find him guilty under election law, of trying to rig the election.

Incidentally, as Liberal Democrat spokesman for Home Affairs (shadowing the Home Secretary), won't EVEL be a huge disadvantage for him in his work? Most of the Home Office business is involved in English Only matters. He may have an opinion, but he won't be able to vote on most of it. 

I know their numbers are limited, but surely there must have been an English MP available for this largely English post.

GREEN LIGHT TO LIE FOR BRITAIN

So Alistair Carmichael has won his court case. I'm sure that we will get a professional reading of this from Lallands Peat Worrier shortly. In the meantime, for what it's worth this is the opinion of a non-legal mind. It's probably worth remembering at this point that they bulk of the population has non-legal minds.

It has been ruled that Carmichael broke no laws in the course of his election campaign following the Frenchgate exploit.

That he is a cheat and a liar, no one, including him, disputed. 

Remember that having won his election in the Northern Isles, he admitted that he had lied and smeared Nicola Sturgeon, the French Ambassadress and the French Consul, and lied to the Press and to the people of his constituency. He had the decency, at least, to write to the First Minister apologising for doing so.

None of that was in dispute. What was in dispute was whether smearing an opponent with fabricated allegations in the course of an election broke any electoral law.

The ruling appears to have shown that it did not.

It  seems, then,  to this non-legal mind, that we must accept that UK electoral law allows for Right Honourable gentlemen or ladies to use their position and access to private information on meetings with elected politicians and diplomats to smear other parties and to lie to the press, about having done it.

It allows them to waste the time of the Cabinet Secretary carrying out an investigation into the source of the smear with all the waste of time and money that that involves whilst all the time the politician knows the truth and protests innocence to his/her constituents.  

It also allows them to further smear the integrity of ambassadors and consuls of other countries by implying that they too, are lying about reported conversations.

It accepts that despite the style "Right Honourable",  it is OK to lie to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Prime Minister and an underling in their department of state, to your prospective constituents and to the United Kingdom. (The assumption is that Clegg, Cameron and Mundel knew nothing of these lies.)

It seems to allow for a person having done all that, and having been elected, to keep that position and salary for the duration of the parliament, despite the possibility that, had they known that he was a lair and a cheat, his constituents might have been less inclined to vote for him.

So now we know.

Malcolm Bruce was correct when he pointed out that all politicians lie and if they lost their seats on account of that, the Commons would be empty.

We also know that no matter how "honourable" or "right honourable" an MP is, (s)he is legally allowed to lie her/his backside off.

OK, I guess we suspected that anyway. But it's nice to have it as a statement of legal fact.

Another Great British value.

Just let's remember that at the next election.

You could be excused for thinking that you should believe NOTHING and if you assumed that, as they are legally allowed to do it, they will be lying.
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IN OUR VIEW MR FARRON HAS MADE AN ERROR OF JUDGEMENT

Alistair Carmichael has the backing of Tim Farron.

I think it was the wrong decision. A new leadership is the time to sort  out problems and start afresh.

Alistair Carmichael is a liar. He admitted it.

It's true that Carmichael made an apology to Nicola Sturgeon for lying about her but, let's be honest, he didn't do it voluntarily or honourably. 

He did it when he was found out. He did it when there was no other alternative but to own up... after the Cabinet Secretary had conducted an inquiry at considerable expense and discovered that he was the culprit.

What he did was to authorise the leaking of a memo which he knew to contain inaccuracies, about a political opponent, and with the express intention of affecting the result of the UK general election. 

As a Cabinet Minister and a solicitor to boot, he must have been aware how wrong and indeed dangerous that was given that he was also risking the relationship between the UK government and the government of the Republic of France. 

Because, in trying to damage the first minister of Scotland and her party, he involved the French ambassador to the court of St James. This was serious stuff. Well above the pay band level of a humble highland solicitor. His actions encouraged the newspapers to call the French Ambassador and her Consul General liars, along with Nicola Sturgeon.

When he was asked about it he compounded the crime by denying all knowledge. He knew nothing about it. Of course that cast the shadow of blame over the much more important and powerful Foreign Office and their many staff. It wasn't long before that was dealt with.

In my opinion it was a stupid act designed to affect the outcome of an election which all indicators suggested would be disastrous not just for his party, but all other unionist parties. 

At the time, as now, Carmichael was not just "the Hon" he was "the right hon", a style given to senior politicians who are considered advisers to the queen. He showed himself not to be in the least bit honourable. He probably broke the law, and he most certainly acted dishonourable.

Of course the admission didn't happen until he was re-elected as the MP for the northern isles, by a very much reduced majority. The Liberal stronghold followed the trend of the rest of Scotland but not quite enough to unseat him. He is now the only Liberal Democrat MP in Scotland.

There is a public campaign in the islands to get him to resign and re-stand, if he wishes, in a by-election, in order to see if, in the light of his late admission of guilt, the people of the islands still wish him to represent them. 

I don't think that that is unreasonable. No one is demanding he be sent to prison,  or fined or even  sanctioned as if he had been 2 minutes late for a jobcentre appointment. 

No one is suggesting that he be debarred from standing again for the seat.

People simply want him to put himself to the electorate now that they know he is a self confessed liar and a cheat, facts about his character unknown to the people when he was elected.

Farron says that people deserve a second chance. That is what is being proposed. A second chance for him to sell himself to his electorate and a second chance for them to pick their MP. This time on a level playing field.

It seems to me that Mr Farron should have asked him to resign his seat and re-stand. There is no guarantee that he would not win it again, but this time the people would be voting for the real Carmichael.

I think Farron missed his chance to start putting the Liberal Democrats back on the rails after their disastrous coalition with the Tories and its fallout.
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Afterthought

It is possible or even probable that other people knew about that memo. 

It seems likely that Carmichael's bag carrier, the present cabinet secretary, Mundell (known to us as Fluffy), will have been aware of it. 

Given the fact that it the affair escalated quite seriously, mainly because of the involvement of the French Ambassador, it's not unlikely that Nick Clegg and David Cameron had to be appraised of it. 

It would be unthinkable that they wouldn't have asked Carmichael for an explanation. Did he lie to them, or did he tell them the truth and they hid it until after the election?

Like so many other things in this country, we have no idea and probably never will.

And...

While we are on the subject: Message to Cameron. When parliament says no to a war, that probably means no. 

If you decide (which I guess, under royal prerogative, you may) to send the troops anyway, and sod parliament, remember that there's always a chance someone will find out. 

Troops are people and they have families, in case you'd forgotten, you total despicable dipstick.

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Finally congratulations to the SNP MPs who will all give their pay rises to local charities. Further congratulations to any other MPs who decide to join them, and I'm sure there will be many. 

When other people are living on poverty wages and have had no pay rises for  years, it is despicable that MPs should feather their own nests.

THE GRACELESS TELEGRAPH, THE NEWSPAPER OF STAB IN THE DARK TORY JOURNALISM

Following the publication of an article in The Daily Telegraph on 4 April 2015, headlined “Sturgeon’s secret backing for Cameron”, the Office of the First Minister of Scotland complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that The Daily Telegraph had breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice. (Pretty serious then. After all, if a NEWSpaper isn't accurate, then what the hell use is it, except a propaganda tool of a political party?)

IPSO established a breach of the Editors’ Code and has required The Daily Telegraph to publish this decision as a remedy. (IPSO appears not to have required an apology of any sort, because none appears.)

The article reported the contents of a leaked Government memorandum which claimed that at a private meeting the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, had told the French Ambassador that she would rather see David Cameron win the general election than Ed Miliband. The memorandum had been written by a senior British civil servant a week later, after a conversation with the French Consul-General.

The article said that these comments undermined Ms Sturgeon’s public support for a “progressive alliance” with Mr Miliband.

The complainant said that the claims were categorically untrue: Ms Sturgeon had not expressed a preference for a Conservative government or any views about Mr Miliband’s suitability as Prime Minister. The complainant regarded the newspaper’s decision not to contact Ms Sturgeon for comment prior to publication as a breach of Clause 1.

The newspaper said it had confirmed the authenticity of the document with two well-placed sources before publication. (Both of whom, it appears, either misunderstood what had been said or lied, so Telegraph, beware in the future. Politicians and their staff, in danger of being parted from their expenses, and cushie numbers are inclined to be economical with the truth!)

It was a contemporaneous note made by an experienced civil servant, and the newspaper had no reason to doubt its accuracy. (Except that it was wrong adn if they had just asked someone else for confirmation they would have found that out. However, that would have ruined a superb chance of undermining the SNP.) 

It denied having any obligation to contact Ms Sturgeon for comment before publication: it was entitled to publish an accurate account of the document. (It might not have had an obligation to ask Ms Sturgeon for a comment, although clearly both good manners and sensible journalism would have indicated the wisdom in so-doing and obviated the need for the later climb down.)

The Complaints Committee noted that the memorandum represented – at best – a second-hand account given a week after the meeting, which contained the serious implication that Ms Sturgeon had been disingenuous in her public statements.

The newspaper did not know whether the account contained in the memorandum was accurate. Nonetheless, it had published this as fact, without having taken additional steps prior to publication – such as contacting the parties involved for their comment – to verify its accuracy. (Given that one of the parties was the First Minister of Scotland, the other was the Ambassador of the French Republic to the Court of St James, and that there was a General Election campaign under way, it would probably have been prudent to check that this wasn't a dirty political trick...as indeed it turned out to have been.)

The committee established that the newspaper’s presentation of the account contained in the memorandum, in this context, represented a breach of the Editors’ Code. 

(The Daily Telegraph was always a solidly Conservative supporting newspaper. It's editorials were strongly Tory friendly. But until the mad twins, who don't live in the UK, took it over, it was an excellent paper for all that. Conrad Black may have been a crook and a fraudster, but he ran a tight ship. Now it is as ridiculous as the tabloid Daily Mail or Express. Its content is dumbed down and the standard of journalism is abysmal. Small wonder its circulation is falling like a stone. 

Even Carmichael, the disgraced former Scottish Secretary apologised to Nicola for his part in what was clearly a pre-election slur on the SNP and on Nicola. It's a pity that the Barclay Twins couldn't manage even that meagre level of good grace. Clearly infinite amounts of money cannot buy manners.) 

I wrote this last night, since when Wings has written an altogether better piece on the subject to which I direct you.

RELATIVELY RANDOM PICS

YOU CERTAINLY DO

BIT OF A WASTE OF AN EDUCATION IF YOU ARE ANYTHING TO GO BY

TRICKLE UP ECONOMICS IN FACT

HOW APPROPRIATE

NO SHIT SHERLOCK?

SAD BUT TRUE

WHAT A PLONKER

SMART MOVE GUYS

NASTY TWISTED OLD  WOMAN

NOT ONE OF MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS

SHADES OF CAMERON

OUCH

OH... 

HE PROBABLY THINKS IT NOT ENOUGH...AND WILL RAISE THE TARGET

YEAH, BUT GIVEN THAT ITS A TORY GOVERNMENT ISN'T THAT A PREREQUISITE 

WHAT CONTRASTS....

So this is life for some Brits

And this is life for others

And justice for public servants is dependent on class

We take rather different attitudes to who can break rules and who can't.

And some people face this embarrassment...

...whist others are just this embarrassing.