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masingo

Listed below are comments made by masingo between Friday, 9th May 2008 and Thursday, 10th December 2009.

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'Not quite' D-Day 11:27pm on 10 Dec 2009 I have read the article and to be honest i still don't understand what the fuss is about...well i do understand if the party has been making gains through use of council resources however given the length of time this has been taking place it seems to be one of these things that was probably agreed back in the day and never questioned since. This highlights the problem with "long standing understandings" that never get questioned by councils.

As for the Gray one thats very very tenuous the question surely should be was the event ever specifically used as a method to raise money for electoral use. the question as it stands has no real effect on Gray.

Must say the coverage of this has been very confusing i thought before this article that the two were somehow related.
'Not quite' D-Day 8:01pm on 10 Dec 2009 Marqueegate? Is that the one where a Labour social club had the audacity to rent out a Marquee from the local council as any eligible group can do for free and then out of the profits made from the event donated to Grays election campaign?

Lets be honest its hardly accepting donations from and ineligible source for a campaign that never happened.

This whole argument is one of the reasons i get so annoyed with politicians because technically both are right its just they are only right for their own ends. The money has gone up that is indisputable, the problem is it hasent gone up enough to cover increasing costs and furthermore the accelerated funding that was brought forward last year further puts a dent in it, so both are at fault but there could yet be additional funding perhaps after the general election.

Gary Hay - Perhaps the fact that your post although accurate is nothing to do with the topic may have been the reason it was removed? just a suggestion?

Tom - theres no way to say that PFI is better than the SFT because one is a funding method the other is a quango with responsibility for supporting building projects two totally different flavors of fish, the comparison your looking for is between PFI/PPP and NPD.

Personally i think it was a score draw today both landed some good cheap shots and made their points well, and more to the point none made substantive references to Christmas Cards or Marquees.

That said Bella did pretty much steal Vince Cables refrence to it being good for Bingo and Boilers (she kinda scares me so i wont make the obvious joke there)
Sooner or later 9:03pm on 01 Sep 2008 #40 Brownedov

The Uk may have been a member of the rebranding exercise known as Masstricht, the European Economic Community (ok rembranding exercise is perhaps a little flippant but im sure my meaning isnt missed) which existed long before then and the UK wasent a member of until the 70's thanks largely to Charles De Gaulls refusual to allow UK to join.

apologies for being pedantic with this however it is a valid point, methinks Brownedov may have been more precise with his comment had he said that the Masstircht Treaty (which was ratified by the Tory UK government) allows for free movement of goods and services between memeber states (just dont tell the Customs and Excise that as they refuse to beleive that under this you can stock up on fags and booze in mainland europe to escape the majority of uk taxes and established the principle of subsidiarity which allowed for devolutuion to the lowest possible level of governemtn for major decision making...quite how that has led to the plethora of EU directives on everything over the years since I will never know.

Back to the point however, I think Labour are often guilty of getting carried away with their hammering of Scottish Independance however in the absence of any firm plans on things such as the NHS, Defence, Pensions, and immigration, all i don know is whatever they are planning on doing should they acheive independance is that it will all be paid for my North Sea oil everyone will get whatever they want for free and that we will collect less tax from business invest as much as Norway and have perfect health care smarter more well behaved kids and finally have lordship over our own lands which were stolen by them nasty english 300 years ago....ok once again being fecesious (im terrible at spelling, and gammar, and many other things but i think iv made my point)
Sooner or later 2:23pm on 01 Sep 2008 In many ways I would think this crisis for Labour is whether to choose a candidate that in normal circumstances would have a good chance of winning (by normal i mean outwith the bubble of a by election) and risk damaging their stock for a future opportunity to stand, or to perhaps give the opportunity to a younger acitvist still cutting their teeth trying to build a reputation, although in this instance the fact that by putting a relatiely unknown (however talented) would damage the credibilty of the candidate for future electoral possibiltities by making it obvious they are only in as a paper candidate.

At the end of the day though i would reackon that Labour have to at least make it look like they are fighting seriously for the seat and would pick the strongest possible candidate (as obvisally they allways would do regardless) and hopefully the party will unite behind whomeverthe candidate is and fight a strong battle.

I am unsure currently wheather i will be spending a week down in the area it will depend on when the call is made and what i have on at work at the time. I would like to make it down though seing as fife is my spiritual home. I allways enjoy the banter between the parties, so long as its not taken too seriously, at the end of the day if you cant spend your days trying to take apart your opposistion then go out for a pnt with them in the eveningtheres no point to the whole thing.
Prison population 5:21pm on 30 Aug 2008 It takes the best part of 18 months to recruite and train a new police offficer (i mean that from stage of intial aplication). With this in mind anything that the SNP have done will take at least untill the start of next year to show anwy effect. A promise of additional police officers on the street is one of the easiest to follow through on its increasing the levels of recruitment that is the problem, infact to clarify its increasing the levels of sutiable applications for recruitment that is the problem.

When it comes to jail and criminality i think the biggest problem is that we have lost all sense of proportionality, punnishments need to reflect the crimes otherwise where is the point, im not an advocat for the death penalty however in terms of natural justice if someone kills then surely as a result they also should be killed? This argument of coruse is flawed in that we all tacitly consent to waive our right to natural jsutice by enploying agencies such as the police force to act as a neutral agency in the enforcement of law an without this chaos may ensue. This brings me back to my original point now, what happens when the agency we employ to dispense justice no longer dispenses what we would regard as justice? In my opinion the reason why the police are unable to dispense their duties is because the government(s) have created so much of a burden of legality that it is not possible to capture a perpetrator of crime without infrigning some kind of right or in some way making them a vitctim.We need almost with regards to law enforcement have the Hobseeian leviathan that stands above normal law a single great predator to protect the sheep from the wolves of society. howevr given the nature of society we perhaps are unable to acheive such an outcome what needs to happen however is for punnishments to be sever enough to discourage individuals from perpetrating them. If a crime is deemed not to be the fault of indivudal due to some sort of inebration temporary insanity or perversion then they should be prevent from enetering into the state of inebration or removed from that what renders them temprorarily insane at the first instance that this occurs. in the case of perverstions that are out of control of the indivudal then the individuals ability to perform said acticties should be removed so as to protect society from their disorder.

Perhaps that seems a little extreeme however it is that kind of basis we should base law on, start with the msot possible extreeme course of action then break it down so that it is more acceptable to whatever societies current empathies are, ie instead of death penalities, life sentances in prison ect rather than what we have no where in essence we treat perpetrators of crime better than the victims. it is only through this that we can make the law means something again.
Sympathy and sensitivity 2:39pm on 15 Aug 2008 I find it incredible that so many are jumping to the defence of the Governement, these are probably the same people that have spent the past years shouting the odds every time there has been any sort of hospital controversy and blaming the Hollyrood government (in my opinion this is blatantly not an issue that is the fault of the Scottish government it is a procedural issue and the only invovlement that the government should have is taking a not of the reasons why it happned and accepting the hospitals assertion that it will never happen again.

As i earlier eluded to i very much doubt the tone of these comments would have been so positive had it been the previous exectuive. This constant reference to media bias against the SNP is ridiculous, there are as many media outlets that are so pro-snp it at times it feels as if reading a newsletter, if you guys have so much problem with Brians blogs go read some of the editorials in those papers.
Loadsa luck, pal 3:26pm on 05 Aug 2008 I dont know if many people have worked this out yet however in most cases council tax is a tax based on the abilty to pay. I will put this very simply, the more expensive your home the more you pay for council tax. Capital assests are as fundamantal an indicator of personal wealth as anything else.

Or is someone going to try and tell me that the value of someones home has no corelation to their personal income?

LiT is a tax on earned incomes, so those who do not earn their incomes (ie those who earn income from shares or investments) will pay nothing, in effect workers will pay yet their boss will not.

In my opinion thats far more unfair than any sort of current rate fo taxation.
Let the battle begin 12:40pm on 02 Aug 2008 This should be an interesting battle, and i think to some extent it is just what the party needs. I think Scottish Labour has became somewhat stale over the past year, Wendy never really had a chance to get going with the nonsense over donations hanging over her.

What i am really hoping for is whoever wins to come out and actualyl challenge the SNP, Wendy occasionally made quite good points but still managed to missthe oportunity to go for the kill and it became a running joke. I think on this point Brian is right, its not as much about abilty to do the job as it is about the ability to perform in the role and actually give Salmond a challenge.

I for one aint planning on casting any ballot until the last minute so i can take the time to work out where each of the candidates is coming from.
Clearly confused 6:43pm on 13 May 2008 A few points to make here -

freedjmac where on earth do you get that one from?

"As that strategy evaporated in the chaos and counter-briefing of the past few days, the mood apparently changed somewhat."

Chaos and counterbriefing yeah thats exactly the view the party wants to promote

Granfatherflump may have just hit the final solutuion on the head, that would be an option that would even surely suit all parties and would allow for a clear result either way. at least some people are attempting to contribute somthing positive to the discussion.

Mathcampbell - as a trade unionist i am actually offended by ur comments, the early Labour Party stood up for those traditionaly left out by society, by introducing a wage (a modest one at that) allowed those who did not have the means to support themselves through private income could afford to run for parliament. as a point if you bothered to look at the highest claimants for allowances then you would know that on average SNP MP's claim more than anyone else.

The SNP never wanted a referendum, because despite the support the party has the cause of independence does not have the same, they knew that before they would never of gained support in the parliament for the referendum so what they did was put the vote as close to the next major elections as possible so that they can spend the election campaign telling people that the other parties dont listen to them. this was a strategy for two election victories not one and it was well thought out, however it has been shown to be what it was, just another aspiration, like class sizes, student debts, grants for first time house buyers, matching the school building programme brick for brick.
Not just any referendum 00:06am on 09 May 2008 Personally i totaly agreed with the new policy of the party, infact i have been saying this for the past year to everyone that i speak to about this. scotland elected a government who above all else want an independant scotland, why wait 5 years? surely a party with this as their modus de operendi (i make no apologies for the worlds refusual to adapt to my interpretation of spelling) would have carefulyl drawn up plans for how an independant scotland would work most notably-

Currently the majority of taxes are collected by Westminster controlled and funded agencies. How much would it cost to set up a cenral Scottish tax collection agency?Where would it be based and how would it operate?

The current SNP policy is to end nuclear power and to remove nuclear weapons from Scottish Waters. Given that there are currently several thousand people are employed directly connected to these industries. where would these people work in the New Great and Bountiful Scottish Empire?

Speaking of which, there are tens of thousands of people employed by the RAF and Army, given that Scotland currently has more forces personel that is proportional to its poulation, if (and thats a BIG if) Scotland was left with its propotional share then exactly how much use would 3 Tornados and 0.3 of a nimrod then how many people would it require to service this equpiment? Where would they be based? and more importantly what would they do?

If the SNP are to receive all Taxes from Oil in Scottish water, then what happens to the Rigs based more than 15 miles out (and thus not in Scottish water)? Where does the money for their oil go?

Ergo my point is that we have no idea what exactly we would be voting for, how it would work and what it would look like.

In my opinion the often revered 'Caledonian Quiver' is not about Scots not having the testicular fortitude to stand up for what they want and such like, its about Scots having the strength of mind to be able to work together as part of a larger closer union.

Anywhy back to the issue at hand, I see no reason other than to try and create as much confilct as possible with Westminster to spin the entire vote out as a Braveheart style fight against the big nasty English.

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