BBC Blog Network

User Profile

Sandy_Shore

Listed below are comments made by Sandy_Shore between Thursday, 21st August 2008 and Friday, 13th March 2009.

«Newer
Older»

Cash cuts 02:37am on 13 Mar 2009 Dundee is a Dundee Law unto itself. Nevertheless, its economic problems can be dealt with successfully by a government seriously interested in tackling them and seriously interested in tackling them with the powers that the government of an independent country can wield.

Why does the mysterious Mr Salmond have such a supremely smug expression permanently etched upon his supremely, and supremely infuriatingly, smug countenance? This is the question to which all remaining opponents of the Scottish cause remain dearly wedded to being dearly intent upon desiring to be furnished with an answer, and the sooner the better, if you would be so kind.

And not a Salmond type of answer either, thank you very much. Been there, done that. A straightforward answer to the straightforward question that was straightforwardly actually asked by Simple Simon of South Lanarkshire is what they naively crave an answer to, the poor untutored and hopelessly misguided innocents, so as to save them from the weekly indignity of the public witnessing of the foaming of the mouth and the mouthing of deleted expletives in exasperated frustration to the nth degree of discombobulation such as is only too frequently to be witnessed among the hopelessly hapless and maniacally distraught unionist MSPs at FMQs, today's routinely instructive session being no exception to the rule. Did you see it? Not half bad. Pretty much good enough for global dissemination by means of the various and numerous media made miraculously and opportunely available to distressed minorities everywhere by the wonders of the wondrously wonderful Internet, for which praises be sung and church bells rung.

Well, I shall give you the answer that you crave, if you will just be patient for a moment. Are you sitting comfortably? Once upon a time there was a wicked ogre, as you might expect, who smote the land (smiting the land being something of a speciality of wicked ogres down the ages) with power and might that might well have been the death of it, had she not been timeously carted off to the nutty house, to loud populist applause, when she started using the royal 'we' in public, to the notable embarrassment of her majestic majesty not least. God save the Queen . . . and chase rebellious Scots away.

Consequently, the Scottish Parliament (the what?!!!) was revived and revivified and dusted down and reconstituted in such a deviously inscrutable manner as ineluctably interminably to keep the SNP oot! The best laid plans of mice and outright unionist scoundrels gangin' aft agley, however, as we ken sae weel, they goat in onywey, and wee Eck rules, so there!

To get back to the question. You remember the question? Whence cometh the ineffaceable grin upon the sae weel kent countenance of the nationally cherished Cheshire cat that occupies Bute House upon the historically significant basis of a notoriously notorious minority? Well, I shall tell you. Are you still sitting comfortably? Then I shall resume.

It is like this. More precisely, it is this: history relates the following story. Once upon a time, when a great Depression settled upon the affairs of men (and women), political consequences of historic proportions ensued which benefited causes which, it had previously been supposed, had no hope in hell of ever prevailing, and these causes ultimately prevailed, for a time at least. Seismic upheaval simply does alter the contours of the landscape, not least the political one.

But that is only a vague and nebulous answer - I hear you riposte adroitly - to the inestimably crucial question of why Mr Salmond persists in seeming to be so impertinently and infuriatingly smug! A more precise answer might be that, in forming an administration, even a minority one by the skin of his dissonantly dissident incisors, Mr Salmond has gained access to the generationally coveted inner sanctum of power and might of subjugated Scotland, such as it is, and has disobligingly arrived at the excruciatingly infuriating point at which he has learned the infinitely invaluable lessons thereof.

Consequently, it may be supposed to be only a matter of time and circumstance, which is already arriving, before what he and his party seek is achieved.

And they shall live happily ever after, except the Labour Party, the leader of whose egregiously mediocre grouping in the Scottish Parliament appears to have lost his braw red tie in the Caird Hall, which the Labour Party so signally failed to fill last weekend, as the First Minister disobligingly remarked at FMQs today. If we have retained nothing else from today's seal clubbing, we have no doubt remembered that.

The Labour Party is dead. Long live Scotland . . . and the smile on Mr Salmond's face. And long live Dundee, if it can divest itself of its historic preoccupation with the notion that it is peculiarly ill done to. It is no more ill done to than is Scotland, all of which is suffering from the collapse of the UK economy and the step-by-step disintegration of the UK. The UK is dead. Long live Scotland.
Not a great day 4:24pm on 04 Sep 2008 #12 Oldnat

Totally in agreement with you, except for the split infinitive. Very wise.

As for Mr Taylor's comment that the wider affair is "less than salutory", I am totally in agreement there again . . . except that it would have been more salutary to get the spelling right. Never mind, a mere detail of little consequence, like this whole tedious, mind-numbingly tiresome little affair.

Once Parliament's decision has been made known, let us move on swiftly to something more worthy of our attention.
The Iron Laddie? 1:49pm on 22 Aug 2008 Bingowings 87 (#2), Mr Salmond did not say that the Scottish people did not mind the economics of Thatcherism, as you will see if you read his remarks reproduced below.

I note Mr Salmond's confirmation of the only interpretation of his remarks that can possibly stand up to scrutiny. Personally, having read them myself, I was never in any doubt about it, as my post on the previous thread indicates. Here it is again, as I think that it should be demonstrated that the biased media coverage that there has been is being resisted:

"As predictably distorted accounts of what the First Minister said about the Thatcher era are appearing all over the place today, as one might expect, I hope nobody minds too much if I just indulge myself by contrasting this fiction with the fact. The relevant passage in the TotalPolitics interview follows:

"The SNP has a strong social conscience, which is very Scottish in itself. One of the reasons Scotland didn't take to Lady Thatcher was because of that. We didn't mind the economic side so much. But we didn't like the social side at all." (Alex Salmond in conversation with Iain Dale)

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that what the FM said is that Scots objected more to the social side of Thatcher-era policy than to the economic side: "We didn't mind the economic side SO MUCH. But we didn't like the social side at all." The key words to justify my interpretation are obviously the ones in upper case: "SO MUCH". In its got-up indignation - "Alex Salmond should hang his head in shame", etc., etc., etc. - Scottish Labour is cutting out the bit that it doesn't find convenient, as experience teaches one to expect from it, of course.

So Mr Salmond, in my reading of the text, is not, in fact, saying that Scotland didn't mind Thatcher economic policy. Nor is he saying that he personally didn't mind Thatcher economic policy. Although he has been reported as saying both, he has yet to say either, I think, if he means to do so at all.

Anyway, that's my textual analysis for the day for what it may be worth."

In my view, Mr Salmond is right to comment on what he said, although it is clear enough, it seems to me. It is the Scottish Labour and eager media distortion of it that makes clarification necessary. After all, the entire electorate of Scotland is hardly likely to go to the TotalPolitics website to check the text of the interview for itself, is it? In any case, why was the First Minister not offered an early opportunity to reply himself to all of this bogus sound and fury? This, it seems to me, is a question which the BBC should be answering. Why don't you answer it, Mr Taylor. I'm waiting for your reply, although not holding my breath obviously.
The novelty of Hustings 11:49am on 22 Aug 2008 Oldnat (#70), thank you for the link.

As predictably distorted accounts of what the First Minister said about the Thatcher era are appearing all over the place today, as one might expect, I hope nobody minds too much if I just indulge myself by contrasting this fiction with the fact. The relevant passage in the TotalPolitics interview follows:

"The SNP has a strong social conscience, which is very Scottish in itself. One of the reasons Scotland didn't take to Lady Thatcher was because of that. We didn't mind the economic side so much. But we didn't like the social side at all." (Alex Salmond in conversation with Iain Dale)

I don't know about you, but it seems to me that what the FM said is that Scots objected more to the social side of Thatcher-era policy than to the economic side: "We didn't mind the economic side SO MUCH. But we didn't like the social side at all." The key words to justify my interpretation are obviously the ones in upper case: "SO MUCH". In its got-up indignation - "Alex Salmond should hang his head in shame", etc., etc., etc. - Scottish Labour is cutting out the bit that it doesn't find convenient, as experience teaches one to expect from it, of course.

So Mr Salmond, in my reading of the text, is not, in fact, saying that Scotland didn't mind Thatcher economic policy. Nor is he saying that he personally didn't mind Thatcher economic policy. Although he has been reported as saying both, he has yet to say either, I think, if he means to do so at all.

Anyway, that's my textual analysis for the day for what it may be worth.
The novelty of Hustings 2:05pm on 21 Aug 2008 "All three condemned Alex Salmond, claiming that he was out to "use Scotland" for his own Nationalist ends, not to serve her needs. All three used variations of that formula."

Whatever your political perspective, I think you have to pause at this little gem and wonder at it, and then rub your eyes and check to see if it really is there and, having confirmed that it actually is there despite every probability that it shouldn't be, then check to see if you have read it properly and, if you've read it properly - and here comes the hard part - then check to see whether you've understood it properly on the assumption that it actually means anything at all in the first place. What are SNP ends if not to serve the needs of Scotland? What would the point be in its existence if that were not so? Ergo, advancing its own electoral interests can only amount to the same thing so far as Mr Salmond and his followers are concerned.

So this was Scottish Labour having some kind of brain-storming session, was it? Give up now, chaps. Those brains are not worth storming.

«Newer
Older»

^ Back to top

BBC MMVI

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites

BBC.co.uk

BBC Blog Network

Find and talk to the BBC's bloggers.

User Profile

Sandy_Shore