DON'T GO, OH PLEASE DON'T GO...

So today the posh Eton Tory makes a speech about Scotland, from the comfort of London. Plus ca change.

According to the Times, Reuters and the BBC he will be—

*    Talking about how British we all felt during the Olympics adn Jubilee. (You might have felt that Dave; I can honestly say I never heard anything, not once, from ordinary members of the public about it.  True, some Ukokers talked about togetherness and the Jubilee, possibly forgetting, possibly ignorant of the fact, that Liz is Queen of Scots as well as of Australia and New Zealand, not just the Queen of England, but ordinary people were actually moved a bit by any of it.)

*    Talking about how his grandfather once lived for a while outside Aberdeen, so that makes him nearly Scottish...almost, sort of.  I once lived just outside Grenoble. It didn't make me French.

*    Talking about how his father in law owns a shooting estate in Scotland where he, Dave, comes to indulge himself in aristocratic blood sports! Well, of course we are well impressed with that. That's what we expect of our betters.

*    Talking about how Britain has influence in the EU... (Hmmmm....What was it Francois Hollande said to you the other day, Dave, when you wanted the EU run your way? “Aller! Faire chier”, wasn't it? You do know that that doesn't mean “Fair! Cheers!”, Dave, don't you?)

*   Talking about how important Britain is in the UN, Nato, G Whiz 8, etc. (Did you check with one of President Obama's entourage that it was OK to say that Dave?)

But Cameron is, even according to the BBC, rattled by the improved polling for the Yes Campaign. He is worried that whilst No is coming across as utterly negative, the Yes side's imagine is positive and inspirational. 

They are all clearly concerned that Alistair Darling has none of the talents necessary to make the UK sound exciting, or Scotland's future in it one to which people could aspire. 

And it's true, whatever you think of Alistair and his talents, he is hardly an inspirational figure. He is a poor speaker, is terrible at interviews and all round is a bit of a dry old stick. All you remember from his performances is the number of times he has said "you know" adn how much he hates Gordon Brown.

So perhaps not unsurprisingly Cameron finds it almost impossible to find someone from Westminster with a wide appeal in Scotland.  But when, this morning, the Today programme asked Downing Street for someone to interview about the speech, amazingly they were directed to Tessa Jowell!!

Tess is a Labour backbench MP who appears to have got herself knighted for being the opposition spokesman on the Olympics, and who justified her involvement by explaining that, although she was from the opposition and a Londoner, she had lived (just like Dave's grandfather) near Aberdeen so that meant she could speak for the government.

It seems remarkable that the Conservative government in coalition with Liberals had no one else they could put forward. As it turned out they would have been as well putting the useless Fluffy Muddle or Teddy Carbuncle up for interview because, oh dear, what a lamentable performance. But I suppose from their point of view it was advantageous that it was a Labour politician who sounded stupid, and not one of theirs.

Downing Street appears to think that Tessa
has appeal in Scotland

If she said ‘the spirit of Britishness’ once, she said it 10 times in the utterly unconvincing short interview. Even the BBC man Justin Webb seemed somewhat underwhelmed by her performance (especially when she meant to say that it was for ‘Scottish’ people to decide, but actually said ‘British' people!).

But even when they are love bombing us, they can't help but come back to what REALLY matters to them: Britain’s Greatness in the world; its influence and its clout.

 

Dear old Doris, what was it you said
about a pound spent in Croydon? Oh yes!

In typical Tory fashion they seem to think that this fabled global importance is of primary concern to the equally fabled “hard working family" that they talk of, (who is to be found up and down the country), which is, in reality, struggling to pay the electricity bill, gas bill, afford a new school blazer, buy food, get new tyres for the car, and pay off Christmas. Even pensioners who remember a time when Britannia did rule the waves, would, I suspect, prefer to have a little less influence in the world and a little more heat in their living rooms.

In any case, there are 62 million Brits; when we go they'll lose 5 million. Why would that make a difference? According to English we are a load of subsidy junkies, with our free education, free medicine, free care for the elderly and endless claims on social security all paid for with their hard earned English taxes. They'd surely be rich without us? 

Unless, of course, they've been fibbing and they reckon that they would lose influence in the world because they would have no where safe to park their WMDs; and, worse still,  no income from our oil, whisky, industry, tourism, water, etc, etc.

We do wonder though (for a matter which is only for Scots to decide) why is Dave doing the “phone a friend” thing? If it’s not for English or Welsh (or Russians) to interfere; why all this telephonic interference? (It couldn't be that Dave has just got himself shares in Vodafone?) I feel I should now warn my English mates that if anyone phone's me and begs me to stay for the good of Britain, I will tell them to, erm, go away, and they may not hear from me for a while.

Well, maybe not for everyone...

  

If the prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland wants to convince Scots to vote to remain a part of his incredibly important and influential but utterly broke country, why doesn't he come to Scotland and explain face to face what wondrous benefits, apart from "clout" will accrue to us from this union? He must have something to offer rather than cuts, more cuts and yet more cuts and then permanent austerity. 

Why doesn't he come and debate with the elected leader of our government.  

Because he's scared stiff Nicola or Alex would roast him,
or because he's far too important to debate with a mere first minister
 who didn't go to public school

OK, Scots by and large don't like Cameron (I'm not sure the English do), but let’s be honest, if he wants to be the Prime Minister of Scotland, he really can't do it from the safety of his bunker in London or from behind a gold lectern in front of a golden throne in the Guildhall. 

He really has to have the bottle to show up here and debate with the First Minister of Scotland in the country he wants to keep in his empire.

RIGHT BACK AT YA COE!

Excitement is growing. All over these islands last night people could hardly sleep.


Was this because of the Euro crisis from which we are told we will never recover? No. Was it then because the Queen's diamond jubilee fandango had commenced? 


Nooooo. 


It was because a plane carrying the Olympic Torch, Coe, Nick and Anne had landed on Cornish soil to be met by no less a personage than Tessa Jowell (I wonder where Olympics minister Jeremy Hunt was?), and was due to make its way around these islands bringing the Olympic spirit to each and every one of us, who, after all, have footed the bill, and who won't be allowed to use the Zil lanes!


Well, of course, it got off to a stunning start today as does anything that Locog organises.


'A dozen disabled patients confined to wheelchairs were left bitterly disappointed following a mix up in the route of the Olympic torch relay. Residents of St Theresas were allocated a special council approved area on the roadside at the southern end of the beach near St Michael's Mount but their excitement at waving golden streamers and Union Jack banners for the torchbearer was quickly replaced with confusion. The Locog torch relay convoy of sponsor trucks and official vehicles whizzed by, but so too did a bus containing the torch and torchbearer. "It was more than awful to see, it was bitter, bitter disappointment," local resident Veronica Taylor said.' From the Telegraph.

So.... that's fine then. The "sponsors' trucks and official vehicles" of the "People's Games" whizzed by ignoring disabled residents and leaving them disappointed. Bravo Coe!


The BBC woman who was with Jowell last night waiting for the specially painted plane to land was almost manic with excitement, which bodes badly for the actual games. If they get this excited about the lamp (which after all doesn't date back to ancient Athens, or even to the start of the modern games, but in fact (embarrassingly) to Adolph Hitler's 1936 Berlin games (it's being nicknames the Nazi flame) the BBC will surely explode when the first event takes place. (Now wouldn't that be a pity!).


Ever eager to provide a service to its readers, and so that no one misses out on the overwhelming excitement of the occasion, Munguin's Republic links here to a map of all the exciting places that this exciting Nazi torch will visit, in order that you can be prepared with your bunting (handily also useful for jubilee street parties in the rain).

Meanwhile I understand that David Cameron, who has, of course, we understand, nothing at all to do with handing out honours, has instructed civil servants that athletes who win golds will not automatically get gongs. They will have to prove that they have put something back into sport before that will happen. (Suddenly remembering about legacy, Dave?) But I wonder what honours will be heaped upon those who have "organised" this shambles.  Lady Tessa? Sir Boris? and heaven knows what we can give Seb. He's got everything bar membership of the royal family.


I'm reminded that, when asked about the GB football team to be playing at the Olympics and the fact that the Scottish and Welsh FAs were very dubious about be subsumed into the English FA, Coe said:   "Yes to 2012 GB footy team – The Scots and Welsh? F*** 'em". (Footy!!!!... don't you just love it when posh people try to be common. Anyway, right back at ya Seb!!!


Well, there you go. The People's Olympics for all the people's of these islands.


Pics: (1) The authorities won't be happy that two Cornish flags and no butchers' aprons appeared in this photograph. BTW, has the fire gone out in that pic? (2) Dear old Annie carrying the flame off the plane, with Cleggie, Coe and Becks (surely Sir Becks after this). (3) Apparently this is British Airways' "moment to shine" (click to enlarge the pic). If so, all I can say is I hope they have a lot of polish, because it is, without exception, the worst airline I've ever flown, added to which, it's half owned by the Spanish!!!! 

Olympics: Another Day, Another Laugh

Because the transport system in London is at breaking point anyway, without the additional 3 million journeys a day anticipated to be made by the 800,000 spectators and 55,000 competitors and officials and VIPs, the Olympics minister, Hugh Something or Other, and the English Department of Transport have decreed that Londoners should try to... "think creatively and adjust travelling patterns, try different routes, stagger journey times, work remotely, walk or cycle to work" during next summer to avoid hold-ups during the Olympics.


Erm, it's just a thought, but, when they were bidding for this expensive extravaganza, did no one in London, like maybe Mayor Ken Livingston, or in the Westminster government, maybe Minister Tessa Jowell, or in the Olympics organisation like the head blokey, Coe, ever give a thought to the fact that there were people in London who had to get to work, school, to airports, to railway stations.... Did it never occur to anyone at all that the transport system just couldn't cope?


And what half wit came up with this advice;


to "try alternative routes"? If you've been going to work at a certain place for a fair amount of time, the likelihood is that you have already worked out the best route for you. Why would you change it;

to "stagger journey times"? So, how would that work if you're a shop worker, or a doctor, or policeman, a teacher, a train driver, or indeed most employed in the majority of jobs?


to "work remotely"? Yeah that will work with a lot of jobs, won't it? "I'd like two coffees and a rock bun, please"..."Well could you pop out to Epping. That's where the waitress is."


to "walk or cycle to work"? What if it's raining? What if you have bad feet or have to spend all day walking about? In any case, are there THAT many people that live so close to central London that they could reasonably walk?


I see that there is to be a trial for civil servants working from home to see if all the computers and networks are in place. I wonder how much that is costing us, and what budget it is coming out of? And what do we do if we want to speak to a member of staff in one of the Whitehall Departments? Phone them at home?

Not only that, but it's the first of three trials which is to take place before the actual event! What are they planning for? Nuclear war?


Another complete foul up in a fouled up set of arrangements for a fouled up games, after which I have no doubt Jowell will go to the House of Lords and Coe will...well, what can we do with him..? Make him Queen?


*****


Talking of Olympics and Fiasco, have you ever heard of anything as completely daft as this? Isn't a rather weird thing to do to take a baby to an event where you can't guarantee, for example not to be in a draft, or direct sunlight, where there maybe a lot of noise, or where absolute silence may have to be observed? But if people insist on doing it, surely they can't be expected to pay for a seat for someone who is going to sleep on their knee throughout.


*****

MARGARET MORAN MAY FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES

Oh Joy.....

At last the police are to investigate the behaviour of Margaret Moran, surely one of the worst offenders when it came to expenses.

Of course when the Telegraph released some details of how she had been fiddling, she was tout de suite on the telly saying that she would sue. That bravado (like Phil Woolas’s) disappeared when someone a bit brighter than her pointed out that...well, as she was guilty of all the Telegraph had printed and a good deal more, it might be better to shut up and hope it would go away.

It didn’t.

So today the Telegraph gets its own back on Mrs Moran for her little outburst by celebrating the fact that she is likely to be the 5th MP to be charged with abuse of taxpayer funded expenses. And in a lengthy article goes back over all of her little misdemeanours, including her most recent one, which unfortunately was caught on camera by undercover reporters working for a television programme.

The litany of alleged crimes for which she may be charged would make a lifer at H M Prison Barlinnie blush. False invoices, nonexistent companies, invented VAT numbers, work transferred from one address to another, some in houses which were not even hers, invoices for work which was never done, rejected claims re-presented with different wording...

...And of course turning up on a tv programme, being secretly filmed applying for a job as a lobbyist where she could use her influence (all girls together with Harriet Harman and Tessa Jowell) to help a private organisation seeking to have influence with the government. And all this, if you please, when she was signing off long term sick from parliament on full salary (having supposedly had a nervous breakdown over the expenses affair)...

Ho Hum... I can’t wait for this trial. I wonder if she will wear one of these idiotic hats (she must have got a job lot on expenses, orange, red....) to impress the judge...

ENJOY THE NEXT FEW WEEKS BEFORE THE "EFFICIENCIES" START HITTING YOU

Thank you, Gordon Brown. Thank you very, very much indeed.

Scotland faces five years of real-terms cuts in public spending and may not get back to today’s levels until 2025.

According to a forecast made by the Scottish Government an incredible £35 billion of public spending could be lost over the next 15 years. That is more than the entire budget for a year.

The government’s chief economic advisor Dr Andrew Goudie estimated average cuts to expenditure will be 3% a year until 2014-15 and it could take between 12 and 15 years before spending returns to levels in the last financial year.

The Scottish Parliament officials are already preparing for 15% cuts over the next three years.

Of course no one wants to talk about that kind of cut before the election, do they? They’ll argue about all manner of other stuff but no one will tell us the truth about just how hard the axe will fall on May 7. But this time, I feel sure, we are going to really notice savage and swinging cuts. We will pay for the bankers’ greed, while their bonuses go up again.

The trouble with this kind of cut (for they can call it efficiency till they are blue in the face; it will remain a cut. Pigs and lipstick come to mind) is that it inevitably means vast numbers of redundancies, and that adds to already massive unemployment. A few more on the dole may not make too much difference, but large numbers on the dole and you have depressed areas. Shops close, pubs, sports and leisure facilities. That, in turn, causes more unemployment and it’s not hard to see the spiral of depression.

In this atmosphere Mr Brown says he is going to provide jobs for anyone who has been unemployed for a year. Yeah right. Let me tell you he hasn’t a hope in hell. It’s all talk. It won’t happen.

You can only make so many cuts to staff before the public starts to notice that the quality of service, not high at the moment, has become even worse. What will he do, replace all the sacked public sector workers with his new scheme workers on minimum wage and with attitude.

Cutting public services is all very well, but that means fewer libraries, fewer sports facilities for kids, just when old Tessa Jowell told us that we were going to benefit from the London Olympics with more sporting opportunities. It means longer waits for services already stretched and it means fewer things for kids to do; fewer facilities for pensioners.

The government report says, “While exact details of the size and composition of tightening in the UK are not yet known, it is clear that public spending will be subject to a period of significant constraint in the years ahead. Scottish Government expenditure will not be immune from these pressures.”

What a bloody future. An oil rich nation like no other. How they must laugh at us in Norway.

WHAT IS IN STORE FOR LONDON IN 2012...AND THEREAFTER?

It’s been interesting reading about the events in Vancouver. The death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritahvili was a dreadful tragedy, but much else has gone wrong too. The warmest winter on record has meant that snow has had to be imported from higher ground and some events have had to be cancelled for lack of snow; there have been anti capitalist protests and protests from Vancouver citizens angry about how much money has been spent and how freedom has been restricted by the Vancouver Integrated Security Unit; the transport system has been found wanting; the home team has embarrassingly vowed to “own” the medals podium; the opening ceremony was marred by malfunctioning props. The overspend of 200% is frightening; it is expected to be decades before the city pays off its deficit. Finally there’s the worry of the vast number of cameras, security fencing and airport security which has disrupted the life of ordinary Canadians.

What does this presage for Londoners?

The first thing across my mind when it was announced that London was to host the 2010 Games was the question of security. In a post 9/11 world any large event has to be a potential target for terrorists. But if your country has been has been a leading protagonist in the Bush war against terrorism, then surely you have the security nightmare of the century on your hands.

So Londoners have a right to tight security. But there are worries that measures like spy drones, extreme stop and search and co-ordinated CCTV, introduced for the Games, may continue afterwards. Police have already been given powers by the Government to enter private houses and businesses to seize political posters during the Games. The idea of the legislation was to preserve the rights of the official advertisers of the Olympic Games (big business), but there are fears it may be used for other purposes.

Lord Sir Sebastian Coe has taken a party of 50 of his team to Vancouver to observe their games. (Why? There isn’t a single common event, and in any case would 5 not have been enough?) Perhaps he will have the opportunity to discuss these matters with the Canadian authorities and iron them out in the months to come.

The London Olympics overspend is gigantic. Tessa Jowell has promised us that the current figure of around £9.5 billion is the final amount. Some are less certain and there are rumours that any further overrun will be kept secret to spare government blushes.

The Olympics is out of hand. The need to “top” the opening and closing ceremonies of previous hosts will have to stop one day. The staging costs have become prohibitive. Cities, can be left bankrupted by the events; the legacy is frequently massive and useless stadia and massive debt.

The Games are too big, too costly, and too dangerous. It’s high time that the IOC rethought the whole concept.