Causing Offence...

Or alternatively, just keep digging…

I was going to write about Sach’s-gate, but decided that firstly I had said all I was going to say on the subject commenting on SNPTactialvoting and Tom Harris’ blog and secondly because Brand’s resignation from Radio 2 will take some heat out of the situation.

The Third reason, is that I have come across a more offensive remark, uttered by someone who really, no really, should know better. Yes step up Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Scottish branch of the Flat Earth Society. What, you might think I more offensive than leaving offensive messages and suggesting that you/your mate has slept with one of your grandchildren. Well judge for yourselves as speaking about the Human Embryology Act, currently going through the Houses of Parliament, he said…

"The grotesque implications of these procedures are utterly horrifying and fly in the face of all medical guidance on consent to research."

He also went on to compare the “procedures” to "Nazi-style experiments”. For someone who believes in alleviating the suffering of man-kind, to compare the 21st Century technology involved with stem-cell research, which has the potential to open up a front in the fight against the degenerative diseases like Motor-Neurone, Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson’s as well as more well known conditions like Cancer and Heart Disease to the application of technology to further the Aryian race, which included the systemic destruction of anyone different to the Nazi’s, most famously the Jew’s, its just warped.

Cardinal O’Brien admits that his comments were made to court publicity, well I hope people hear his comment’s and think what a hypocrite for a man who is supposed to promote the human spirit, to try and deny 21st century medicine to our ill people, and to justify it in the sickest of terms.

One question though, if 18000 people complained, to the BBC, to OFCOM about Brand and Ross’ teenage snickering, who do I complain to about O’Brien. He who does not exist perhaps?

Consultation

Consult: V 1) To seek information or advice from (a person, book etc): to take counsel (with) 2) To take (feelings etc) into consideration.

Consultation: N Consulting: a meeting for this purpose.

Note that description of the word consultation, because at the moment there are consultation exercises happening at the moment which would break the trade’s description act.

The Post Office, having decided to close 43 post offices out of the original list, they have decided that they would like to close (in a more permanent fashion than is currently planned) the PO in Linwood. Whatever the arguments for closing these branches, and these seem to hinge on the vagaries of finance and commercial confidentiality, the consultation process surrounding Linwood does seem to have the air of going through the motions. Sorry, but Linwood will close.

The other consultation process involves Renfrewshire Council’s intention to close South Primary School. It is now clear that Renfrewshire Council is sinking further into debt, no doubt hindered by the £149 million second mortgage which paid for the ongoing renovations of Renfrewshire’s schools. This is New Labours parting gift to the voters of Renfrewshire. However the SNP/Lib Dem administration have made a bad situation worse. The cuts to public services, coupled with the warden fee hikes were inadvisable and poorly handled to say the least.

However the announcement of the closure of the South, smacks of some sort of desperation. Coming so soon after the announcement concerning the inflation busting wage rises for the Councils heads of service, its very poor timing. Something which has cropped up in Cllr Kelly’s blog is that there may be some sort of ulterior motive for this closure. There is the (unsubstantiated) rumour that Aldi, having bought the land at the Vitafoam factory, would like some more land for an access road. Land for houses is always popular, even in this economic climate. I’m sure that Renfrewshire Council’s favourite house builder, Robertson’s, would be interested more land.

However, this is just rumour and speculation. What is true is that Renfrewshire Council, like the Post Office, are intent on closing a vital community facility for reasons which are not cast iron.

Where's Angus.... ?

You may remember when New Labour were up to their necks in all sorts of fund related corruption allegations, various MP's were not backwards in in announcing that they would seek police intervention. The trailblazer for this course of action was the SNP MP for Na-H-Eileanan Angus McNeil.

With all the allegations surrounding "Boy George" Osborne, you would think that MP's would be lining up to report the matter to Inspector Knacker. So far no complaint to the Met.

At the moment, it is just all about the he said she said, at least untill someone makes a complaint.

Four Years On.... Scotland V Norway Previe

Revenge is possibly something on the mind of the Scotland players. Almost exactly 4 years ago, Norway came to Hampden and became the third side to win there in World Cup qualifiers (After Poland in 1965 and Wales in 1985, Belarus have also won a World Cup qualifier at Hampden in October 2005), pretty much ending the Berti Voghts era.

Again, this is a must win match, Scotland despite the win in Iceland are still behind the 8-ball thanks to their loss in Macedonia. As I said in an earlier blog, the away tie in Macedonia is possibly the toughest away tie (except the Holland tie) in the group. But to drop all 3 points, not the best start.

However, there are signs that George Burley is getting things right, I think that he must stick with a 3 man centre midfield, continuing the thread here established by Craig Brown with his use of 3-5-2, going up to Alex McLeish’s favoured 4-5-1. I was taken aback by the criticism of Burley after the Macedonia, led by Grumpy Jim Traynor. I did wonder, when listening to his phone in show, when did we turn into England. The negativity coming from the callers was strange, and somewhat Un-Scottish!

This is a must win game for Scotland, and is a vital one for Norway (who only have a 2-2 home draw against Iceland so far in this group), the key rivals for the playoff place. A win on Saturday will set Scotland up for the toughest game of the group, Holland in Amsterdam in March.

The Next Government?

This blog was supposed to be posted on Monday.

On the face of it, David Cameron is an absolute shoo in to be the next Prime Minister, there is nothing to worry him as he moves toward an expected landslide at the next election. Well that’s not really true. Apart from not wanting to be the conservative’s version of Kinnock. Remember, he lead in the polls up to 4 days before the ‘92 election before his fate was sealed with what those traumatised will only refer to as ‘Sheffield’.

No, Cameron’s problem is that despite the 15 point leads in the polls, and the praise from the Anglo-centric media, there are areas completely immune to the Cameron effect, the North of England, and specifically Scotland. Missed in the heat of the Glasgow East by-election was really how badly the Tories did in this area, 3rd some 10000 votes behind second place.

I suspect that it will be business as usual regarding this ‘problem‘, that lip-service will be paid to us Scots, its not as if very many swing seats are here North of the border. Theoretically, Cameron’s biggest problem, to team Cameron at least, is to give some policy announcements, and put some flesh on previous policy statements, the sermon at St Jude’s, at the start of the Glasgow East by-election campaign, springs readily to mind where he blamed fat people, poor people etc etc for their own predicament. How very Thatcherite.

To return from the tangent though, the fact that the “next government” will only poll about 25% at most (and only get 1, maybe 2 but at most 4 out of 59 Scottish MP’s) at the next election should be a cause for concern for Conservative MP’s. If they believe in the Union, now is the chance to show that concern, because any more of the lip service that we have been getting, and there will be no more United Kingdom in 4 years.

Been Away...

Good god, been away on holiday. You turn your back any the whole world ecconomy falls apart & New Labour MP's Don't knife Brown in the back!

Appologies for not blogging about the New Labour conference, i would have blogged about the Conservative one at the weekend, but we had PC problems. Thjs one will be up soon though, with some updates to follow soon after that...

The End of Super Squirrel...

About 20 odd years ago, my dad took me into Paisley to open my first bank account, my parents had accounts with the TSB and the Bank of Scotland. In my infinate wisdom, i choose to join the bank which gave nine year olds with a bit of Christmas money the most freebies, so i joined the Bank of Scotland (hence the reference to Super Squirrel, the symbol of the Bank of Scotlands banking for children).

Although my current account is now with another bank, there is a part of me that is sad about the demise of the Bank of Scotland. Their problems did start with the merger with the Halifax. Moving my current account from HBOS was purely down to their Current Account product discriminating against low wage earners. Thats not to say that what has happened to them over the past few days is justified. I feel sorry for the loss that will visit the HBOS employees in the weeks and months to come.

If anything, what we have seen this week, with the collapse of Lehman, and the butchering of HBOS, which appears to have broken every city rule in the book (even Brown has bent the rules by speaking to Victor Blank, the chairman of Lloyds TSB before the takeover), isthe ugly face of capitalism.

Almost as ugly however is the response from our elected representatives. More shutting-of-the-door-after-the horse-has-bolted from Brown & Darling. Some hand wringing from Comedy Dave. Salmonds response takes the biscuit. He described the city traders as "spivs and speculators". Of course the SNP's main priority, which is steadily being revealed to us, is to make Scotland a good place to do business. Obvously not a man who has heard the phrase "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword"

Conference Time Is Here Again...

In the same way that the Charity Shield and the European pre-qualifiers are the unofficial start of the football season, the party conferences are the start of the political “season” which will take us to the spring elections. These are scheduled to be just local elections and the European elections. However we are now due a General Election within the next 18 months, one which the timing is still very much in the gift of the Prime Minister. These conferences are an ideal time to take stock with where each party is. In the Next few weeks, New Labour will be in Manchester, while the Conservatives will be in Birmingham. This week has seen the TUC conference, but the party conferences begin properly with the Liberal Democrats in Bournemouth.

12 months ago, the Lib-Dems were recovering from a poor showing at the English Council Elections, and more significantly, in the elections for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. Since last year we have seen the resignation of their leader at Westminster, Menzies Campbell (for the reason that his age was damaging the party) and the resignation of their leader in Hollyrood, Nicol Stephen (to spend time with his family). For their replacements, Nick Clegg (top) and Tavish Scott, this will be a key moment for both of them. With the New Labour project unravelling by the day, this is the perfect opportunity for the Lib Dem’s to regain some ground after the advances made on their ground by David Cameron’s Conservative Party.

However, the question remains, and this might just be a key question. What are the Lib-Dems for? For a few years now the debate has been going on about whether the Lib Dems should be about liberal social policies (socialist lite, so to speak) or should they follow a liberal economic path, the route espoused by the grouping behind The Orange Book (a collection of essays about liberal economic policies put together by the MP David Laws). Clegg is known to be from the Orange Book wing of the party (it is not known however where Scott stands). If the Orange Book wing win the argument, this could win votes in England, but would cost votes in the left wing orientated Scotland.

So to sum up, what are the Lib Dem’s aims for this week? For starters, they have to start to marry the two visions for the party & come up with policies which reflect this. Targeted tax cuts to ‘the less wealthy’ would be a welcome start, as would be the restoration (of the potentially vote winning) of the policy on a top rate 50% tax band. Clegg has already mentioned something about this, while Tavish Scott (right) has called for a 2% tax cut in the Scottish Budget, which will be next week. They have 2 years of haemorrhaging votes, in the aftermath of the removal of Charles Kennedy, to make up. As is outlined at the start, there is at most 18 months to do this. If they can’t, Cameron will be Number 10’s next resident.