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Listed below are comments made by obangobang between Thursday, 20th August 2009 and Wednesday, 25th November 2009.

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Prime Minister's Questions: Schools 4:57pm on 25 Nov 2009 "..a few tighter polls.."

Can you cite more than one?
Plotters, quitters and fighters 09:53am on 17 Nov 2009 #142

Can I still use "The Crashmeister" when referring to, er, The Crashmeister?
Plotters, quitters and fighters 3:09pm on 16 Nov 2009 "Which camp would you be in?"

Who cares? Labour is finished, and only those with the most to lose are spending too much time worrying about this sort of nonsense.

As for "..so much for the talk of the SNP sweeping through Scotland", not so fast. A rather naive political own goal in terms of the timing of the announcement of the cancellation of GARL gave Labour a stick to beat the SNP Scottish Government with, and boy did they use it. Don't expect the SNP to make that mistake again.

Also, bear in mind that the SNP have generally held fairly low expectations for a breakthrough in the West of Scotland, despite Glasgow East last year. If Scotland is the Labour stronghold, Glasgow and the West of Scotland are the inner sanctum. Satan will be having a snowball fight before the tribalists lose their grip here.

There will be plenty of time for you to have your post-mortem after nexy year's GE, and I predict here and now it will be Gordon what lost it.
It won't be March 7:53pm on 11 Nov 2009 Will Meddlesome enter the press room to the tune of Jackanory?
When politics matters... 2:59pm on 09 Nov 2009 This is not just about Afghanistan, though. If Labour in general and The Crashmeister in particular were not so despised, this sort of story would simply evaporate. Instead, we have BBC news running it as the top story on some of their radio news bulletins.

I have no doubt that Brown did not intend offence with his cack-handed letter, and that he was not intentionally afronting the memory of the fallen by forgetting to bow his head, but they ARE errors. An administration that is in control of the media agenda can put out these fires pretty quickly and easily. One that is in terminal decline simply succeeds in fanning the flames.

Labour's prospects are now utterly hopeless. We have government by Official Opposition and significant parts of the country are bereft of democratic representation because their existing MPs have given up the ghost and are urgently looking for an alternative means of making a crust. On top of that Brown's so-called 'world statesman' role is also in tatters following his disastrous attempt to introduce a 'Tobin' Tax at the G20 Finance Ministers' conference in St Andrews.

Surely the Labour Party must realise we cannot go on like this for another six months?
Will he or won't he? 10:45am on 29 Sep 2009 I do hope so. I could do with a laugh.
EU: If DC were PM 1:38pm on 17 Sep 2009 I doubt if he'd prefer either, but I suspect he'll get both.
Why did they do it? 2:34pm on 03 Sep 2009 Some facts:

Megrahi was included in the PTA with Libya despite the Scottish Government's open resistance.

An application for compassionate release is a right enjoyed by all prisoners in the Scottish prison system, regardless of the severity of the crime for which they have been convicted.

The decision to grant, or not to grant, compassionate release is made by the Scottish Justice Minister, alone.

It is clear that the UK government wanted Megrahi released under the PTA. The reasons why they wanted him released in such a manner have not been fully explained but no doubt include not wanting him to die in prison in the UK (obviously terrible for UK-Libya relations, both diplomatic and commercial, and potentially an excuse for terrorist action against UK interests). It is also most probable that this position was made clear to the Scottish Government.

As stated above, the Scottish Government has always been against Megrahi being returned to Libya under a PTA. Why were the SNP against the PTA? Because they were bounced into it by the UK government. It too, however, was not keen to see Megrahi die in prison, most likely for similar reasons to those stated above, but also, I suspect, because there are many within senior SNP ranks who have serious doubts as to the safety of his conviction.

In normal circumstances, in such a position, the SNP government would have allowed the appeal process to do its job and in due course either Megrahi would have been released or his conviction upheld. As he was given less than three months to live, however, this was not an option.

It therefore had only one course open to it, and that was to consider compassionate release, which has as its only substantive criteria, the question of whether the Justice Secretary wishes to be compassionate towards a dying man, allowing him to die at home, with his family, rather than alone, in prison. As stated above, the rules do not differentiate between prisoners on the basis of the gravity of the crime for which they were convicted, so the Justice Secretary has only two choices. Show compassion, or do not. Given that it was clearly their desire to see him sent back to Libya, it is hardly surprising that Megrahi was then released on this basis.

The only question that remains is why did Megrahi abandon his appeal? He could have been compassionately released without such a move. The only possible explanation must be that someone, somewhere, was able to bring sufficient presssure to bear on either Megrahi, or the Scottish Government, or both, to ensure that in the event that Megrahi was released, the apppeal would be dropped. To answer who, one must first ask why, who stood to gain from dropping the appeal?

The one party that gains nothing from the appeal being abandoned, is the SNP government.
The black hole deepens 6:59pm on 20 Aug 2009 #37

So let's assume, just for a moment, that carrying a national debt of 40pc of GDP is both sustainable and desirable. Given a likely level of national output currently of, say GBP1250bn, that suggests a maximum level of debt of GBP500bn, so only an overshoot of over 100pc, then. And of course, as the economy contracts, the overshoot increases (I'm afraid your ever-increasing GDP scenario works both ways).

When would you suggest we start thinking about paying that overshoot back?
The black hole deepens 5:53pm on 20 Aug 2009 #18

No, Labour Policy is to pop into the Grand Hotel for a slap-up meal and stick it on an already maxed-out credit card.

Labour's delusion with regard to debt is perfectly summed-up here:

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2009/08/government-debt-rating-british

The really terrifying thing is that this guy, presumably, believes the nonsense he is writing. Either that, or this is the Crashmeister's cover story for completely trashing the public accounts in advance of an incoming Tory government.

Either way, it's nothing short of criminal.

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