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MajorStishie

Listed below are comments made by MajorStishie between Thursday, 1st May 2008 and Saturday, 31st May 2008.

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Here we go again 2:26pm on 31 May 2008 Yes, Mr Taylor, Ms Alexander is indeed slow and pretentious. Well spotted. Oh, sorry, did you say portentous? Well, only pretentiously portentous in my judgment, and in yours too, I think. When a tired old debating trick is deployed in such a way that everyone notices it, even the tired old chap sitting at the back struggling to suppress a yawn, it really has not worked all that well. Now has it?

I know that Ms Alexander is currently putting it about that she would not have attracted such an avalanche of rather comprehensively damning criticism as Scottish Labour leader if she had been a man. However, I think that the facts speak for themselves and that those of us who still manfully refuse to be entirely intimidated by the thought police of political correctitude owe it to ourselves and to our respect for the truth to go on speaking the truth.

With that in mind, I feel that the time has come to split a hair. You suggest, Mr Taylor, that "she was on better form today", whereas what I might be prepared to concede is that Ms Alexander was on somewhat less mediocre form on this occasion. A giant stride for her. It should be noted, however, I think, that this was only made possible by the parliamentary courtesy extended to her by her political opponents, who listened to her in silence as she wittered on portentously.

Although this parliamentary courtesy was not extended to the First Minister by the Labour group, Mr Salmond was on his usual masterful form, battling manfully against the slings and arrows of outrageous rowdiness that the Labour group apparently find necessary to prop up their much less impressive leader.
Dearie me 7:43pm on 11 May 2008 Mr Taylor's piece today reminds me that what we are reading here, for all that it may be readable and on occasion moderately thought-provoking, is, nonetheless, coming from the establishment's major mouthpiece, the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation. The anglosaxophone, as I remember it being called in the 1970s by SNP activists, exists to serve and preserve the Union. It is an organ of the British state. Let us never be lulled into forgetting that.

I have searched in vain for any media report, from north or south of the border, that is not highly critical of practically every aspect of Ms Alexander's highly dubious controversial doings of this past week. Mr Taylor, however, although he concedes that her cunning plan was botched and has blown up in her face, does not express the matter so forthrightly and claims for her that those who say that Ms Alexander lacks Westminster know-how "are spouting patronising tosh". Ah, now he is more forthright, when attempting to defend this indefensibly ineffectual champion of the Union.

The consensus of opinion that I find to be out there is that Ms Alexander has shown herself to be the ineptly amateur, dishonest, blundering, cheap political trickster that we know her to be. Furthermore, she has demonstrated that she is also a ruthlessly dangerous ineptly amateur, dishonest, blundering, cheap political trickster who is apparently worryingly detached from reality.

This whole pantomime has not been about the leader of Scottish Labour bravely asserting her parliamentary group's autonomy vis-a-vis the UK party. It has been about an arrogantly self-willed rogue politician who has caused in one week by her undisciplined and chaotic blundering about incalculable damage to the electoral prospects of the Labour Party on both sides of the border and to the Union, which, after over 300 years of being resolutely protected by unionist parties against any prospect of coming under assault by means of a referendum on independence, now stands defenceless against the coming constitutional storm which the Scottish Governent's scheduled independence referendum will unleash in 2010.

Mr Brown will almost certainly not be in office then to pick up the pieces. If he means what he told The Sunday Telegraph about doing "whatever is necessary" to protect the Union, he will contrive to get rid of this walking disaster this week. The SNP will no doubt be hoping that he will not prove to be sufficiently decisive to do so.
Not just any referendum 4:38pm on 08 May 2008 So the SNP has come out of this extraordinary rumpus without a scratch and without making any concessions. As for Scottish Labour, it has made a spectacle of itself and lost whatever credibility it may have had left.

Whereas last week there was no parliamentary majority to allow the SNP to stage a referendum in 2010/11 in accordance with its manifesto commitment, there now apparently is such a majority thanks to Ms Alexander, whose brilliance as a covert SNP agent simply has to be admired.

Single-handedly she has split the unionist bloc which protected the Union against any assault upon it by referendum and has opened the door to independence. For an unappreciated political neophyte this is quite something.

Another tour de force by Alex Salmond at FMQs. It hardly needs saying, but I thought I would just say it anyway.
Taking a risk 11:10pm on 06 May 2008 The spectacle of an embarrassingly incompetent Scottish Labour leader leading her MSPs boldly on to SNP territory to focus the attention of the Scottish people for an indefinite period on the issue that the SNP are principally interested in focusing their attention on beggars belief.

So the unionist bloc is now split so far as independence is concerned. Do the words divide and rule not ring a bell with Ms Alexander? No wonder Ms Goldie is hopping mad. She at least appreciates the enormity of what has happened here.

In succeeding in goading this hopelessly clueless politician into ending the tabou status of the concept of an independence referendum, the SNP has made a truly historic breakthrough. We are in a new ball game now. Nothing will ever be quite the same again.
Calculation and fear 11:24am on 06 May 2008 Why has the UK PM not expressed a view on the Alexander referendum initiative?

As The Times has put it, he used to be indecisive ... but now he's not so sure.
Numbers 1:58pm on 03 May 2008 DisgustedDorothy is not wrong. I endorse what she says.

Congratulations to Plaid for doing so well in your local elections.

I perceive that there is in Wales a desire for a legislature of the type that we have in Scotland. That is, of course, none of my business, but I hope you get it if you want it even though we are not satisfied with ours.

I can see that it may turn out to be the case in a few years that just as Wales is acquiring a devolved legislature comparable to the present Scottish Parliament we shall be replacing that with something more powerful.

Do try to keep up, Wales.
When indisposition strikes 3:21pm on 01 May 2008 As usual at FMQs Labour MSPs disgraced themselves by shouting loudly and long during the answers to Ms Alexander's baseless inaccurate scare-story questions. What an affront to democracy. They should be ashamed of themselves. All members of a democratic parliament should be heard. It is what the people expect.

Only Labour seemed to be guilty of this atrocious and somewhat obtuse behaviour. Is it even paying any dividends? Apparently not, as the SNP government's popularity and the electorate's disapproval of Ms Alexander and her party continue.

To seek to prevent the government from defending its conduct is to show that you are afraid to let it be heard and is tantamount to conceding that that conduct is irreproachable.

Another unimpressive performance from Ms Alexander. Congratulations to Ms Sturgeon for standing in for the First Minister so ably.

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