The Referendum is Here

Alex Salmond has announced that he will bring his bill for a Scottish referendum before the Parliament by the summer. He wants it to be a two question referendum with one part dealing with whether we should have devolution max (all powers but that of defence and foreign policy), and the other concerned with independence proper. Personally I really don’t see the point of devolution max; if we have all those powers we may as well go for the whole deal.

Obviously I support the introduction of a referendum bill in principle, but I fear the SNP has moved to fast. I doubt that if there were a vote on independence tomorrow we would win it, and if we lose it will silence our argument for a generation; we will be accused of keeping alive a policy the Scottish people do not believe will work. I can understand why some party members are desperate to use this great chance given to us in 2007, but I hope the Opposition sink the bill. Independence is coming, but let us not give ammunition to our enemies by calling the vote before the Scottish nation is ready.

Campaign Slogans

I have to laugh at the campaign slogans which are brought out at every election. They almost always mean nothing, but sound quite good. For instance, Obama’s Yes We Can sounds brilliant to a public sick of the status quo, but when you actually look at the slogan, it is quite ambiguous. Yes we can what? Presumably this is intentional; Yes We Can [fit in whatever you want here]. The slogan is all things to all men.

Labour has tried to replicate that ambiguity with its new campaign chant A Future Fair For All. However, they seem to have instead created a monument to their own failure. New Labour has presided over the gap between rich and poor growing to a scale which would have made Thatcher blush, and their lax controls of the banking sector meant that this recession was much worse than it should have been. However, with an election approaching the Labour apparatchik have left the bankers’ table and returned to their socialist roots-well at least until after the voters have decided their fate. Make no mistake; a vote for Labour is a vote for self-interest.

As for the Conservatives Change seems to be a word they are kicking about a lot just now. Apparently Cameron’s Conservatives are the party of Change. Surely this is exactly what a conservative party should be fighting against? Recent poll of various Conservatives has revealed that the party seems to be anti-Europe, anti-Environmentalism, anti-Immigration and anti-voting reform. What exactly has changed?

As I said, election slogans sound nice but mean very little.

Saints and Sinners

Nicola Sturgeon has misbehaved. She probably should not have provided a character witness for a convicted fraudster, but those calling for her resignation are forgetting one single think-she is human. As such she will make mistakes, and when she (and all other politicians) make a mistake she should have the good grace to apologies, but the idea that she should resign is idiocy. As the Bible says ‘He who is without sin cast the first stone’, and I very much doubt the Labour benches can find one saint among them. In the opinion of this humble blogger Sturgeon should apologise, but stay where she is in the cabinet-the left wing of the SNP needs her there.

Temper Tantrums at No. 10.

Lance Price has just produced a new book called Where Power Lies: Prime Minister V the Media. Needless to say Gordon Brown got a bad write up. This is an example of another former party member (Price is former director of communications between 2000 and 2001 and deputy to Alastair Campbell between 2003 and 2007) coming out of obscurity to take a swing at PM Brown. The question we have to ask ourselves is this; if Labour Party members don’t trust Gordon to run an election (three rebellions is just careless) then why should we non-Labour voters think he is capable of running a country?

In the parts of the book that I have read Price talks to former and present cabinet ministers and airs his own views on the Premiership. One interviewee states ‘He [PM Brown] is psychologically and emotionally incapable of leadership of any kind’, and it is claimed that when things go wrong ‘...he can react with extraordinary flashes of anger. Stories of mobile phones hurled across the room in fury regularly appear in the press, although it rarely gets to that stage. Shouting at staff, jabbing an angry finger, throwing down papers, even kicking furniture is far more common.’ Yikes! If I had known this when we elected him PM I might never have voted for Labour knowing that they had this kind of man as their leader...oh no wait we never got the chance of voting for Brown, did we?

However, it wasn’t all bad for Brown. One Cabinet member (not named for obvious reasons) told the Independent said that although Price was telling the truth, he had out-of-date information. ‘The mood is much better now; everyone is rowing in the same boat and in the same direction’ said Mystery Minister. While I don’t doubt the sincerity of MM’s comment, it dose highlight the fatal flaw that makes Brown a good Chancellor, but a bad PM: he is competent when everything is going well, but when disaster strikes he can’t cope. In the Chancellery everything was much more controlled, and if everything went down the toilet he could always ask Tony for help, but as PM he does not have that luxury. This has lead to the weird scenario in which the PM now cow-cows to the Prince Of Darkness (Mandy). He has sold his soul to El Diablo of Foy because he couldn’t cope with defeat and disaster, and in so doing ripped the claws out of the Premiership and neutered the democratic process by ignoring the peoples’ demand for an election in 2007 and a referendum on Europe. We need to get rid of this power-mad, self-deluded PM before he has another tantrum.

Of course the scary thing is that he will probably be replaced with Crazy-Bike Cameron. What a choice for those poor English people. I thank heavens that I have an alternative in the form of the SNP. They may not be perfect, but they are a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Now I leave you with the only image scarier than a Tory victory; Gordon Brown smiling.

Attacks on Jews

In this country anti-Semitism is on the rise. Every time Israel goes to war with one of its neighbours, attacks on Jews skyrocket. This has to stop. As much as I disagree with some of Israel’s policies in the Middle East, we must not confuse the actions of a national government on British Jews. Jewish British citizens have no more control over the foreign government of Israel than a British Muslim has over the actions of the Iranian regime or Irish Catholics have over the actions of the IRA.

The Poll published in the Independent today shows that we may be sliding toward a hung parliament at the British election.





This now means that there is more reason than ever for Scottish voters to support the SNP. According to the poll, if there was an election tomorrow the Tories would be short of an overall majority by 8 seats. In an environment like that the SNP could play king-maker, and with their control of the Devolved government, they would become the ideal party to bloke the Conservatives from re-enacting the horrors of the 1980’s (at least in Scotland).

With Labour on the brink of civil war (if you don’t believe me ask a government minister), the SNP are the only party left that has any hope of defending Scotland from the barbarism of a Cameron Premiership (think Thatcher with a bike). Vote SNP. Vote for Scotland.

A Funny Thing

Has anyone ever noticed that there is a Welsh Secretary, Northern Ireland Secretary and a Scottish Secretary, but no English Secretary? This is despite there being a Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly and Northern Irish Assembly, but no such government body in England. One can’t help wonder why the Provinces need a specific cabinet post to look after them when England seems to manage just fine. But as every good Unionist knows the Celts can’t look after themselves, so it is just as well we have a Secretary. I say get rid of the Cabinet Office and give the tens of thousands saved back to the people of the Provinces (or at least put it somewhere that it can be put to good use).