THEY MUST BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT...DESPITE THE UNIONIST PRESS'S CONSTANT CRITICISM

In an email to Munguin from the first minister I noticed the following two paragraphs.

I was both delighted and humbled this week to see that people of Scotland continue to place their trust in the Scottish Government to listen to them and act in their best interests.

The latest social attitudes survey found that 73 per cent of people in Scotland trust the Scottish Government, the highest level since 1999, compared with 23 per cent who trust the UK Government.

Now all we usually hear from the Press and the BBC is "SNP bad" But Holyrood Magazine's poll shows that the Scottish public doesn't actually agree with them.

And it is interesting that 76% of the poll of 1,288 people thought that the Scottish government should have control over most of what happens in Scotland.

We've long believed that the Press had much less influence over the public's opinion than it thinks it has. For example the D C Thomson press in Dundee produces the ultra conservative Dundee Courier, Evening Telegraph, and the once ubiquitous Sunday Post. 

Once upon a time one of these papers, maybe more (and the now-defunct People's Journal) went through the letter boxes of the vast majority of Dundee homes, and yet they stubbornly voted Labour at every election, until very recently, when they have solidly voted SNP.

Any you have to ask yourself how many people who read the Sun actually vote Tory.

The Press and Journal were running a story earlier saying that the Scottish government is the most trusted in Europe, but it has mysteriously disappeared. 

I wonder why.

CAN WE PLEASE JUST CLOSE THE PLACE DOWN AND GET RID OF THE UPPER CRUST SKIVERS FOR ONCE AND FOR ALL?

According to Wikipedia, Irene Adams (who had served as her husband's secretary during his time as MP) won Paisley North by-election on his death in 1990. She employed her daughter and son-in-law to work in her constituency office.

When the constituency was absorbed into Paisley and Renfrewshire North she was persuaded to stand down with the promise of a peerage, in order to allow sitting West Renfrewshire MP Jim Sheridan to be selected to fight in the May 2005 election.

On 13 May 2005 it was announced that she would be created an aristocrat, and was created Baroness Adams of Craigielea, on 28 June of that year.

Retrospectively she was ordered to repay over £5,000 worth of misclaimed expenses when the Telegraph let out the secrets of the extent of our MPs' thieving.

So first of all I'm concerned that Adams managed to get herself elevated to the aristocracy by agreeing to the party’s requests, or demands, that she stand down to make way for Sheridan the Great Britain Football Team manager! It's accepting a bribe really. That is most certainly not what peerages should be about.

Our Irene, sorry, I should speak of her with due deference, what with her being my social better... Her Aristocratic Nobleness the Baroness Adams came to the attention of the Telegraph’s investigations in 2009 when it reported that she had managed to get her grubby noble mitts on around £200,000 in the 30 months that she had been in the aristocratic chamber, despite having only spoken once. 

When the Telegraph had the temerity to ask her about how she managed to cost the country so much for absolutely no return whatsoever, she refused to speak to them, saying she was in interested. 

Aww bless! The common people at the Telegraph just wouldn't have a clue how to interest someone of the upper classes. Munguin didn't even try to contact her (he knows his place), although he covered her story, here.

I’d say that one intervention, her set piece maiden speech was a bloody expensive piece of democracy, but of course there is nothing democratic about the House of Lords, even less so when the ennobled personage is not there on any merit at all, but simply because the party wanted shot of her.

Well she’s back in the news again bless her, because of all the Scottish Labour Lords, guess what, totally undeterred by any criticism, she is the most expensive, despite still not having said diddly squat since that first speech. Last year she cost us £53,000 for absolutely NOTHING.

Of course she is not the only one… just the most expensive and most useless one.

How long are we going to have to pay our share of this anachronistic waste of time and money?

Let’s shut the place down and sack them all. If they want to keep their toy town titles let them. Just let them use them to get jobs or try getting Iain Duncan Smith to part with some dole money.

DOES ANAS WANT TO BE JOHANN; DOES GORDON WANT TO BE ETON DAVE?

The Labour leadership in Scotland’s branch office appears to be in a bit of disarray after it was suggested that Deputy Leader Anas Sarwar refused to back Johann Lamont to lead the party into the 2016 election.

Apparently when asked by the Sunday Post if Johann Lamont would be Labour’s candidate for First Minister in 2016, Mr Sarwar refused to answer and would only say that Ms Lamont is currently leader of the party. Well, yes, I think at least 25% of the population of Scotland already knows that, Anas.

His refusal to back his leader comes amidst claims that he is being pushed out of the No campaign  with one Labour MP saying “…it’s probably true to say he’s been sidelined” and mocking Mr Sarwar’s new role as amounting to little more than “looking after a big red bus.” 

What does it all mean? Does Sarwar want to be leader himself? Could he be leader from London? Or does he believe there will be no London and he will be standing in an independent Scotland? Is he backing someone else for the job? Have they resigned themselves to the fact that Johann is simply not leader material and is an electoral liability?  Does Johann realise herself that she isn't cutting the mustard? Who else is in the running? Jackie? Margrit? Spud? Wee Doogie?

Labour was already split this week after Gordon Brown’s intervention demanding a Prime Minister to First Minister debate between David Cameron and Alex Salmond only days after Alistair Darling claimed he should be the person to debate with the First Minister. Brown, of course, is probably not best pleased at the idea that his sworn enemy from the Downing Street years is bigging himself up as the man to take David Cameron’s place in the Scotland debate, speaking for the United Kingdom. 

Maybe Gordon feels that as an ex-Prime Minister and a North Briton himself, HE should be the one to take David Cameron’s place. But the truth is that unless Mr Cameron made a public declaration stating that he would stand by whatever answer any of them gave in any live debate with the First Minister, either of these people might as well stay at home. 

It might make for an entertaining evening, but we couldn't trust anything they said... not, of course, that I'd say that you could trust Cameron. It's just much more difficult to go welch on deals when they have you on camera promising them.

WHAT ON EARTH IS THIS NEW DWP REGIME ABOUT?

I’m a little worried.

I heard that Mr Cameron was going to get a little harder on people who persistently refuse to work, and who scrounge off society. And, having worked in the business of getting people into work for more than 10 years, I thought ....Good.

He’s going to do something about the ones that the DWP are afraid of... you know, the ones who’ve been done for murder or GBH or armed robbery, and who present a thug-like exterior to the Job Centre and who, therefore, are excused most of the 'back to work' rubbish that successive governments have churned out.

I also thought that it was likely that he would target the “I’m going to have babies for a living” set. The ones that every time it looks like the dole may be catching up on them get themselves pregnant again. “Oh... I’ve fell pregnant... I dunno how that could have happened” (Maybe the same way as last time and the time before and the time before that... just with a different partner.)

But I was wrong. According to The Sunday Post, Willie Durrent of Dunfermline was called to a “fit for work” interview while undergoing radiotherapy for head and neck cancer. He was being fed through a tube in his neck and the man has less than a year to live.

OK, you might think that the Dept of Work and Pensions, like the rest of us, is capable of error and that, when they were called to appraise them of the fact that he wouldn’t be able to attend and explain why, the clerk would have apologised profusely and given sincere condolences... you know, like human beings do when they discover that they have got it badly wrong and one of their number is terminally ill.

Well, that’s where you’d be wrong. To the Durrents’ shock, they were told that the meeting was compulsory and all the DWP could do was delay the interview.

No, “sorry you’re dying...” just “get your lazy arse in here for an interview or we’ll stop your benefit”.

Mr Durrent is not a compulsive scrounger. He has in fact worked all his life and he is 58. He is however dying of cancer, and that makes it impossible for him to work any longer. You’d really think they could do better.

ERM...WHERE AM I? WHO AM I? WHAT AM I?

According to the Sunday Post today The Rt Hon and Noble The Baron Foulkes of Cumnock has been making a bit of a twerp of himself, yet again.

During a debate last week on the possible new Forth Road Bridge, Highland MSP David Stewart took an intervention from his Nobleness.

Up he got and opened his mouth.... “Could my Noble Friend.. errrr...... Could my Honourable Friend....”

First of all the poor old thing woke up thinking he was in the House of Lords, then the House of Commons.....

Mr Stewart, who is at least in Foulkes’s own party and probably used to him, took the old fool’s blathering in good part, joking that the Dissolution Honours List was due at the end of the week, but he thanks the Noble Lord for his forewarning....

Ah well, there’s never a dull day when old George is about. At least he wasn’t pavement dancing with pensioners this time.

WHO ON EARTH IS THAT ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE SUNDAY POST?

One of the problems that the Leader of the Labour Group in the Scottish Parliament has is the fact that he is not Labour Leader in Scotland. Gordon Brown has insisted that, despite Gray being elected by the whole Labour movement in Scotland including MSPs, MPs, MEPs, Trades Unionists and members, it is Mr Brown himself and only Mr Brown who is leader of Labour in Scotland, or North Britain as he would have it. (Short pause for maniacal laugh.)

Anyway, that’s a story for another day. Today’s story is more about the other problem he has. One that a lot of bloggers have had a bit of fun with over the months. The fact that no one really knows who he is. The results of a survey some months ago suggested that he was recognised by about 12% of the population if I remember rightly. Overshadowed by the much more charismatic leader of Scottish Conservatives (who actually is the Scottish Conservatives' leader) and overshadowed by Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Scotland, Mr Murphy, Mr Gray had people scratching their heads, wondering where they’d seen him before... and deciding they probably hadn’t.

Well now all that will change. For Mr Gray has made the front page of “The Sunday Post”. For non Scottish readers this may mean almost as little as Mr Gray does to Scottish readers, but you should know that the Sunday Post is one of our finest organs. In its heyday it had a circulation that suggested that most people in Scotland bought at least 2 copies. It still probably finds its way into the bulk of Scottish households.

So what is he doing on the front page you might ask? Some magnificent policy statement? A huge breakthrough? A coup de grace, de foudre....d’etat?

Nope, none of these things! Much more predictably, Mr Gray, rather like his predecessor as leader of the Labour ... blah blah blah, has got himself involved in an expenses scandal. It seems that his campaign for the said leadership of the.... (well, you know) was partly funded by the taxpayer. Now there’s value for money! NOT.

According to The Sunday Post... and I quote...

It’s claimed local tax payers in East Lothian unknowingly subsidised Labour fund-raising events in Prestonpans.

Both Prestonpans Labour Party and Prestonpans Labour Club gave donations to Mr Gray’s leadership campaign and he launched his leadership bid in the club.

The local Labour club’s annual fund-raising barbecue in Prestonpans has been funded by the council for at least the past 14 years, at a cost of £6700 to council taxpayers.

So the local Labour club and party seem to have been getting money from the council tax payer, and, both then gave money to Mr Gray’s leadership bid. The Labour club to the tune of £1500 and the local party to the tune of £800.

Local councillor Paul McLennan has challenged the Labour party to reveal how much money they have received from council-backed events and to repay it.

A Labour Party spokesman claimed Iain Gray had accepted the donation from the branch in good faith.

“The matter needs to be sorted out between the Prestonpans Labour Party Branch and the council,” he said. "When that matter is dealt with, if any action needs to be taken on this donation, it will be taken.”

It seems to me that when politicians (of any party) are making a bid for leadership, they must be totally sure that there is nothing at all dubious about the funds with which they are doing it. There are too many instances of poor administration, bad accounting or lack of understanding of the law in the recent cases of Peter Hain and of Wendy Alexander.

It is all very well to complain about how busy they were being MPs or MSPs , or how they left it to other people to check. For some jobs that might be acceptable. But these people were standing for high office. Hain was standing as Deputy Leader of the UK Labour Party (some might have reasonably thought Deputy Prime Minister). Ms Alexander was standing in a position where she might one day be the First Minister of Scotland! If you can’t manage a leadership campaign and the money that that involves at the same time as doing your constituency work, how can you run the country?

As for what’s going on in Prestonpans, it’s up to them, I guess. But I don’t think that the taxpayer should be subsidising the Labour Party or the Labour Club, any more than it should be doing it for any other political party.


Hat tip to Madame Subrosa for pointing me in the direction of this story. This is one of the few households that doesn't take the Sunday Post.