Archive for Politics

What Goes Around Comes Around

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Strange how the plot never changes!

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The Truth About North Sea Oil

The truth is starting to surface about how the British public, and Scottish citizens in particular, have been deceived about North Sea oil. Luckily, the word is out and thanks to the Internet we can find out the real facts and correct the misconceptions that have been allowed to fester for too long.

Everyone should read the Conservative commissioned McCrone Report that was classified as “Top Secret” for 30 years due to its sensitivity. The report and other suppressed and misrepresented facts and figures are available HERE.

Hayley Millar of BBC Scotland recently produced a programme titled, “Truth, Lies, Oil and Scotland”. Her report spells it out and I’ll leave it with you to watch this important investigation, warts and all! More information here.

Spread the word, spread the truth!

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Glasgow East Wakes Up To Labour

At last the people of Glasgow East has woken up to New Tories Labour and voted in an MP and a party that truly does care about them.  For those of you who don’t want to know the result, you may wish to look away now! Labour supporters and Gordon Brown may also wish to click away to some propaganda blog saying that this is a vote on the economy, not some kind of referendum on the government.

To summarise the result:

Candidate Party

Votes

John Mason Scottish Nationalist Party

11,277

Margaret Curran Scottish Labour

10,912

Davena Rankin Scottish Conservative

1,639

Ian Robertson Scottish Liberal Democrats

915

More analysis and information is available on the BBC website.

So the winning candidate is John Mason with a voting swing of 22.54% from Labour to the SNP, but the real winners are the people of Glasgow East. At least the recount called by Magrat Curran and her loser croonies was performed efficiently and quickly!

SNP Logo

One of my friends, who has voted SNP a good deal longer than myself, commented a while back on how people in the West of Scotland have a fatalist loyalty to Labour and will often vote for them because their father and their father’s father voted that way. However, tonight they’ve broken the bad habit of many generations and done themselves, their area and the whole of Scotland proud.

Today’s hero

John Mason MP
Photo: John Mason MP for Glasgow East

Congratulations and gratitude to my fellow Scottish citizens of Glasgow East for sending a message to the Labour government, who only care about your vote, not you as an individual. John Mason MP will be representing you full time and have the ear of people in Scotland who can make real positive changes for your area.

Now we wait to see the truth behind some of the speculation over the David Marshall resignation that caused this bye-election in the first place! There are some big signs that something is coming down the pipeline about this particular ex-MP.

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Prospective Labour Candidates Under Investigation

Anyone wonder why Nu Labour had to go through all those prospective candidates for the Glasgow East constituency before Magrat Curran came riding in on her white charger? It did seem like they couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery as prospective candidate after prospective candidate turned down one of the safest Nu Labour seats in the country.

Perhaps this is the reason they all declined!! All the main names in the frame to be a candidate, including Councillor George Ryan and Councillor Stephen Purcell, Leader of the Council, seem to be listed in that article as being under investigation by the Standards Commission of Scotland.

Wonder why this story got missed by the main stream media? Don’t the people of Glasgow deserve to know this kind of information before they go to the polling booths?

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Who’s Being Partisan?

The BBC has a comprehensive round up of quotes from various politicians and political commentators where is it obvious who’s being partisan. However, one stands out from the rest as it is from an unbiased academic with no axe to grind.

JOHN CURTICE, STRATHCLYDE UNIVERSITY POLITICS PROFESSOR

The real problem is Wendy Alexander’s leadership more broadly was not much of a success.

Her performances in First Minister’s Questions against the First Minister Alex Salmond were widely criticised for being rather weak.

Secondly, her attempt to push the Labour Party where it is in a position where it said it wanted a referendum on independence and it wanted a referendum quickly, contradicting Gordon Brown’s position, that undoubtedly weakened her position.

Thirdly, in truth the lesson of this story is that Wendy Alexander actually mismanaged dealing with the problem of her leadership finance campaign once the story first emerged.

But my favourite comment so far was from fidothedog in response to my earlier Tribute to Wee Wendy blog post:

There is a point that without Labour to mock, the flaws of the SNP will be exposed. Although they have some, I am sure that it would take some serious fuckwittery to get to the level of Wendy & co in New Labour.

I just love the way that she gets caught, lies, gets exposed, then go’s on the attack, gets shown up for lying again, hauled up before the committee and then leaves.

Oh and whilst leaving denies all wrongdoing, blames everyone else and acts like a spoiled twat.

Still I see a book deal or somesuch aka Levy, puker Prescott, Pasha Blair etc etc.

Wendy Alexander needs to ask herself who placed the first dagger in her back. Who was involved in the initial leak about the dodgy donations? Could it perhaps be a New Labour insider? Perhaps not everyone in New Labour thought she was leadership material.

Let’s give the last word, for the time being, to Nicola Sturgeon, Deputy First Minister:

It’s not partisan, it’s not party political, it’s simply a decision taken based on that independent report.

“But clearly this event does signal the deep disintegration now happening to Labour north and south of the border. The key point is that they are disintegrating from within.

So Wendy, perhaps the deepest stab wounds were done with a New Labour partisan dagger “before thee”.

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A Tribute to Wee Wendy

In light of the resignation of Wendy Alexander as the Leader of the Labour Group in the Scottish Parliament, I think this is an opportune moment to come up with a tribute. Rather than use the usual  NuLabour type spin that we’ve all become accustomed to, I thought we’d do it in song!

Enjoy ….

I just couldn’t believe her blaming the SNP for a witch hunt. If anything, the top people of the SNP called off the attack dogs and were working hard to keep her at the top of the NuLabour dung heap. She was fighting a more effective campaign for Scottish independence than the nationalists could ever manage at this point in their grand plan!

Let’s see if any of the NuLabour MSPs want to step into the role of Leader of the Political Wilderness Party. Can’t wait to see NuLabour being decimated in Scotland… long overdue if you ask me. There are one or two of that lot who are skilled politicians and could give Alex Salmond a run for his money, but I don’t expect we’ll see any of them putting their name forward for leader until it looks like NuLabour are turning around their fortunes… so that will be a decade or two then!

My Gran would have been so proud to see the SNP doing so well. She and my grandad voted SNP for years, even during the times when they were nobodies in Scotland. It is just sad that she is only here in spirit :-(.  At least her spirit observed me putting the cross in the correct place at the last elections.

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A Request to Hazel Blear’s Laptop Thief

Poor wee Hazel Blear’s has had her laptop stolen. Normally I’d feel a load of sympathy for someone in this predicament, but not this poison chipmunk (insult borrowed from the NewPortCity blog). Maybe there is some sort of Conservative conspiracy operating this week to get all the NuLabour gingers thrown out of office! I’m just waiting to see some innocent ginger being caught in the cross fire… watch out Chris Evans.

We’re told there were a couple of low level government documents that aren’t really that up to date and have a classification of sensitivity that doesn’t even merit the slightest concern. Surely, the same rules should apply to her as to those civil servants that picked up the “British Rail” sandwich packs and put them away, all the time thinking they were top secret dossiers? Weren’t they instantly suspended pending an investigation? I’ve scoured the news websites, but can’t see any such announcement about wee Hazel.  I’m betting she won’t be doing the honourable thing until she gets pushed of the Brown Express as it leaves Shit Creek Station on the way to Extinctionville!

If she used it for constituency work then there must be data about private citizens on there surely? Could well be a breach of the Data Protection Act here, but where’s the toothless and worthless Richard “ICO” Thomas when you need him? Sounds like a big cover up is going on to keep her in a job.

Hopefully, Davie-Boy Cameron will really hammer home this issue at PMQs this week. Of course, Gordie will mumble something incomprehensible then throw us a clever curved ball about him still having a Home Office Minister, and one at that who doesn’t spitting out dummies and throw rattles out of the pram. Should be an interesting one if I can stay awake.

So what is my request to the thief… please, please give this laptop back to wee Hazel, but do it through a major news organisation that will exam it before handing it back to the NuLabour spin machine. You have a chance to reveal the truth to the world on this and be a big hero. 

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Luke Left, Luke Right, then Cross the Blogosphere

Luke Akehurst, a Nu-Labour activist and councillor, has endeared himself to the blogosphere - NOT! What has he done, I can hear you say? Well he made this suggestion on his blog in response to the David Davis resignation over the civil liberties erosion:

Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: “Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects”.

An idea so immorally abhorrent that his blog post has been deluged by comment after comment decrying his stance. Rachel, one of the people passing comment and a victim of the 7/7 bombings, made a strong case for why this view was so wrong. There is also other touching stories about terrorist atrocities in the comments, all made by people equally outrage with Luke’s idea. Well worth a read through.

Last time I checked the police force weren’t too happy with Nu-Labour, so I can’t see an ex-copper being that happy to stand up for the immoral goings on of the last weeks or two. Perhaps Luke should ask Jacqui Smith about her big day out at the Police Federation Conference! I wonder if the other ass-hole she was torn on that day has healed up yet?

One of his supporters even tried to suggest someone like Colonel Tim Collins, as a candidate. Newsflash Luke’s supporter, he’s campaigning alright, but alas it will be on the side of freedom, justice and liberty… and oh, that’s David Davis’ side in case you are too stupid to know what’s being hinted at here.

John Smeaton’s name was also in the frame on various blogs for a short time. I sent a strongly worded email to the Smeato to say why this was a VERY, VERY bad idea. Hopefully many other people did likewise and ensured he saw sense in this matter. It is being reported that he has now declared no interest in opposing David Davis.

So, in the spirit of the NewPortCity blog, I present to you Luke Akehurst…

Luke Akehurst - Authoritarian Cunt photo

Even better, he followed it up with this blog post, where he tries to say where he leads with ideas others follow. Personally, I don’t think using the views of a Daily Mirror article as proof that this is a good idea is a sound strategy to defuse this issue.

Since Luke is struggling to find someone, may I suggest we dig up one of the 7/7 victims and use the dead rotting corpse in the anti-Davis marketing campaign. Proof positive that 42 days is needed. The grave diggers have been busy and we’ve managed to find you a suitable 7/7 victim.

Corpse in coffin

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Freedom’s New Hero

I see David Davis has launched a campaign blog. Find it here.

Now to see if the media actually engages in this important debate around our freedoms, liberty and the growth of the surveillance society.

p.s. I’d like to point out that I’m not a Tory, never have been and never will be in the future! This really is an issue that rises above political allegiances.

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UK Surveillance World Leader

The 2007 International Privacy Ranking shows the UK to be of the world leaders in the surveillance society - a real eye opener.

From the report:

  • World leading surveillance schemes
  • Lack of accountability and data breach disclosure law
  • Commissioner has few powers
  • Interception of communications is authorised by politician, evidence not used in court, and oversight is by commissioner who reports only once a year upon reviewing a subset of applications
  • Hundreds of thousands of requests from government agencies to telecommunications providers for traffic data
  • Data retention scheme took a significant step forward with the quiet changes based on EU law
  • Plans are emerging regarding surveillance of communications networks for the protection of copyrighted content
  • Despite data breaches, ‘joined-up government’ initiatives continue
  • Identity scheme still planned to be the most invasive in the world, highly centralised and biometrics-driven; plan to issue all foreigners with cards in 2008 are continuing
  • E-borders plans include increased data collection on travellers

The one saving grace is that Scotland fairs much better in the analysis than our counterparts in England and Wales:

England & Wales
  • Inherited constitutional and statutory protections from UK Government and many of the policies
  • National policies are not judged, e.g. Communications surveillance, border and trans-border issues
  • Councils continue to spread surveillance policies, including RFID, CCTV, ID and data sharing, road user tracking
  • Few democratic safeguards at local government level, even though local government may be more accountable to electorate because of smaller numbers, decisions do not appear to be informed by research, prototyping
Scotland
  • Inherited constitutional and statutory protections from UK Government and only some of the policies
  • National policies are not judged, e.g. Communications surveillance, border and trans-border issues
  • Stronger protections on civil liberties
  • DNA database is not as open to abuse as policy in England and Wales
  • Identity policy is showing possibility of avoiding mistakes of UK Government
  • Scottish government appears more responsive and open to informed debate than local governments in England

Today has also seen Elish Angiolini, the Lord Advocate, voicing her opposition against the need for the proposed forty two day detention without charge limit, which  will be voted upon on Wednesday at Westminster. The BBC has an interesting news report around this issue.

Generally, it would appear the Scottish Government and the Scots Law establishment are far better at balancing the need for surveillance against the rights of individual privacy and human rights in respect of the true threat. Seems like another reasons in the tick box for Scotland to be independent and bring even more common sense to the issue without interference from London!

Does anyone still believe we live in a free country?

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Stop this "Green Tax"

Green tax my ass! The latest proposal to make Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) increases for cars that are up to seven years old is a stealth tax. Yes, if we could have seen the tax coming seven years ago then maybe we wouldn’t have bought a particular model of car, but alas not enough of us have a crystal ball that works in a green tax way.

Get yourself over to the Unfair VED e-Petition on the No10 Downing Street website and get it signed!

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Remove the unfair and unjust retrospective Vehicle Execise Duty levy (back to 2001 year vehicles) as announced in the Budget on 12/3/08.

You know things aren’t right when even Green Peace say this isn’t a Green Tax! Mr Brown take the fingers out your ears and stop the “la la la” to hear what people are saying about your government. Feel free to give me a call and argue how this is a green tax.

It really is time for a change of government at Westminster. Alas, the only change we’ll get is to switch over to that other crowd, the Nu Conservatives! Five or ten years down the line we’ll be switching back to “New New New Labour” to fix the stuff the Tories have buggered up. Anyone for more “Seesaw Margery Daw”?

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If I Was an American…

.. then it looks like I’d be voting for a democrat this time around!

90% Chris Dodd
89% John Edwards
87% Barack Obama
86% Hillary Clinton
84% Joe Biden
77% Dennis Kucinich
76% Mike Gravel
74% Bill Richardson
49% Rudy Giuliani
41% John McCain
31% Mitt Romney
28% Mike Huckabee
26% Tom Tancredo
21% Ron Paul
17% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

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Petitions for the Outraged

Following on from my last post, there are a few open e-petitions that you may wish to sign to show your support for our brave Gurkha “soldier citizens”.

1. Petition to: grant widows old and new of the gurkha regiment the same status and …

2. Petition to: give all Ex Gurkha soldiers and their families who have served our country …

3. Petition to: enact legislation to give the Military Covenant a full legislative framework …

Now get your ass over to these petitions and put your name to them. Show these morally devoid politicians that the rest of society wishes these brave soldiers be shown the respect they have earned.

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You Can Fight for Us… Now Piss Off Home!

I cannae believe the Labour Government and the Tory opposition’s views on the Gurkha soldiers who served in our armed forces before 1997, but who aren’t good enough to be citizens of the UK. This is a complete disgrace and should be fixed NOW!

Gordon Brown presented some technicality during PMQs, that made a big deal of 1997 when the Gurkhas moved from Hong Kong to the UK after Hong Kong was handed back to China, or some bullshit along those lines. This is a moral argument Mr B, not some technicality to squirm away from the nation’s moral duty. Now is the time to honour those who would have given their life for our country. Yet another example of the morally devoid / corrupt government IMHO - scumbags!

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Goodbye Tolls

Forth Road Bridge and Tay Road Bridge tolls are officially gone. Yee-haa!

Now we’ll see that the bridges are not the major traffic jams generators claimed by some folk. However, Dundee wasn’t ever that big a deal, but I predict it will now be so easy to get out of Edinburgh without waiting in massive tailbacks! We’ve already seen how much the A8000 was the contributing factor to southbound traffic jams since it was replaced by the new dual carriageway road.

Another success for the SNP lead Scottish Government.

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