WE IN SCOTLAND WILL CONTRIBUTE TO HER IN ENGLAND'S STATE FUNERAL

According to The Mail on Sunday (OK 'niff said) the Westminster government has agreed to meet the full cost of a state funeral for Mrs Thatcher.

The paper announced that it will take place at St Paul’s Cathedral, at her own request. (Imagine being so self important as to ASK for a state funeral). Apparently it has not yet been decided if she will lie in state in Westminster Hall.

This means that a woman who destroyed the fabric of our society by encouraging greed and denying the existence of that very society (presumably because she had no part in it), tearing communities apart, wrecking the industrial base of the country, concentrating all the UK’s talents in the finance and insurance industry (great idea with hindsight, eh Maggie?) and setting the path for the rich getting obscenely more rich, and the poor getting third world poorer, will be honoured in the same way as Winston Churchill (whom she liked to pretend she knew), Nelson, Wellington, Palmerston and Gladstone.

Even the Queen Mother was not accorded a state funeral.

What a joke!

Plans are well afoot, it would seem, as Thatcher is getting more and more frail. Organization is in the hands of Malcolm Ross, former Master of the Royal Household (as opposed to mistress of it, which was the job of Mrs Parker-Bowles). He apparently organized the funerals of Margaret and the Queen Mother so he's good at it.

According to the paper the reason that Thatcher is to have money we don't have lavished upon her is that she reversed Britain’s post war decline (really?); she was a woman (really?) and she won three elections (against Neil Kinnock? I could ahve done that), and that she won the Falklands War (although it was only a conflict at the time, despite the fact that she thought it put her on the same level as Winston)

So... given the situation we are currently in, and were in during most of her premiership, I’m disinclined to think much of the first reason; the fact she’s a woman is a bit loose, allowing another 30 million or so people to apply; winning three elections also puts Blair in the frame, and as far as the war is concerned, I don’t remember seeing her in the Falklands until it was all over, so I’m wondering how she managed to win it. I do remember that she claimed full credit for sinking the Belgrano ... and the taking of 323 young lives. Well done Mrs T, you must be proud.

I hope that the government has considered the security threat that this funeral will pose; and the fact that it will give people all over the country the opportunity to demonstrate...unless of course, like at the Royal wedding, the police decide in conjunction with the palace, that peaceful demonstration will be illegal.

One thing I'm glad about. Clearly if we can afford another extravaganza like the wedding, we must have more of less paid off the deficit, so hopefully VAT and petrol duty will come down in the next few weeks.

STAY PUT ANNABEL: YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE THE SCOTS WILL LISTEN TO

There have been calls for Annabel Goldie to join the ranks of the departing leaders at Holyrood. She has said she won’t go.

I say good for her. Why would the acceptable face of the Tory Party resign?

There have been losses, small compared to the other two parties, but losses nonetheless. However, I think that without Goldie, who is liked by Scots (she was behind Alex in popularity, but above the other two) the losses would have been far worse.

It’s an image problem. The Tories are associated with a variety of things, mostly old, mostly stuffy, and the first thing I would do is change the name and make it independent of, if associated with, the London Party. For as long as it is called the CONSERVATVE party, it will be associated with Thatcher and Forsyth.

They are poison...Thatcher appears to have left the public arena now, but every time that man opens his mouth with an idea so counter democratic, he makes the Tory’s situation worse.

The people of Scotland voted for the SNP only 3 days ago; they slaughtered Labour and Liberals and holed the Tories enough for them to be talking about ditching Annabel.

And then this memory from the dim and distant past puts a proposal that he will introduce a measure in the unelected House to spike the duly elected government’s independence referendum.

This is a government which the system was designed to prevent ever being elected... and yet they were, by sheer dint of numbers. With an overall majority of 10. And Forsythe wants to spike its guns a couple of days after its election?

You see what I mean about these people? They live in another world and have begun to see themselves as above democracy. “We put in a system you Scots weren’t supposed to be able to win through. Somehow you did. However we’ll spike you in the Lords.”

So I have a message to Forsyth.

Will you bloody well listen you silly little man? You may be sitting in an unelected house of peers; you may even be considered by your colleagues to be an elder statesman (although you were only ever SOS for Scotland, hardly a big gun), however, there is a “just elected” government in Scotland. Just elected with an unassailable majority. Listen to what the people have said. Don’t try to thwart democracy when it doesn't throw up what YOU wanted.

It is claimed that Alex Salmond hid the independence theme right the way through the election. Rubbish! I doubt if anyone who went to vote doesn’t know that the SNP is the independence party.

OK, it was NOT the story that people were asking about. (I went to a few hustings and it was never mentioned once.) But even if there are some people who are unimaginably stupid, and thought we were a unionist party, both Tavish and the Subway man short work of that with their “IF YOU VOTE SNP, YOU ARE VOTING FOR INDEPENDENCE” campaign, which of course was a lie. You were actually voting for a VOTE on independence, among a great number of other things. But hey, that’s politics.

So Tories, by all means have your conference; find out what went wrong and act on it. But remember:

Annabel is well liked, and a huge amount of the blame must rest with Cameron coming up here and telling us we could do better. You need to take into consideration that we are aware of the cuts, job losses and misery that you are causing. And finally tell relics like Forsyth to sit quietly in the Lords, collect their drink money, and SHUT UP.

Alex Salmond used to Praise the Lord when Thatcher came to campaign in Scotland. I imagine he must feel the same about Cameron.

And every time Forsyth opens his mouth the SNP cheer and go up in the polls.

RANDOM ELECTION TIME THOUGHTS

Have you noticed that the latest London government catch phrase is “in the national interest”? In recent interviews Nick Clegg said it, Cameron said it, Tess May hardly said anything else, Danny Alexander and Michael Moore said it.... I suppose they are trying to tell their supporters that they don’t like each other at all, but they are biting the bullet and tolerating each other “in the national interest”. And maybe they even think that we, or at least some of us, will believe it... instead of believing that they stay together out of sheer naked ambition and fear of humiliation should they be the shortest-lived government since...well, forever, I should think.

The “No” campaign has been telling us how awful AV would be and how we would be stuck forever with weak and unwanted coalitions, whilst FPTP, would ensure strong firm government with sizable majorities. So, something must have gone wrong. After all the London coalition is about as popular as a cornucopia of slugs at the Chelsea Flower Show (yes that is the collective noun for slugs) and it was elected by.....? Whereas the Scottish government, which has a majority of 10 (sizeable given the number of members) was elected by ....oh remind me... how was it elected again?

I was reminded on Thursday night after seeing Paul Air Miles Martin of what a graceless little man he is. A bad looser, he just couldn’t bring himself to congratulate the SNP on their victory. He kept on in an aggressive tone that Labour would hold them to account for every single promise they made in their manifesto. The irony seems to escape him that that is exactly the job of an opposition party...to hold the government to account. I’m surprised he didn’t think they did that in the last parliament. It was certainly what we paid them for. As a son of a baron (chuckle: even one that the House of Lords didn’t want) the unlovely Paul is entitled to the style “The Honourable” before his name. Well... how about that?

I once met Margaret Curren, and in fairness I thought she was not a bad Minister for Social Justice. She and I travelled to a site in Dundee together for her to meet people my organisation had helped to find work there. She seemed a competent woman, on top of the job and furthermore she was good company. So I was disappointed to see the shrill, angry, inarticulate version of Margaret on the election coverage on STV. You used to be much nicer Margaret.

Talking of the TV election coverage...and I can only really speak for STV’s which I thought was excellent (I can’t bear to watch Dumblebum on the BBC)... why is it that they invite MPs in to talk about what’s going on in OUR parliament? I mean they don’t get MSPs or AMs in to comment when they’re electing the English/UK parliament. And in any case isn’t it a bit of a waste of time? All they say that it is “too early to draw any firm conclusions”, and that so and so, “fought an excellent campaign on the doorstep” and was “an exceptional candidate”. What I did enjoy, though, was Bernard Ponsonby’s knowledgeable comments and those of the professor of politics who analysed the results, and trends.

Nick Clegg and Cameron have agreed that we will hear no more about electoral reform now, the AV referendum having been run and any change well and truly trounced. So, I’d agree, the public made it clear they didn’t want AV, not surprisingly seeing as how many babies it would seemingly kill, but we still haven’t had any say on whether we want proportional representation. Have we?

NOW THE HARD WORK REALLY BEGINS

Pic: Munguin, celebrating the SNP victory.

People at elections often say that a win here or a win there is historic, even if it's not. But this time it really is. From borderlands to the north coast and islands, from mountain villages to central industrial city constituencies, from east to west and on to Gaelic speaking islands, last night there was a seismic shift to the SNP.

I was enjoying watching the STV coverage on-line with emails back and forward with Danny in the USA. Then my internet went down and I couldn’t get it back, so I watched the coverage on tv from bed, intending to go to sleep after the first few seats and had been declared. But as the crashing victories came one after the other, I just couldn’t switch off. It seemed like I was experiencing something ground breaking in my country and I felt that, although I was alone, I wanted to be a part of it. So, there I lay, eyes drooping from time to time, all night, until STV stopped its coverage at 6 am, always thinking that surely it wouldn’t, couldn’t, go on like this.


But as we all know, it did.


I should have had more faith. As Nicola pointed out: They said we wouldn’t get a parliament in Scotland, and we did. They said the SNP would never be the government and we were. They said that no party would ever form a majority government in Scotland, and we are going to. So, we prove over and over that the unimaginable can happen.

I was happy tonight to hear her say that there would be no change in the governmental style. We may have a majority of the seats, but it doesn’t mean that we have a monopoly on wisdom.


So let those who will work with us and contribute constructively come forward. In fairness both the Liberals and the Tories have done this grandly over the last four years; Labour rarely.

But Joanne Lamont has said that that is what they will seek to do.


Let’s hope that that is true. Some of the attitude last night from Labour commentators was shameful. The bitterness of the Hon Paul Martin and bitchiness of Hon Margaret Curren was sickening. But we’ll rise above it. I hope they will too.


There’s a lot to be done and a smaller amount of money to do it with. But we must make it work for the sake of Scotland.


It’s been great hearing all the happy posts from internet friends today. From David in Japan to Danny in Missouri and Lord Snooty who seems to be in his French residence at the moment and of course from mates all over Scotland. I just wish John Brownlie had been in the country to share this, and that Sophia Pangloss would come out of retirement and give us a twirl.


The next 5 years is going to be hard, but it’s going to be great fun.


As old Wendy would say “Bring it on”.

WHAT ON EARTH GOES THROUGH THIS MAN'S HEAD

There are times when you wonder about the sanity of the British Prime Minster.

He went into coalition with a Liberal Party which wanted Proportional Representation and indeed made it a condition of their support in that coalition.

To their eternal discredit the Liberals folded their tents once the sniff of Cabinet seats and ministerial office, for so long denied to them, was within reach, and they accepted a proposal put forward by Tories. That proposal was that a referendum be held with only two choices:

One would be the majoritarian and deeply flawed First past the Post (FPTP), which can give “strong” government (or put another way, the kind that can bulldoze its way through any opposition); the other, the majoritarian, but very slightly less flawed Alternative Vote (AV) which would at least ensure that every MP had the vote of at least 50% of the public, albeit not as first choice.

Now this AV system was proposed, let me repeat, by the Conservative Party, as the only alternative to FPTP that they would consider, when they, too, smelled the possibility of power after 13 years in the wilderness and needed Liberal help to get it. Perhaps because they use it themselves to elect a leader. Indeed had they used FPTP, Mr Cameron would not have been leader, and therefore not prime minister.

I’m not going to go into the lies that have been told about AV, there’s a brilliant post at Scot Goes Pop, which does that better than I would, but I’m somewhat concerned about the sanity of a man who says in may 2010 that this is a system that he would propose as the only alternative to FPTP that his government could accept, and then says in today’s Telegraph, that it would be a disaster for Britain.

What kind of prime minister proposes a disaster for his country? What kind of man agrees that the people can decide between what we have had since Adam was a lad, and a disaster... and all so that he can get his feet under the desk at No. 10?

Is he wicked, unhinged, or just so contemptuous of us that he thinks that we’ll have forgotten that it was his idea?

ON MAY 5.....

For a better future: VOTE SNP and SNP.

And don't think we're so far ahead that YOUR vote doesn't count. We need you.

Indeed YOUR COUNTRY NEEDS YOU to go out and vote SNP.

Can you imagine Subway Sam running, or rather running away from, the country.

Think Jackie Baillie at Health, Johanna Lamont at Communities, Andy Kerr running our budget, and worst of all, think Richard Baker in charge of anything at all, even the tea fund?

It doesn't bare thinking about. They rubbished all the SNP policies for 4 years and then, with only a few days to go, they only went and adopted them.

Between running into Subway and out of ASDA, Gray has made a lamentable job of attacking the Tories, who are not in power, and then concentrating on the "Crazy" idea of independence.

The "Crazy" idea of Scots running Scotland, with authority to raise taxes which are appropriate, pay pensioners enough to keep them from dying in the winter, and decide who we're going to war with... ?Yeah crazy if you're thinking Iain Gray. But not so daft with the SNP's team.

Oh, and Iain, it's the Scots people who will decide in a Referendum; not Alex Salmond, not you, not parliament, not even Auntie Annabel... US!

It doesn't bare thinking about having a bloke like Gray as first minister.

So, let's hope we Scots elect and SNP government tomorrow with a clear mandate to take us forward to a safer, fairer country... with Alex Salmond as First Minister.

FIT FOR WORK? LABOUR'S SCHEME LETS PEOPLE DIE WAITING FOR TRIBUNAL

Inspired by an excellent piece by John Souter, on Subrosa’s blog, about the Welfare Reforms introduced by the last government and pursued vigorously by this one, I was encouraged to develop the theme a little, both by comments on the story, and by this story I read relating to deaths of people found fit under the new scheme.

Let’s start of by making it clear that I know that people abuse the system; work and claim benefits, lie about circumstances. There will always be. Just as at the other end of the scale there are and always will be people who avoid paying millions in tax.

Of course one benefit cheat may fiddle a few thousands; a tax cheat, a few million a year.

I condemn both whilst accepting that they as inevitable as the sunrise.

But I caution that whatever the Daily Mail says, most "welfare" goes to people who do need it; people who would work if there was decent and suitable work, or people who desperately need help in their illnesses, or old age.

The new Welfare laws, as well as clamping down on the cheats, put these people’s lives at risk. Witness the stories told in After Atos. In one case the representative of a claimant went to Tribunal to say that his client would be unable to attend due to the unfortunate fact that he had died.

And the decision to cut pensioners’ benefits (Tory policy) is unspeakable. Private or company pensions are flat lining, bank interest which used to be a mainstay of elderly people, is practically zero (unless of course you have your money in the British Virgin Islands), domestic fuel prices are rising at twice the rate of inflation so far this year and more increases are predicted before winter, we already have a jaw-dropping annual death rate from cold related illness, and Osborne cuts £100 from old people’s winter fuel payment?

How would the cabinet feel if their own parents were shivering in the house, wrapped in blankets with one bar of a fire to keep them warm, checking the meter every half hour and spending most of the day in bed, eventually giving up trying to keep warm and just slowly slipping away, alone, cold and miserable?

Despite their best efforts to make us forget it by encouraging a wild orgy of celebration over this extended bank holiday (on credit cards), which is estimated to have cost the British economy in excess of £6 billion in lost productivity, and to have had a -0.25% effect on next quarter’s figures, they can’t hide that we are suffering with static wages, reduced in-work benefits, increased taxation (direct and indirect) and horrific price increases (4% inflation my butt!).

And in the meantime we are fighting two wars from which we are detached, and can afford weddings which they say make the country more cohesive. Well tell that to the “benefit cheat” who died before the tribunal could reverse the stopping of his benefits. He’ll not be feeling like he was part of one big happy Britain.

And remember, that could be you. Not today maybe, but next year, or in 5 years’ time. The stories in “After Atos” happened in Scotland. Ahead of Thursday’s elections I’d love to know if Iain Gray, Annabel Goldie and Tavish Scott support this very unScottish treatment of Scots perpetrated by their London counterparts.

GOSSIP, GOSSIP, GOSSIP... BANG!

The BBC’s political editor, Robert Peston has been disciplined by his bosses for what they consider disrespectful tweets about their royal highnesses and even her majesty over the period of the “society function of the year”, or as I prefer to call it, “the great distraction”.

Peston, whose strange delivery style with lo-o-o-o-o-ong drawn out vowels is already a gift to the satirical comedy shows, was hauled over the coals for tweeting:

‘The really important thing about this truly magical day is they can have sex at last.’

‘Bit worried about the new princess. Plainly didn’t read her BBC health and safety manual. Too much waving. Big RSI risk.’

In another, he asked what the collective noun was for Royal pundits, naming Simon Schama, Andrew Roberts and Andrew Morton.

He tweeted: ‘The correct answer, as students of constitutional history will know, is “a lickspittle”.’

In a tweet which might be seen as patronising, he wrote: ‘My favourite moment in a magical morning was when Sky News told us that Her Majesty knows the name of every one of the horses. Bless her.’

Jeez, when I read the headline in the Mail online, I thought that he’d actually been rude. I can’t help but think that the BBC management is over-reacting just a bit and he’d be quite within his rights to tell them to “get stuffed”. Needless to say the Daily Mail readers are choking themselves with anger, demanding that he be sacked.

The Mail also has a complicated (to me) story about the rift between socialite Annabel Goldsmith and her daughter Jemima Khan on one hand, and Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles on the other. It’s fascinating the trivia that these people engage in, and that the readers of the Mail clearly lap up.

From what I can make out, it seems that, despite being Diana’s closest friend Annabel didn’t get an invite to the wedding, because Camilla Parker-Bowles and her “husband” are not happy that they (the Goldsmiths) are supportive of Julian Assange. (Clearly it’s not in Charles’ best interests to have a load of secrets revealed, and although the UK government has given him an exclusion from the FoI Act, there’s not a lot Cameron can do about the Wikileaks.) So anyway, there’s a rift and it wasn’t helped that Jemima tweeted ‘Kate Middleton – those are not heir-bearing hips are they? Unfeasibly narrow.’

The worry is that as Annabel is simply the hostess with the mostest, that Camilla will find herself edged out of events, which I thought was a bit unlikely seeing as princess parker Bowles is the heir to the throne and as such anyone who is anyone (except me) would like to have her at their party. Hey but what do i know, I’m only Scottish, and we don’t count in these matters.

Oh dear. The things you end up reading, and then worrying about, when you’ve already heard all there is to hear about Osama bin Laden being shot by the Americans.

Apropos of which, I loved the heading in the Daily Telegraph:

Osama bin Laden killed: live

SNP GAINS BACKING OF THE PRESS

Today the SNP received the backing of more Scottish newspapers: the Scottish Sunday Express, the Sunday Herald, and the Scottish News of the World. This is in addition to the Sun who declared for the SNP a couple of weeks ago.

The Express and the Murdoch titles came with little surprise. As Tory supporting papers in England it was never likely that they would actively support Labour in Scotland, however, few could have expected them to actually come out in support of Alex Salmond’s team.

But the huge surprise is that The Herald, which has fairly consistently been a pro Labour paper has written the following editorial.

I thought it was worth a repeat here.

Scottish National Party deserves a second term

Published on 1 May 2011

FOUR years ago, when for the first time in Scotland’s history the Scottish National Party won by a whisker the right to govern, it was rightly regarded as a watershed moment.

Eight years of devolution had done two apparently contradictory things, remarked Alex Salmond, soon to be installed as First Minister. On the one hand there was a sense of general relief; the grass was still getting cut, the sky was still blue ... the land had not been visited by plague. On the other, a sense of impatience had grown. Not enough was being done fast enough. Such change as there was, the improvement in people’s lives that many anticipated had not materialised.

The SNP’s victory signalled that Scotland had changed irrevocably. The public put their faith in the hands of untried politicians in the hope they would not let them down.

In large measure their hope has not been misplaced. Forced to govern as a minority administration the SNP demonstrated pragmatism and maturity. To pass legislation, they had no option but to negotiate with other parties. In the main this has worked to the nation’s advantage. The books have balanced and real progress has been made.

Moreover, in certain areas Scotland has shown the rest of the UK that a little can go a long way. Thus the freezing of the council tax and determination not to introduce tuition fees. Similarly, the removal of charges for prescriptions demonstrates a commitment to a health service that is free at the point of entry for all.

The Government’s most controversial action was the decision to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds. Regardless of whether you agree with that decision or not, the SNP have faced down their critics and emerged from the whirlwind with two strong moral arguments: first that this was a decision for the Scottish Government to take without outside interference; second, that the moral grounds for the release chime with Scottish values and indeed that those valued are enshrined in our laws. In contrast, other parties were left looking hypocritical, feigning public outrage at a decision they had previously signalled in private was in the national interest.

Inevitably, the SNP did not get everything right and did not win every argument. They did not, for example, convince the Parliament that its policy on minimum pricing of alcohol could be effective in combating Scotland’s drink problem. And it has yet to convince the Parliament, and the public at large, of the need for a referendum on independence. For the moment, they are more important to concentrate on re-energising the economy and creating jobs than on redrawing the constitution.

Despite all of the above the SNP apparently started the election campaign behind Labour in the opinion polls. With four days to go they appear now to be destined for victory. How has this transformation come about? The first thing to say, perhaps, is that polls are not infallible and that elections are not won until every vote is counted.

Having said that, it is obvious that Labour’s campaign has been uninspired and negative. Whoever decided that attacking the Conservative-LibDem Coalition should be the party’s top priority was wrong. If devolution’s brief history tells us anything it is that the Scots know the difference between Holyrood and Westminster and vote accordingly.

Indeed, there is something distasteful about political parties wheeling in the so-called big guns from Westminster for the Holyrood campaign, as if Scottish politicians need help from those who bestride a bigger stage.

The divisions between Holyrood and Westminster are underlined by the more recent Labour attacks on independence. It is one thing to argue against the principle of separation but quite another to suggest Scotland and the Scottish people are incapable of managing their own affairs. Those tactics rebounded badly on Labour at the last Holyrood election and it looks likely that history will be repeated on Thursday.

In an interview with this newspaper before campaigning got underway, Salmond said that he intended to fight the election on two fronts: the “business of vision” and the “quality of his team”. The ensuing weeks have vindicated this strategy. On top of this it has Salmond, who has grown in stature as First Minister. The SNP deserve another term in office, not because the alternative is so poor but because their vision and talent genuinely represent the best hope for our country’s future.