And They're Off!

Sorry it's been a whiley since the last posting. I've been laid low with viruses and vomiting and other such treats as always seem to come around when you have time off work full of plans for doing nice things and nothings at all. Such is life eh?

So - the election race to get to first-past-the-post has started and what an exciting and upliftingly fine spectacle it is to see our wonderful Westminster political leaders all laying out their stalls with positive messages about the wondrous policies they'd bring to the table, except they're not of course. Well, with limited exceptions and no-one believes the Lib-Dems any more.

Maybe I should recap - refresh my memory - what's been happening while I've been shouting at Hughie and Ralph down the big white telephone or lying comatose on the sofa while my wife tries to get me to go to bed and stop making the place look untidy or polluting the atmosphere with groaning and constant demands for neck rubs and scrambled egg on toast that almost never gets eaten. Oh yes. You can almost feel the love. It's like that 'Love Bombing' that happened in the referendum all over again isn't it?

Oh no, Right. It isn't.

Parliament has dissolved - which might explain some of the smell - but before that we had a wee budget where Dave and George seriously avoided telling us what a wonderful job they'd done racking up more debt than all previous labour Govts in history combined, missing their financial targets, demonising the poor and the vulnerable and blaming the ills of society on immigrants while trying to get us to ignore anything that might remind us of stagnant wages, zero hours contracts, tax cuts for millionaires, senior Tories involved in cash for access or any dodgy business scandals and removing from their website the 2010 list of  'judge-us-on-these-and-kick-us-out-if-we-fail' promises which they were so keen on sticking down the electorates throats to get elected in the first place.

Meanwhile Wallace, sorry, Ed Miliband has been desperately trying to be interviewed in one of his two {WTF} kitchens but most definitely sans bacon roll as he tries to prove that he's a millionaire public school educated man of the people who understands what it is to be poor and living outside of the M25. He's got street cred and the insight that brings, despite never having had any job that's anything even vaguely divorced from politics. He knows that Labour is good and that Tories are bad. He knows the only way out of Tory austerity is to wear the sack cloth of Labour austerity which looks like but won't feel like nasty Tory austerity because well, it just won't. They'll tax millionaires just a tad more and will have a mansion tax that any worth his fee accountant can avoid to make the NHS funded the way it should be. They'll cut tuition fees to £6,000 a year to prove they're on the side of 'yoof' but don't be unemployed or on benefits because their shadow welfare minister has warned Labour doesn't represent people on benefits, just people in work and that's why their called Labour rather than Tory Lite {TM} and remember that Labour Good/Tory Bad so vote Labour.

Both Tory and Labour parties have awakened to the likelihood of a hung - don't you think that's an expression worthy of so much more than a solely mental image - Parliament and the fact that us splittists Jocks actually never got back in the box after the referendum but have instead taken to responding to any kind of political poll that we're going to vote in our millions again and not in the kind of way that any self respecting Westminster MP would have us vote. ie for them. They've been outraged, betrayed, frightened, incredulous, frustrated, annoyed, dismayed, disappointed and hurt beyond belief so they've done what they do best and lined up the right wing MSM {mainstream media} to demonise us and ensure that everyone without a brain but still with a vote where it really counts - in Engerlund - knows that Westminster MP's good, SNP MP's mad bastards led by some wee lassie and that horrible Alex Salmond we all learned to hate during the referendum who are going to destroy the world or democracy as we know it at least {which to be honest isn't much of a democracy at all really} so you better give one of us an outright majority so we can all go safely back to doing what we do best - ignoring the Jocks, Jockland and anything tainted with even the faintest whiff of Jockery. Thank God for England, Queen Liz and St. George!

Yes, us rabid Nats in Scotland could well be sending a veritable tartan army of splittist MP's all the way to dear old Westmonster, all clad in tartan, claymores waving, woad on their faces and murrrder in their black hearts. They're going to eat English young, steal Big Ben and all the subsidised wine from the Palace of Westminster bars, make it law that everyone has to wear tartan and learn Gaelic and even {huge intake of breath} VOTE ON THINGS LIKE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES. The bastards! Those nasty SNP monsters might even hold the balance of power since neither of the main parties looks likely to convince the voters who really matter - Yes it's THE ENGLISH again, do try to keep up - that one or other of them is good/smart/responsible enough to be trusted to run a government in anything other than blatant self-interest.

To be honest it's just not cricket, sorry, DEMOCRACY, except that it is, just not the kind of democracy we have told you to vote for, the traditional British kind that works just for us.





Scotland, HOW VERY DARE YOU!

Meanwhile back at the {B}ranch {Office}, or Scotland as they call it, the branch manager of {not}Scottish Labour {which is just UK labour with a see-you-Jimmy hat on and therefore not anything like a separate or proper Scottish only Labour party with it's own ability to decide/promise/deliver anything not approved by UKLabour and that's not fully devolved to Scottish Government control and therefore of relevance only AFTER being elected to control of said government which means also that nothing they are promising currently is of any point since they are not in government in Scotland, are unlikely to be this side of hell freezing over and even if they were, based on previous performance, wouldn't bother their Scottish backsides in delivering any of it anyway. Phew!}

As I was saying: Branch Manager J. Murphy esq, {he of the  'I'm going to keep on talking quietly and in reassuringly reasonable tones over every interviewer and around every question repeating ad nauseam any or all of the five magical mantras I've been taught by Master McTiernan of Babble so I don't have to really answer anything that might incriminate me, cos I'm so clever I can do this and none of yous is going to notice cos yous is aw as thick as mince and nowhere near as smart as me as I pull down my blackout glasses and stick my fingers in my ears so reality of each and every poll over the last 6 months canny get in cos we're no gaunny get wiped oot so we're no cos WE ARRA PEEPUL!} has been making the best of all his wee pals in BBC Scotland to make sure each and every utterance is given widespread and obsequious homage, acknowledging them for the manna from heaven they undoubtedly are. These are being laid out with simplicity and clarity, the only way us poor simpletons can understand things and are being repeated by each and every MP, MSP, Party Supporter and clone who gets near a newspaper, microphone or TV camera:

1 Labour Good/ SNP bad
2 Vote SNP Get Tory
3 The fact is the biggest party gets to form the Government.
4 Labour isn't going enter into a coalition with the SNP under any circumstances.
5 Labour Good/ Tory Bad

Now, let's take these one at a time.

Labour Good, SNP Bad.

This depends on your point of view or potentially grasp of reality. Unfortunately for {Not}Scottish Labour, it appears almost inevitable now, after 6 months of polls telling us that most people are prepared to vote SNP, that Labour and the Lib-Dems in Scotland are going to be either wiped out or simply  significantly stuffed after the election. But what's a wee annihilation or two amongst friends, right? Only the Tory vote has held up. SNP membership has soared to 103,000, while judging by the signs on TV from their conferences, Labour is dying on it's feet - members at conference appeared to be sitting with an empty seat between them to make them look more numerous than they really are while the Lib-Dems are basically left with a few ex MP's and remnants who are potentially zombies or so old they can no longer find an exit. Labour's staged meetings featuring on TV, like Gordon Browns last appearance, appear to be happening in private with bussed in support and party activists making up a crowd that means wide angle lenses are banned. Meanwhile SNP policy is viewed by voters as being more progressive, more representative of voter expectation and their leadership and candidates more trusted than the current mainstream, even in England. {holds in a smirk} Local council by-election results are backing polling as SNP candidates are winning these in similar ratio to polls.

Vote SNP Get Tory.

Sorry, this is just bullshit. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, SNP Party leader has been explicit. SNP will not facilitate a Tory Govt. No matter how many SNP MP's are elected they will vote against the Tory's getting a second term. This completely negates the argument unless the Tory's get an outright majority, which can only be won in England, where as usual Scotland's votes - no matter for which party - make absolutely no difference. The reality of this argument is an attempt to gain an outright Labour majority. Again, Scottish voters don't seem to want this as Scottish Labour MP's historically have been vote slaves for the UK party line which has meant Scotland's voice and needs are often ignored. Strong SNP representation without having to hold solely a UK party line is what most voters appear to understand guarantees the strongest influence in our interest. Sorry {Not}Scottish Labour.

The fact is the biggest party gets to form the Government.

Again, this is nonsense. The biggest party gets the FIRST CHANCE to form a government but the result isn't guaranteed. The party who can carry support to form A WORKING MAJORITY forms the government. Even Jim Murphy is saying the last time that happened was in 1924, but it still happened so he's proving his 'fact is' argument is rubbish. This was repeated for weeks before MSM began to challenge it {probably as a result of on-line alternate media pressure} Polls are showing no party having an outright majority is the most likely outcome. With a guaranteed SNP vote no matter how many {or few} MP's they have Labour will maximise opposition to Tory Govt, not ensure it gets in. That's an outright lie. The Tory party can win an outright majority, but that can only be won in England and therefore also can only be lost in England. Scotland's votes won't make one iota of difference. In actual fact as SNP candidates are likely to wipe out the Lib-Dem's in Scotland and by default carry their votes for a Labour Govt, the SNP makes a Labour Govt actually more, not less, likely.

A Labour/SNP coalition. Not happening. Nicola Sturgeon said weeks ago she couldn't see it happening. The red line of getting rid of nuclear weapons rules it out, likewise a formal 'confidence and supply' agreement. Issue by issue is the only realistic prospect. Listen to what {Not} Scottish Labour are not saying. They're very careful not to answer the question about them being prepared to deal on that basis. They won't rule it out.

Labour Good/ Tory Bad.

Again that's a perspective issue. I'd say Tory Bad/ Labour Not Quite So Bad/ SNP best option.

Better get ready. It's going to get really nasty in the next few weeks. {Not} Scottish Labour are fighting for their very expenses - sorry - SURVIVAL. They're going to turn feral very quickly.
Already they've wheeled out Gordy Broon again to make promises that anyone with any amount of common sense can see will never be delivered. £800 million a year extra for Scotland if you vote Labour? I don't hear Ed Miliband or Ed Balls agreeing to that and they will hold the purse strings if elected. If there are as few {Not}Scottish Labour MP's as it looks like there's going to be what's the chance of that happening?

Let's not forget this is the same Gordy who appeared a couple of weeks after the Smith Commission proposals were announced, just as Labour really started getting a pasting in the polls. to announce the proposed and put through proper proposals didn't go far enough and Scotland should get this, that and the next thing on top {even though {Not}Scottish Labour's Smith Commission proposals were the weakest of the lot} Do you remember any of the two Ed's coming out at any time since to say "We agree and we guarantee good ole Gordy's guarantee, guaranteed."

By the way, am I the only one getting even more confused every time a Labour or Tory MP says "I've /We've been very clear on that." I think my clarity sensor is buggered.

It's going to get messy. Better fortify yourselves folks.

Porage anyone?