TOM RELIES ON YOU TO PAY TO READ HIS DRIVEL

It seems that Tom Harris thinks that YOU should pay for his leaflets,
seeing that he can't get any volunteers to deliver them, and Labour has no money for postage.

++++++++++

Seems like it would be a waste of money anyway, whoever paid for it... given the somewhat unbelievable figures this morning.

Apparently the 2 non-SNP seats would be, wait for it...

Alistair Carmichael and

Willie Bain. YES, YOU'RE READING THAT RIGHT.

Just imagine, Willie Bain a minister ...?  'Struth!

TNS Scottish poll: 

SNP 54% (+2)

Labour 22% (-2)

Con 13% (-)

LD 6% (-)

Seat projection: 

SNP 57 (+51) 

Lab 1 (-40) 

LD 1 (-10) 

Con 0 (-1)

Who will try to get the best deal for Scotland at Westminster?

 Sturgeon 42%

 Murphy 8%

 Cameron 7%

 Salmond 6%

 Miliband 3%

Don't get too excited though. It won't happen like that. I'd be aiming for 30 seats, which in itself would be a fabulous achievement. Five times what they have at the moment.

But even Jim, so I am told, seems to be aware of his own vulnerability. According to a comment on Wings, he said that he will lead Labour into the General Election here next year, even if he loses his seat.

Wonder how Neil Findlay feels about that...

BLOGGER PROBLEMS... BUT SOMEONE IS WAY OUT IN FRONT (IF ONLY WE COULD REMEMBER HIS NAME)

I apologise for not being able to answer every comment made at the moment. Once again the site is playing up.

I've been trying to find out what is wrong with it, and I thought that it might be the poll, so I removed it. It appears NOT to be the problem, but I can't put the poll back...

Sooooooo.... I'd like to say sorry to you all for that.

The votes we had (23) in the short space of time that it was up (it had another 6 days to run), put er, what's his name again... you know, bloke, Labour, dark hair, not Ed Millimetre... och, it'll come to me, but whatever he's called, he's way out in front with 16 votes; Tom the Cabin Boy was second, but a very distant second, with just 4 votes and the lovely Johann just made the top three with 3 hard won votes. Ah well, you can't win them all Johann. But there's be another chance to go for it soon, I'm sure.

Still, it's all just a bit of fun and I'd venture to suggest that anyone who was voting here was unlikely to have a vote in the real election... so maybe the lamentable one hasn't given up hope yet.

Thanks again for taking part...

I'll get the technical department to look at the commenting problem, and hopefully normal service will be resumed shortly... In the meantime you can enjoy the pic the Deputy Leader.

TELL YOU WHAT TOM, WE'LL ASK THE TORIES NICELY TO SORT IT OUT FAIRLY

Tom Harris makes me laugh.

He was on the Today Programme this morning waxing lyrical about how diabolical it was that protesters shut down the “flagship” Topshop store in the London’s Oxford Street because he has a little tax wrinkle which, rather conveniently, involves him not paying any...

Our Tom was puffing and blowing with indignation. It was unjust to target Mr Green who provides jobs for thousands of people and clothes for millions more in his (Tom’s) beloved United Kingdom. If we were to blame anyone for Phil’s tax avoidance it should be the government, and he happily conceded that that mean the Labour government too! (Well he would, I suppose. I’ve wondered why Tom doesn’t cross the floor and join the Tories, and the only answer I can come up with is that they are too left wing for him.) Tom, the government won't begin to listen and you know it. So people either take this action or do what MPs would love them to do, and go back and watch Coronation Street and Brucie and his dancing Widdecombe. Or maybe you think we should picket MPs' houses as we can't protest outside your parliament?

UK Uncut the pressure group organizing the protest that shut Topshop, says that Green, who is a government advisor with the task of helping the government make economies in public services, allegedly avoids tax by having his companies which include Burton, BHS and Dorothy Perkins, registered in Mrs Green’s name. She is Monegasque and pays no tax here (or in Monaco, where the Casinos provide the money to keep the microstate going).

Activists from UK Uncut also picketed other shops from the Green Empire and warned of a list of hundreds of other companies which can expect the same treatment.

Figures vary, but at a conservative estimate tax avoidance and evasion cost the Treasury between £70 and £100 billion a year. If everyone paid their taxes there would be no need for the draconian cuts in public service spending announced by the government. And indeed we might be able to pay our senior citizens a living pension... Huh, fat chance.

The Tories come to power with big plans to wipe out malfeasance at the lower end of the social scale vis a vis benefit cheating and no plans at all for tax cheats. The Liberals have managed to convince them to do a little but at best we shall see up to £7 billion recovered.... A drop in the ocean.

More power to UK Uncut’s elbow. It’s time to stand up for ourselves. I’ll gladly join a protest in Dundee if there are any to be joined.

If anyone has any suggestions as to an appropriate home for Tom Harris’s views, please don’t hesitate to let the rest of us know.

Pics: (1) Tom, who, it seems, doesn’t use Topman himself; (2) Topshop’s no stranger to controversy. This protest in Edinburgh is about the use of “slaves” picking cotton in Uzbekistan for Topshop garments; (3) Saturday’s protest at London’s Oxford Street. Pay your taxes Green, or we’ll shut you down.

WE ARE RIGHT TO BE SUSPICIOUS OF BLAIR'S MOTIVES

Sometimes I wonder about where MPs live and if they ever meet ‘ordinary’ people (except in their surgeries to talk about the disgusting bus service and drainage failures). I mean socially, to have a normal chat with them. Does it ever happen?

I read Tom Harris’s blog and occasionally comment on it. I almost never agree with the guy, but that doesn’t matter really. He writes well; not surprisingly as he was a journalist in real life, and at least when you disagree with him he usually publishes your comment... although he rarely replies to it unless it is to put it down. I guess that’s not surprising really. He does get some very critical comments.

I was a bit surprised today though to see his wholehearted backing for Tony Blair over the donation from his book earnings to the English British Legion, and a slapping down of the British public for being less than enthusiastic about Blair’s actions and for being suspicious of them.

I realise of course that one has to be loyal to one’s leader, even ex-leader, and that the right winger Blair was probably a bit of a hero to Tom who always seems more like a Tory than a Labour man, specially a Scottish Labour man. (I wonder if Blair would even know who he was.)

Some might say I should get out more, but in the last 10 years, I have to say that I have never yet met a person who liked Tony Blair or who had any kind of respect for him. The nicest thing that I have heard said of him is that he was better than Brown… but that really isn’t much of a compliment. I’m therefore surprised that the reaction should come as a huge surprise. Maybe Tom just moves in rarefied right wing circles in which it is considered correct to invade countries because your senior partner’s deputy wants their oil, regardless of the hundreds of British troops whose lives you ruin… or end, and the hundreds of thousands of “the enemies’” ditto.

But not only do I disagree with Harris’s robust support of his beloved Tony, but I reckon that he’s way wide of the mark about it only being in Britain that people would be suspicious of self serving slime balls like Blair. I’m sure that the French would be equally suspicious of anything that the imperious Sarkozy might do that seemed half decent, or for that matter of Chirac (but then would he ever do anything decent?).

He ends his short piece with this:

“But the sneering and sheer nastiness in the response to this gesture is nauseating and shines a glaring light on a side of the British character of which we should not be proud.”

Nah Tom, it shows that we have your wee mate bang to rights. He’s a slug!

Pics: The horror that Blair inflicted upon Bagdhad's innocent population in persuit of approval from Washington. And Tom Harris, one of Blair's few fans.

SENIOR CITIZENS WILL EXPECT PROMISES TO BE KEPT

Last week David Cameron was courting the so-called “pink vote” with a video interview with “Gay Times” part of which Tom Harris has posted with some well chosen words. It really is well worth a watch if you like a laugh.

Today it’s the so-called “grey vote” that he’s after (I just noticed that it was last week gay; this week gray... I wonder when it will be Brown!). What I’m thinking is... is this as erm inept as last week’s courting....?

Cameron said he wanted 'dignity and security in old age' (well, he’s not going to say the opposite, is he?) and he promised to protect the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes (I guess the latter will be in England).

He agreed that the older generation has a vast amount of power at the ballot box, being as there are so many of them and that they tend to vote.

Mr Cameron restated the Tories’ commitments to re-linking the state pension to earnings, a hugely expensive reversal of the iniquitous reforms of Mrs Thatcher’s in the 1980s. He also committed to freezing council tax for two years as the Salmond government has already done in Scotland.

He said that he was aware that many, many pensioners lived on incredibly tight budgets and that as a result increases in electricity prices, gas prices, or council tax, were hugely difficult for them.

He said: “We are facing a very difficult situation in this country with huge budget deficits, massive problems with the Government’s finances. So we have to be very careful about the policies that we make but I think there are some things that we can do to help.”


The Conservatives claim that a single pensioner on an average income will be more than £110 a year worse off under Labour because of what they are calling ‘tricksy’ changes in the budget. They party claims that this 2.5% rise in basic state pension is £59 less than if it had been increased in line with inflation, and pensioners lose out too because of the income tax allowances freeze.

Cameron said: "Who would ever have thought a Labour government would hurt pensioners in such a devious way?" And in that matter I agree wholeheartedly. What kind of people cheat OAPs, and have done so for so long. Barbara Castle must be spinning in her grave.

Cameron added: "They (Labour) go around scaring pensioners, telling you that the Conservatives are going to cut the winter fuel allowance, cut pension credit and end free bus travel and TV licences for over 75s. I can promise you, these are lies, lies, lies. You have my word. If we win the election, we will protect all of these things."

You will be held to that Mr Cameron. All of it including the dignity part. There is currently no dignity in the way that some of our senior citizens live, and it is up to you to start to fix it, regardless of the country's financial situation. It is more important that people over 65 live in a decent and relatively comfortable way than that bankers get bonuses or MPs and Lords get expenses. Make sure you see to it David.



Pictured: Mr Cameron, and a random illustration of how some of our people, that's you and me, spend our last days.