The Iron Laddie?
It's not often, in truth, that elected politicians resort to contacting phone-in programmes on the wireless.
They have so many other avenues: formal interviews, parliamentary speeches, the peripatetic soapbox.
Plus it's generally felt that the phone-in is an opportunity for the public to ventilate their concern/anger/delight at whatever is being done to them or in their name.
So it was a little surprising to hear the First Minister Alex Salmond call into Morning Extra on BBC Radio Scotland.
By no means unwelcome, not entirely unprecedented, just a little out of the ordinary run of things.
And what had prompted this? Mr Salmond was seeking to clarify remarks he had made in an interview with Iain Dale for Total Politics.
Mr Dale, an avowed and thoughtful Conservative, had been seeking to explore the SNP's attitude towards the Tories. His theory was that the previous hatred had dissipated.
Mr Salmond acknowledged that he had tried to bring the SNP "into the mainstream of Scotland", developing a competitive economic agenda, cutting red tape.
However, he argued that the SNP retained a strong social conscience - in line, he argued, with Scottish predilections and in contradistinction, he claimed, to the position espoused by Margaret Thatcher.
Then, citing that issue of social conscience, he added: "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."
Cue rival outrage. Labour suggested that Mr Salmond should "hang his head in shame".
Thatcherite economics, they argued, had closed Scotland's shipyards and pits, destroying jobs.
Mr Salmond's reply? This was "total tosh". He hadn't praised Thatcherite economics.
Rather he had suggested that her social policies were more hateful still. He had gone on, he stressed, to suggest that Lady Thatcher's supporters wrongly claimed the legacy of Adam Smith, neglecting the moral dimension of Kirkcaldy's finest.
I suspect, however, that if Mr Salmond were entirely confident in what he had said in the interview, he would not have taken the time and trouble to call Morning Extra. He would have let the words stand alone.
Given a second chance, I doubt that he would have said: "We didn't mind the economic side so much."
Does all this matter? To borrow the first minister's comparative device, not so much as contemporary debate over current issues such as economic growth, housing, education and health care.
Still, one might reasonably expect Labour in future to quote, selectively, from Mr Salmond's comments.
One might expect Mr Salmond to retort, as he did today, that he will not be copying Gordon Brown.
He will not be inviting Lady Thatcher to visit Bute House any time soon.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~05~RS~)
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"The Iron Laddie?" Nice one Brian :o)
Spot on article, although I think oldnat out-scooped you on the previous thread!
Some will hate Eck's remarks, others agree with them. Labour will use them to their advantage, just as the SNP used afternoon tea at Downing Street to theirs. Can't see it turning into a big story though.
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So Alex Salmond says we didn't mind the economics of Thatcherism.....
....yip, boy did we laugh together as a family, as both parents lost their jobs and we all wondered how they would put food on the table for us....
And how arrogant of Mr Salmond to presume that his appointment as First Minister gives him the right to speak for the Scottish people on events that happened 30 years ago. What was he doing at the time? Getting expelled from the SNP for being a left wing rabble rouser, that's what. The notion of a young Alex Salmond espousing Thatcherite policies is quite frankly ridiculous, it beggars belief that he is even faintly endorsing them now.
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bingowings87 you should be a politician, maybe you are - or maybe an activist for one of the parties? That might explain your sentiment that he is endorsing her economic policies.
The reason for my sarcasm - did you even read Alex Salmonds response? If you did then you seem to have the same ability for processing information as Trigger from Only Fools and Horses.
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Hmmm...I think you're wrong about this Brian. I think that Salmond phoned up GMS to speak on the matter for himself because he knew that if he issued a press release rebuttal it would again be taken out of context by The Scotsman.
He knows that the Scottish media is not on his side and when you want something done you gotta do it yourself.
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Brian,
Indeed, and they've already begun, and also misrepresent them,Ah, politics...Slainte
ed
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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.
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Salmond on a plate......
Hang on, can I call a friend.....
"just say pilchard"
Laugh by Laugh...........
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The Labour party really are the biggest bunch of hypocrites around.
Gordon Brown tells us how he admired Thatcher as a conviction politician like himself.
He then invites her round for afternoon tea.
At the tea party he gives her a silverware set.
He and his cabinet have taken to stealing all their policies from the tories.
The gap between rich and poor is worse now after 11 years of Labour than it was under the Tories.
...and now they're all demanding an apology from Alex Salmond?
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#4 I am very inclined to agree with you on this.
I have several times attended talks - not all SNP ones at that - and been totally amazed at the Press reports later. I wondered if I had been at the same event.
It is certainly not the first time things have been schewed to suit a headline, and not the last.
For the record, industry had to change, but the method of doing so, was appalling to say the least by that Thatcher woman.
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Let Wee Eck speak for himself.
Worth a listen.
Slainte
ed
Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune
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To say that Thatcherite social policy was more resented in Scotland than was Thatcherite economic policy is clearly not to say either that Thatcherite economic policy was or is approved of by Scotland or by Mr Salmond.
Scottish Labour and those elements of the media that are distorting the FM's remarks are insulting our intelligence.
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Sandy Shore #6,
I'm impressed.....nearly 500 words to justify 44 of Mr Salmond's misplaced ones.....you'll get your reward in heaven...
Here's my (much shorter) rebuttal...
If I were to say "I didn't mind Dundee United winning so much.... ", it would be reasonable for people to conclude that I didn't consider this outcome as some sort of moral outrage. The same applies to Mr Salmonds comments.
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#2 bingowings87
You're wasted in the Right Wing Labour Party. All your mates are playing a different game called "Invite Thatcher for tea".
If you want a Labour Party source, have a look at Luke Akehurst's blog
Socialism is still a valid (if minority) political stance, so you seem to have 2 options
1. join Solidarity/SSP etc
2. reject the middle-class Tory dominated YK Labour Party, and turn Scottish Labour into a real Socialist force. (Iain Grey anyone?)
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Where Salmon was is immaterial.We only had Thatcher visited on us, and I mean the whole UK because of the narrow Nationalism of the SNP. It was their eleven votes that , voting with the TORIES, brought down Jim Callaghan.
All actions have consequences and it will happen again. The Nationalists will sit down with anyone they think will give them power and to hang with the consequences. Next time people talk of Society falling apart, drugs, crime family disintegration, housing shortages, Think Thatcher-Think SNP.
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What are Labour and all their little buddies like. Talk about desperate stuff.
This is the party that invites the old biddy in for a cup of tea, and only last week said they want to join forces with the Tories.
If Labour and their hangers on put as much effort into constructive policies instead of trying to make up rubbish childish stories, then Alex would not have to keep putting them in their place.
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Does it really matter that we pick over the words of what president Eck said?
In truth he dropped a bit of a gaffe here. Uncharacteristic granted, but a gaffe all the same. Going on the radio and trying to cover up by slinging more mud doesn't work.
It wasn't a serious gaffe, Margaret wasn't all bad for Scotland, was she? I am trying to think of some good she did..........
But even when he is wrong the president is right. A good basis for consenus government.
Wouldn't an admission that he could have chosen his words more carefully or something like that be a more honest answer.
But thats just not politics eh!
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"Scotland's social conscience"? Is that the same as England's "sense of fair play"?
Alex Salmond does talk some drivel.
I think the SNP would be prepared to ditch any policy for expediency sake. I mean, even their raison d'etre policy of "independence" is a con. They are not for independence, they're for exchanging Westminster for Brussels - where they'll have even less clout.
Nationalists float with the tide.
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#2 - he thinks he does speak for Scotland (even though I don't agree with a word that comes out of his mouth).
He signs official letters 'for Scotland'.
But for the record, it was the *economic* side of Thatcher's policies that almost drove my parents to despair. In case he's in any doubt.
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Salmond doesn't say things by mistake - this was done on purpose like a dog whistle to the centre-right - it's a clever idea to demonstrate that the SNP is pro-business and pro-wealth
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Brian, you call Iain Dale a "thoughtful Conservative"
Err... "thoughtful" people would not behave like this on their own blog after interviewing a senior politician:
"The Scotsman also has a long piece about an interview I have done with Alex Salmond. Thankfully Salmond doesn't get his tits out in the interview."
Huh?? The man is clearly an intellectual giant.
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#11 brigodeejohn (wait till the brigadier gets hud o ye!)
No they're just in line with their own!Complain about this comment
Next we'll have Nu-Labourites clamoring to demand the SNP apologise for Gordon brown giving Maggio a handshake and silverware!
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#12 bingowings
should have been analogised as followsStill selectively quoting I see - maybe you're NuLab after all, and simply posturing.
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[b]He will not be inviting Lady Thatcher to visit Bute House any time soon. [/b]
Heheheh.
That really puts all the unconvincing Labour 'outrage' in perspective.
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The claim made in this article that "Mr Salmond is seeking to CLARIFY his remarks" is not accurate.
His remarks are aleady crystal clear - except perhaps to someone harbouring hidden sympathies for a politically-motivated attempt to distort their meaning.
It's great to see how low the Unionist media is having to sink to try to land a glove on Salmond.
But I'm afraid they'll have to come up with something better than a pathetic attempt to twist his words.
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Seems to me that "wee eck" might just have hit the long anticipated down slope. Can you hear bubbles bursting?
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Brian
I agree 100% with Alex Salmond. Both the Social and Economic policies of Mrs Thatcher were dreadful. BUT given the Scottish conscience in these matters the SOCIAL damage was the one hated most. When you read the next paragraph in the interview it becomes clear but a biased media (including the BBC's interviewer on Radio Scotland , are shallow and mischievous. I do not mind "so much" the Labour hollering as they were and are wounded by Brown inviting her to No 10 but the press...UGGGH
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Brian
I am sure you know the reason why Alex Salmond had to appear on the phone in program this morning was to counter the deliberately misleading reporting in yesterdays Scotsman, then the lifting of the same story today in the Herald.
This was one of the most blatant pieces of misreporting yet in a increasingly bias Scottish media.
Robert Mugabe will be sending his reporters to Scotland to get some hints about controlling the media.
P.S. Blatant penalty, I only watch football on the box now. I would not pay money to watch such one sided refereeing.
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Quote, Gordon Brown, Sept 2007, "Lady Thatcher saw the need for change. And I think whatever disagreements you have with her about certain policies we have got to understand that she saw the need for change. I also admire the fact that she is a conviction politician. I am a conviction politician like her."
This is just phoney indignation on the part of Labour.
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If Salmond acts to defend himself against a totally unethical attempt to distort the public's perception of what he actually said, then that's not the same thing as not being confident enough "to let the words stand alone."
What does need to clarified is the answer to the following: why is the First Minister of Scotland having to resort to phoning a radio show before his denial of a false accusation gets an airing?
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It wasn't Thatcher that closed the mines, the shipyards, and the steel mills as the Labour leadership contenders claim, it was the Trade Unions that dragged all these industries into a position where they could not compete with the rest of the world by demanding more and more rises (ably supported by the Labour party). Thatcher gave Britain back the self respect which successive years of Labour governments had destroyed.If Labour had been in power at the time of the Faulklands, we would still be negotiating with Argentina. Today once more ,Britain has become a poor relation of France and Germany and the dumping ground for the world's detritus because of Labour's lack of regard for nationality.
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#16 northhighlander
"Does it really matter that we pick over the words of what president Eck said?"
Apparently it's so important to pick over Salmond's every word that Brian Taylor thinks it justifies writing a blog article about it.
By writing about it he imparts an importance to the matter it doesn't deserve and that unfortunately then means other people - like you - write in pointing out it's hardly worth talking about.
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"Better slip with foot than tongue." (Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734)
When Charles Dickens visited America in the early part of the 19th century (see American Notes), he travelled about observing the progress of the nation and engaging in countless exchanges with the numerous Americans that he encountered along the way. That was, of course, his purpose, and, whereas you or I might tread well-trodden paths where we would meet few challenges, he went out of his way to go out of that way and found himself in prison. Not just one prison but prison after prison and jail-house after jail-house and asylum after asylum and then institutions for those with learning difficulties, as we would say now, finishing up with the nearest doss-house and then back to the hotel for dinner with the wife, who must have thought this was a funny kind of holiday if she hadn't been through this kind of thing with Mr Dickens before.
What the Dickens has this got to do with anything? Well, how does a person of phenomenally considerable command of language express himself in the company of the poor wretches that the great man encountered in places of that type? With great care, as you may imagine. You soon find your usable vocabulary shrinking rapidly and disappearing to end up as very little in comparison with what it usually is. Sentence structure has to become very simple too, of course. Everything must be suited to a short attention span.
This is the problem which your present-day politician in the English-speaking world is faced with. Anything of greater length or complexity than a sound bite is too much for many in the audience or readership to cope with. Sad but true. The media will traduce it. Your opponents will turn it inside out and upside down and then blow it up like a balloon and burst it. You protest and try to explain what you meant, and what do you get? "Methinks he doth protest too much; guilty as charged."
Public discourse having thus been reduced to an exchange of simple notions simply expressed, politics becomes an arena for the simple-minded, which is why Scottish Labour were dominant for so long, presumably. A more sophisticated individual, like Mr Salmond, although very adept at expressing himself in such a way as to cater for all levels of intellect and educational attainment in the electorate, must inevitably sooner or later be caught saying something which, although clear enough, can be misconstrued if tampered with and taken out of context. Is this a slip of the tongue? Of course, it isn't, but it may be made to look like it.
Listen to this morning's radio interview with Mr Salmond. The interviewer, having had everything explained patiently and clearly, returns undaunted to get him to confirm that he did indeed say what he said in the Dale interview as if it were something which he was seeking to deny or should have any interest in denying. If one cannot say that Thatcherite economic policy was resented less than Thatcherite social policy without having it maintained that one must be meaning to say that Thatcherite economic policy was not resented, one must face the fact that public discourse has now descended to such a low level that nothing of even relatively little sophistication can any more be said and that our public figures find themselves now reduced to the vocabulary and syntax which Mr Dickens must have been reduced to when doing his tour of the institutional habitations of the unfortunates of his day. In such circumstances there is very little that one can say at all that would not be a slip of the tongue.
I pity our politicians, and I have no great admiration for our media. I found nothing in the Dale interview which Mr Salmond has any reason to apologize for or retract. However, no one is so near to perfection as to be perfectly on guard against leaving a little window of opportunity open for the malicious and the intellectually challenged. I would, therefore, have to agree that it might be better for the First Minister to accept that he could have expressed himself in a way which might have been even clearer than it was.
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*26 jam804
Yes! I can hear the bubbles bursting.
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#14 cargadero
SNP responsible for 18 years of Tory misrule? I'd have thought the 279 Tories, 13 Liberals 13 and 8 Ulster Unionists would have shared some of the blame!
But it's a daft comment anyway. Callaghan's government had run out of steam, lost its majority, lost the Liberals by refusing to consider electoral reform and lost the country via the "winter of discontent". If you are you seriously suggesting that the Labour minority government should have been allowed to go on from May to October before calling the general election and in that time Callaghan would have turned it around so that he won instead of the Tories then you need your head examined.
Could you be the person advising Brown to stay because he's bound to get something right soon?
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#16 northhighlander
You may well have the rights of it.
Still it's fun to see Slab rushing to the keyboard when there's a slogan to shout. Where are they when there's a debate where one needs to provide argument and evidence?
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16. Northhighlander, there was no gaffe , he was very clear on what he meant and anybody with the requisite brain cells understands what he was stating. It has been badly twisted and selective parts used by the Scottish media as per normal.
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The nationalist movement has never had a fair press in Scotland, be it the Scotsman, the Herald, Daily Record or BBC Scotland.
The SNP have been disparaged continually in the media since they have become a minority government.
Alex Salmond in particular has regularily been the target of journalistic abuse.
For Alex Salmond to be misquoted and his words twisted by the Scottish media is all par for the course.
It is little wonder he took to the air-waves, and so by-passing the selective news filtering, in order to re-state what he said and in the context he said it.
The issue here is one of partisan reporting and skewing of statements by our politicians.
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#31 kaybraes said... "It wasn't Thatcher that closed the mines, the shipyards, and the steel mills..."
Nonsense.
Thatcher's government took a strategic decision to abandon British industry in favour of finance. These industries were allowed to decay with no investment. Other countries supported and subsidised their indigenous industry. Thatcher was out for the quick buck and look where that has led us.
She also sold the country down the river at the EU. Her government took Britain into the "Single European Act" and she surrendered at Maastricht.
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Margaret Thatcher's first recession destroyed my first business, and, in consequence, my marriage. Her second recession destoyed my second business. When she dies, I shall dance on her grave. Her economic policies were disasterous. The fact that Britain's - and Scotland's - economies were both in poor shape and urgently needed radical surgery did not make hacking at them blindly with an ideological meat cleaver the right thing to do.
However, Wee Eck never said it was. He said it was not as bad as her social policy. And that's beyond question true.
This is yet another manufactured storm in an artificial teacup.
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Standby for all the usual suspects trying to convince anyone who'll listen that there is no "bias" in the media - that we're all "imagining it" and that to disagree with that is "the first signs of paranoia". It would be nice to see something a bit more fresh and original than that same old, predictable, tiresome response repeated yet again.
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Poor Richard,
Well said, but I'd hate to have to set all that in type by hand.
;-)
ed
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Jam 804 and Derickbarker.
Yes you can hear bubbles bursting.
Thats the champagne that will be flowing after the Glenrothes election.
Headline in Scotland Alex Salmond and SNP support the French wine industry.
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36 oldnat
Do you really believe,that the use of "TABLOIDS" is the best form of evidence.
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# 38 minuend
"The issue here is one of partisan reporting and skewing of statements by our politicians."
Well, for goodness sake, you better not have the audacity to point out that obvious truth or you'll end up getting endless abuse from people here trying to tell you you're "paranoid"! Closely followed by the "blog police" telling you you're not allowed to discuss it, it's off-topic, or you've accused the entire BBC of systematic bias, or any number of other things you haven't said.
Why these people continue to believe that anyone's stupid enough to swallow any of their guff is a total mystery.
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What guff we have to put up with from the Scottish media,our media is becoming more and more like the media in the USA. Brian I thought the BBC who are employed by the tax payer had learned from the behaviour of Kirsty Wark when she interviewed our First Minister on Newsnight but it would appear not . This all adds to the claims that the BBC is no longer impartial and if the BBC can't prove itself of impartiality then why do we the taxpayer continue to fund your salary ?
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#39 jam804
I note from your recent posts you are anti-SNP, anti-Tory, anti-NuLab
Are you actually for anything?
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#45 minuend
Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention: apparently we're all suffering from "confirmation bias" which makes us see blatant political attempts to distort known facts when actually it's just us bending reality to suit our own preconceived ideas. We shouldn't let the fact that we can actually predict it before it happens trick us into believing it actually exists! I kid you not!!
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#43 dubbieside
I think Salmond would accept that if he didn't have to listen to the Unionist whine industry.
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Again spot on jam804.
I believe it is well documented as thatchers
"IDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION"
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Having shot down another pathetic attempt to put a negative spin on some non-story about Salmond or the SNP I am now happy to leave all the unionist bores to it until the next time.
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Don't know what all the fuss is about Brian. Every party leader since Magaret Thatcher's demise has climbed into bed with her if you excuse the expression.
#31 kaybraes
Its unforunate that you used the Falklands War as a good example of Thatcher's leadership. It was another example of what happens if there is the possibility of mineral wealth in the area. The Argies wanted it and so did the british government.
Why else did great britain go to war? It certainly wasn't to help sheep farmers.
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The moderators are too slow it took 12 minutes for my last post to be put on!!!
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#38 minuend
You missed out The Press and Journal and Dundee Courier!!
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#53 Jake
Be fair to the mods. They actually have to read the NuLab posts here, the Republican posts on Justin Webb etc. It's difficult to press the OK button, while you're giggling!
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Iain Dale's take on the interview is here
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Now that the hullaballoo has died down (not you bighullaballoo - you'll go on for ever!), it's worth having a cooler look at this story.
Total Politics is a new magazine, which is being sent free to all MEPs/MPs/MSPs/AMs/Councillors in the UK. How is this paid for? Iain Dale reckons that advertisers will pay well to get to all the decision makers in the UK.
How to get the advertising? Well a good media storm is a good start.
The link I posted in my #56 starts “I hadn't quite realised what a stink my interview with Alex Salmond had caused in Scotland until I heard that the First Minister himself had called a phone in on BBC Radio Scotland to clarify his remarks”.
Yet the site for Total Politics advertises the magazine by quoting only this "Interview: Alex Salmond
"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."
Iain Dale's blog boasts “I hadn't quite realised what a stink my interview with Alex Salmond had caused in Scotland until I heard that the First Minister himself had called a phone in on BBC Radio Scotland to clarify his remarks”.
I think the whole Scottish media have been caught in a clever promotional spin by Iain Dale for his personal profit.
Any comment Brian?
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#47 Browndove
It's not yet compulsory to support one of the "main" parties.
With regards to what I'm in favour of. I'm for a Scottish Parliament with power. A parliament with the capacity to effect real change in peoples' lives. That can't be done within the neo-liberal constraints imposed by the bureaucrats who control the EU.
I can see a few positives and several potential downsides to an independent Scotland.
I'm for socialism.
I vote Socialist Labour. That's the party led by Arthur Scargill.
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#56 oldnat
Let's also have the really telling part of "thoughtful Conservative" Iain Dale's take on his interview with Salmond:
"Quite how Labour has managed to spin Salmond's remarks about Thatcher in the way that it has is quite astonishing - but the Scottish media has such a Labour bias it makes English newspapers look positively balanced by comparison. Every single Scottish media outlet is biased against the SNP."
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Re my #57
Sorry the last quote from Iain Dale should have read
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#58 jam804
"It's not yet compulsory to support one of the "main" parties."
Absolutely right. I don't, myself. My enquiry was genuinely just trying to get a feel for what makes you tick. There are posters on the NR threads who come out with much the same stuff and turn out to be NuLab after all but they don't usually mention the war.
I respect Scargill for what he tried to do, but as an old Liberal I couldn't support the centralist approach he takes. What's the Socialist Labour take on electoral reform?
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Iain Dale comments on his own blog:
"Olly Kendall from Insight PR handles our PR. He's done a great job on this issue, it has to be said, although this particular story seems to have taken on a momentum of its own, rather to my surprise. It must be a very quiet news day in Scotland is all I can say!"
http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2008/08/alex-salmond-margaret-thatcher-truth.html#c2697129563568821128
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#72 Super
Well spotted. Looks like we're back to the media again! It's obviously pathetically easy to manipulate the Scottish Press.
Olly Kendall gives Gerri Peev of the Scotsman a phone and gives him a web address to check. Peev rushes off to write a story without bothering to check with the object of the story.
If the brigadier and bighullaballoo were dead they'd be turning in their graves!
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i think this is youre man - looks like it's a lib dem / tory pact to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgIGQMz60qQ
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I am a little confused by all this Brian We have the real Tory party that Maggie led, then we have the New Tory party that was led by Tony, that hired Maggie as an adviser, now we have Gordon who invited Maggie to tea and presents her with gifts.
These same New Tories then go on to condem A politician who has consistantly condemed thatcherism, and again condemms thatcherism,, albeit perhaps in a less than forceful manner.
Just where is there a shred of honesty, integrity or decency forget anything related to morals (Labour sold them years ago) in any labour supporter, councillor, MSP, or MP, I may even include closet labour supporters in the BBC, Brian.
Under Tony or Gordon the rich continued to get richer and the poor poorer, just as they did under Thatcher, does the ten pence tax band ring any bells, oh more tea Margeret I can hear Gordon say.
I am certainly no Nationalist, however, this Labour party is willing to prostitute itself just to maintain power, well power at the cost of your soul, is in my view, a price to high.
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From the manipulative Iain Dale website -
"SNP Select Glenrothes By Election Candidate
Iain Dale 8:24 PM
The SNP has tonight selected its candidate for the Glenrothes by election. He is Peter Grant, the leader of Fife Council.
Labour is having difficulty finding a candidate to fight this by-election. So far, four leading candidates have said thanks, but no thanks.
* Henry McLeish (ex-MP and MSP in Fife and First Minister).
* Christine May (ex-MSP for the area, lost her seat in 2007).
* Alex Rowley (Labour leader on Fife Council, ex-Secretary of the Labour Party in Scotland, and a Brown protege - think Douglas Alexander and add an extra "Fife" dimension).
It shows just how desperate things have become when Labour can't find a candidate for a seat with a five figure majority.
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#63 oldnat
Yes, this media bias thing, it's all a jolly wheeze until you realise it's now reached the stage where the smear stories are being launched from extremely flimsy foundations, such as trying to make it look as if someone has said something they clearly didn't say, even though what they actually said is freely available and easily verified.
In the past - under a fog of Labour control in Scotland - it could be done subtly and without resorting to the sort of blatant and somewhat desperate propagandising we are now seeing.
Yes, it would all be enormous fun, if it wasn't for the fact those doing it are the pawns of people who really don't have Scotland's best interests at heart and that their willingness to do it is denying an opportunity of progress and prosperity for generations of young Scots.
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#67 bighullaballoo
Sorry if you thought I saw it as "enormous fun".
What is nice, however, is to have documentary evidence to support what you have been saying.
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progress and prosperity for generation of young Scots.
Could you please elaborate on the said statement. I would like to know,what prosperity there is in your political view.
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How many of the posters bought their Council House with MASSIVE discounts? Thank Maggie for that policy.Some ye like some ye dont!!!!
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#68 oldnat
I already know that what I'm saying is the truth - regardless of whether there is documentary evidence supporting it or not.
In the past it was enough to ignore the SNP and put up talking heads on TV to dismiss them as "separatist loonies".
Unfortunately for the pro-Unionist Scottish media they are now having to break cover and actively try to attack the SNP with fabricated "news" stories like this one.
And the internet is making it very easy for the public to check the accuracy of these stories.
It's not difficult to see why the Unionists are hating the fact that every propaganda story is being negated by SNP supporters providing links and other proof that the stories aren't based on genuinely impartial reporting of the facts.
And that's not to minimise the value of the rational, credible facts and arguments people post that show up the hypocrisy and schizophrenic anti-Scottishness of the Labour Party.
Nobody minds a joke - but the underlying truth of this strangulation of balanced political reporting in the Scottish media is anything but funny, as I'm sure you'd be the first to admit.
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#61 Brownedove
The SLP support full proportional representation.
It's a not well known fact that the Labour Party supported PR until that policy was abandoned under Ramsey MacDonald. It was regarded as another betrayal by him of a longstanding socialist demand at the time.
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#70 oldfifer said:
"How many of the posters bought their Council House with MASSIVE discounts? Thank Maggie for that policy.Some ye like some ye dont!!!!"
I didn't, still a council tenant to this day.
D'you know where the "MASSIVE discount", as you put it comes from? It comes largely because when a tenant buys their house the outstanding debt, created when the house was built, STAYS with the remaining tenants. Therefore, those tenants have their rents increased to make up the loss.
Council House sales have also caused untold problems. Thankfully there appears to be a recognition by government of at least some of these problems at long last.
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This written media bias has always been evident on the radio (can't be bothered with the rubbish tv) and more so since the SNP came power. The only reasonable explanation for this is that deep down they believe this last year is a passing fad and come the next election all of their (friendly) moles will come back to give them the scoops. They will eventually learn the truth that the mood of the people has changed for the better.
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This must of been the quickest post past moderation. Where's the medal?
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#40, Simon_Brooke
Your bleating and blaming of other than yourself for your life's failings is pathetic.
If your marriage ended because your business failed, then you were well rid of your spouse - clearly only in it for your money!
Without any substantiation, you blame Margaret Thatcher for your businesses' failures, yet there are thousands of businesses which would never have been established (and millions of jobs not created*) had it not been for the liberalisation and entrepreneurial zeal of the 1980s Conservatives' policies.
*True, most of these jobs would have been unnecessary but for the decimation of nationally-important industries.
Whatever else she might have been, Margaret Thatcher was a conviction politician who believed in something - unlike the modern breed, whose sole ambition is to keep themselves in a cushy job - and I suspect that her ultimate passing will be more lamented than your own. In stating your vile desire to "dance on her grave," you lose all grip on reality.
By the way, I am not now - and have never been - a supporter of the Conservative Party or of the policies pursued during the period of Thatcher's premiership.
I recognise the great woes rained down upon these islands (particularly during the latter stages of the Iron Lady's 'reign'), but the policies of the Conservatives were an inevitable consequence of the Wilson and Callaghan governments to rein in union excesses.
Thatcher was twice the man that Major/Blair/Brown could ever aspire to be.
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'We didn't mind the economic side so much.'
I want to go on record as agreeing with the above. And yes, I'm 100% Scottish and no, I'm not a Tory.
Thatcher was a breath of fresh air in economic terms. She swept away outdated industries and methods that the UK couldn't sustain any more.
I want independence, but not at any cost. I want to see world-class competition and business efficiency. I want the bloated, and often lazy and overfunded, public sector in Scotland thinned down. And then thinned some more. Don't pretend it doesn't need it.
I want see capitalism to flourish in Scotland. We'll all be better off. And the sooner everyone realises that capitalism isn't a pejorative term, the better.
And I'll repeat, I'm definitely not a Tory. But save us from 100-year-old socialist dogma, please.
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#72 jam804
Good for you and thanks for the info.
The MacDonald thing I didn't know, but can well believe. His successors could have done something about it and the heirs to Bliar and Brown may live to regret it.
PS: Nothing dovish about me - the ov at the end is pronounced off as in Smirnov etc.
#73 jam804
I fully agree that neither the Tories or NuLab have never come clean about council sales. The really shocking thing is 11 years neglect of social housing under a so-called Labour government.
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So it's Peter Grant, and he wants too send a second message to london( vote for peter grant make a protest)
When will the nationalist start to talk about policy and what they want to do.
After today! I'm sure that Glenrothes got the real message.The tartan tories want to run Scotland like thatcher did.
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I think most sensible people would get the gist of what Alex Salmond was saying in his interview with Iain Dale. Labour and the anti SNP media are merely grasping at straws if they think they can pin the tag of thatcherite on him...where is the evidence to support this?
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Brownedov.
Why cant you refer to tenants homes, as council homes (social housing)
jam804 check out the previous thread and witness this mans politics
Smirnov indeed,what are you like comrade
LIEOFFSKI.
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"(...) in a statement after the radio show, he (Mr Salmond) added: "I was commenting on why Scots in particular were so deeply resentful of Margaret Thatcher, and I strongly believe that her social message of 'no such thing as society' and the poll tax cut against the grain of Scotland's social conscience.
"That doesn't mean that the nation liked her economic policies - just that we liked her social policies even less."
I well remember at the time of the introduction of the poll tax in Scotland how strongly people felt about it. I had not witnessed anything like this before and have not witnessed anything like it since. Without going into the arguments for and against it or dwelling on what were widely perceived in Scotland to be its principal demerits, allow me to share the following memory of the time with you.
There was I standing at a bus stance in a bus station one afternoon when I noticed that the crowd of people around me had become very animated. Somehow the topic of the poll tax had been raised. Not only were total strangers talking to one another en masse, they were urging one another, highly volubly, to break the law by refusing to pay the tax. This was no organized demonstration. It was totally spontaneous. People's social conscience, of which Mr Salmond has been speaking, was obviously genuinely and deeply outraged. I've never seen anything like it in my life. One man, whom I didn't know, took me by the arm in a way that one would have to describe as comradely and declared his intention to defy the law, urging me to do the same in such a way as to suggest that I would not and could not reasonably consider doing otherwise. There was what it occurs to me to describe as something quasi-revolutionary in the air. A normally law-abiding community was up in arms, figuratively speaking.
So that was the social-policy side. Clearly, Thatcherite social policy had an impact, and it had an impact on me personally to such an extent that my social conscience was outraged too. Not to the extent of breaking the law, I should add. I am afraid I just couldn't do that, although many people did refuse to pay the tax, of course.
What about the economic-policy side? Personally, I never witnessed in connection with that anything such as I have described above. What I did see on that side of things was completely of an organized and quite unspontaneous nature. For example, a conference of the National Union of Miners in Perth, at which, as one of only a handful of members of the public in the public gallery, I heard at some considerable length the deliberations of the miners' delegates and their leaders, Arthur Scargill and Mick McGahey, and thus gained some insight into what was going on from their perspective. Outside in the street, however, people went about their business as usual, and no spontaneous upsurge of popular feeling about Thatcherite economic policy did I ever witness at any time, although there was certainly very great resentment and anger in Scotland.
Thus it seems to me even from personal experience that it is legitimate to draw a distinction between the strength of feeling that there was in respect of Thatcherite economic policy on the one hand and in respect of Thatcherite social policy on the other hand without there being any suggestion that there was not very considerable opposition to both. I rest my case.
I would like to add that this post is not to be taken as a sign of "utter desperation". Nor am I aware of any bubbles bursting. I have been made acutely aware, however, of the workings of the unionist media in Scotland, particularly when a crucial by-election is in the offing. This morning it told me in unambiguous terms that Mr Salmond had stated that Scotland had not minded Thatcherite economic policy and that he personally had not minded it either. I then discover from the text of the Iain Dale interview that this is all completely untrue. A salutary lesson: beware of the Scottish media. They tell lies, brazen lies. They seem to think they can get away with pulling the wool over our eyes. Can they? What do they take us for? Dupes? That is something else to be outraged about. I wonder how much of this sort of thing the media think they can get away with before they provoke a reaction from the public such as Thatcherism eventually provoked. At least on this occasion they have been caught red-handed. We have been warned.
Speaking for myself, I am even more determined than ever to vote SNP. Why would any self-respecting thinking voter cast a vote for a thoroughly discredited party such as Labour, which is discrediting itself even further by attempting to present the SNP as somehow pro-Thatcher? Now that is desperation. Only desperation and raw naked fear would drive a party and its supporters in the media and elsewhere to such preposterous and wholly disreputable extremes. A date for the Glenrothes by-election hasn't even been called yet, and already the gloves are off. This will be a contest to remember. As somebody in Scottish Labour said not long ago before resigning under a cloud, bring it on.
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#82 Glen_Rothes
That's the best description of the Thatcher years that I've read so far in this debate. It's rare to find such a combination of passion and sense.
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#82 Glen_Rothes
Ditto and totally readable. Thanks
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#83 and #84
Nice of you to say so, oldnat and cynicalhighlander. Good night.
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#82 Glen_Rothes
"Only desperation and raw naked fear would drive a party and its supporters in the media and elsewhere to such preposterous and wholly disreputable extremes."
If the "[Labour] party and its supporters in the media" are shaking in their shoes then I've got some bad news for them: I haven't even got started yet.
I, for one, am not going to stand by while they try to pull the wool over the eyes of an entire nation.
I encourage everyone to open their eyes (as you have) and expose these "brazen lies" for what they are.
They are now being foisted daily on the Scottish public. I have been warning them for months: stop or be stopped. Enough is enough!
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#86
Whoa. Steady on.
Any rational argument you may have had has went, as it is after midnight, the way of the pumpkin. Too many toddies I venture?
"stop or be stopped"??? What does that mean?
As for the media's "brazen lies"? 'Twas ever thus.
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I left school in 1982 and joined the job market when Thatcher's economic policies were in full swing. I was part of the "1 in 10" unemployed. While I detested her and all she stood for, I also had similar feelings for the Labour Party and it's union cohorts. In the 74-79 Labour Govt, they also propped up industries, with public money, well beyond their sell by dates. This cost a fortune and was palpably failing, Winter of Discontent anyone? Thus helping to make Thatcherite policies popular amongst the centre right in England. This opened the door for Thatcher and crew
Through incompetence in govt and pointless in-fighting afterwards, Labour made themselves unelectable, helped keep her in power for 11 years. They couldn't even beat Major the first time around. Protect Scotland from Thatcherism , don't make me laugh(or cry)!
With this history, it beggared belief to see Brown inviting Thatcher to tea within 2 months of taking office.
At last in Scotland, Labour has been found out. We needed a govt of hope and ambition. We have now got one, and with social policies such as a freeze on council house sales and starting to build new ones, the Scottish Govt is starting to repair the social damage Thatcher did. Pity the Labour led Executive did not.
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I welcome this bit of honesty from Salmond. The SNP's post-independence plan involves large-scale tax cuts for business, underwritten by oil wealth. Similar to Thatcher's policies. I have no idea what happens when the oil money runs out, but I suspect it'll be service cuts before tax hikes.
If Salmond was prepared to go a bit further, he'd admit that there would no future, none at all, for the Scottish shipyards. Shipbuilding is the heaviest industry of all, and it can't possibly survive in an agile, low-tax economy.
Being a nationalist, Salmond tries to staple a saltire to the idea of society, claiming that:
"One of the most famous phrases in Scottish history is the ‘Community of the realm’ – I used it earlier. This idea that there is a community of interest stretching across the population. It’s a very Scottish concept and Scotland doesn’t like people who regale against it."
It's not a very Scottish concept. Every single society that has ever existed has had the same concept.
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Even on the total politics website, they highlight the Salmond interview with the following quote: "We didn't mind the economic side so much. But we didn't like the social side at all."
So, 100% dislike for the Thatcher governments' social policy; something less than 100% (99%, say) dislike for the economic policy.
Perfectly reasonable and sensible.
---
The Labour leadership candidates should be very careful about their criticism, since they could one day be attacked by just such partial quoting and partisan reporting.
Just by prefixing their attack with "If Alex Salmond said..., then..." they could have slung as much mud as they could muster.
But no.
---
But on the good news front, during the previous administration, alcoholism did decline.
Always said they couldn't organise a... [You can finish that one yourself!]
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Seems the unionist media now only want to report squabbles between unionists. Can anyone suggest why The Herald's Calls to axe ID card bid after data loss only has a quote from Scotland's 4th party?
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More balanced reporting in The Scotsman today with their Labour to attack SNP choice for by-election over cuts which quotes a Labour source saying: "There is no doubt that, as leader of the council, Mr Grant has the blood of service cuts on his hands."
As oldnat's comment says, perhaps Labour should get themselves a candidate first. It mightn't be a bad idea for them to set a date, too.
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I am increasingly persuaded that it is time for the licence fee to be scrapped and the BBC to sink or swim with the competition.
Brian , the First Minister of Scotland had no other recourse than to join a phone in to refute a ludicrous accusation and Labour led manufactured 'outrage'
There is no way that should be the case.
As for Reporting Scotland giving it more air time , I despair.
The media of Scotland has become the opposition for oppositions sake,without benefit of election and in the absence of any credible political opposition.
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But if you get rid of the BBC, then it'll be more difficult for you to establish a 'fair and balanced' SBC come independence.
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The issue here is the partisan reporting by a Unionist controlled media in Scotland that twists every word spoken by SNP politicians and disparges every thing the SNP do.
For those who don't think this is true then here is a quote by Ian Dale on the Scottish media after he interviewed Alex Salmond -
"It is astonishing that even eighteen years after she left office Margaret Thatcher still dominates much of our political discourse. Quite how Labour has managed to spin Salmond's remarks about Thatcher in the way that it has is quite astonishing - but the Scottish media has such a Labour bias it makes English newspapers look positively balanced by comparison. Every single Scottish media outlet is biased against the SNP. "
Every single Scottish media outlet includes BBC Scotland. I hope your are listening Brian Taylor.
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Complaints about media bias are now dominating public responses to this blog.
The BBC has a right to free speech but they also have the responsibility not to abuse it.
Contrary to what they think they're achieving, they're actually just digging the political grave of the Labour party, as the result of the Glenrothes by-election will prove.
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#93 DisgustedDorothy &
#95 minuend
Very true, but Anaxim's #94 does have a point. Maybe the start needs to be made with the supposed regulator, Ofcom, whose Chief Executive is a NuLab apparatchik and all of whose members are from the Westmidden establishment. Accordingly, unionist and NuLab bias is built in.
First, there should be a House of Cards motion to ensure that at least the key members of the OfCom board are non-political. Even the Tories might support that to shame NuLab. Second, there should be a motion to ensure that, pending further devolution, the National Parliaments and Assemblies each nominate a board member. Third, in the case of Scotland, a motion to remove Ofcom's Scottish responsibilities to Holyrood. Of course, none of them would pass given the NuLab majority at Westmidden, but the result would be there for all to see and to be used in campaigning for future elections.
I for one have confidence that although Scotland may not yet have the 100% literacy NuLab's Rankin claims to be working for, Scottish voters are quite bright enough to recognise the unionist media stitch-up for what it is, but my suggestions in my previous para would bring make it even more apparent.
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This comment has been referred to the moderators. Explain.
#89 Anaxim
How are your angel's feet?
You've made an assertion about the "Community of the Realm", which I can't let lie unchallenged. "Community of the Realm" is not some generalised feeling of commonality - which you do find in any society, since otherwise it wouldn't be a society. It's a specific constitutional concept, similar to that found in segmentary lineage societies such as the Pashtun.
In the context to which Brian is referring (and of which Glen_Rothes relates an example concerning the poll tax in his #82) it is embodied in the words of George Buchanan (1506-82) "A law is what the people approve, when asked by him who has the right to ask", and which underlay the Claim of Right Act in 1689.
Within Scots Constitutional Law there is an assumption that established authority cannot ride roughshod over the wishes of the Community of the Realm. Hence in Scotland, the response to the hated poll tax law was to disobey it.
In England, the tradition is different. The only recourse there is to "tumultous and riotous assembly" - which is what they did in Trafalgar Square.
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#99 oldnat
A good and thoughtful post, but destined to fall on deaf ears, I think.
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I second Brownedov's motion (97).
It should be fun!
Slainte!
ed
Catch the first joke here for a laugh.
;-)
ed
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#88 scot2010 said "In the 74-79 Labour Govt, they also propped up industries, with public money, well beyond their sell by dates. ".
Fancy citing some examples?
It would appear that you've swallowed the same thatcherite misinformation as your leader.
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#101 Ed Iglehart
Thanks for the support and the link, Ed, but I hope you're not suggesting the US military should be the ones to separate the tribes of Great Britain pending the loose confederation solution.
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#102 jam804
In many ways you are right (at least with regard to British Steel). The problem for BSC in the '70's was that the Labour Government didn't subsidise BSC. The ISTC estimated in 1980 that BSC needed 510 million GDP in subsidies per year to be competitive. Neither Labour nor Tory Governments considered it appropriate to provide such a level of taxpayer funded support to an industry in which there was significant world over capacity.
In retrospect I think they were probably right (though I certainly didn't think so ate the time).
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#102 jam804
"Fancy citing some examples?"
For starters, the shipbuilding, steel, mining and car industries by partially giving in to union demands and performing panic u-turns over them at the same time.
One of the main troubles of old Labour was that it failed to deal separately with social and economic issues but sought state ownership as a panacaea for both. Granted it was less unpleasant than the NuLab method of hiding all problems by redefining the statistics.
All four examples I quote needed to shed staff and invest heavily in new technology to have stood a chance of regaining their competitive advantages in the world but the old Labour government had no mechanism of separating the social issues (mainly unemployment) from the economic ones (mainly operating costs and investment funding).
To a large extent, none of the parties yet does, but state ownership was not the right answer, and did lead the way for Thatcher to address some of the economic issues but at a terrible social cost.
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#102 jam804
Another thought - Linwood.
I remember my Dad buying a Hillman Imp as soon as they rolled off the production lines at Rootes. He was chuffed to be able to buy a Scottish built car.
However, before he died in 1965 he admitted that Linwood was a classic failure of "central planning". A factory built in the wrong place at the wrong time withe wrong economics simply due to Government demands.
There was a government bail out in 1975 to avoid closure and the consequent unemployment, but the plant was never economic and closed in 1981.
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Brownedov,
The US military should be converted into an "Engineering for Peace" Corps, (re)building infrastructure, planting trees, helping to spread family planning wisdom, subsistence systems, etc. "free at the point of need" worldwide.
(Smile)
Howdy, y'all
ed
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#107 Ed
Will the US military be required to blow things up before they rebuild? That should keep them happy.
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I make no party distinction here, but isn't it amazing that, in 2008, there are still people who believe everything "good" politicians (those they support) come out with? If it comes out badly, then it was deliberately misquoted, twisted or misrepresented.
On the other hand, everything said by the "bad" politicians (on this blog Labour) is a lie, a cover-up, a smear or worthy only of ridicule and condemnation.
Surely it is obvious by now that, with few exceptions, they are power-hungry, ruthless, dishonest (in respect of their true aspirations which they hide in the pursuit of power), eternally devious and self-swerving?
But I don't think any of them are out to damage the country or cause harm and distress to people. On the contrary, they all crave popularity. It's just unfortunate that the rules of their nastly little game prohibit giving credit to opponents, and encourage the tendency to brand all oponents as liars and rogues.
We have to live with these people, and cast our votes to direct them towards reasoned answers about running the country.
But do we have to behave like them?
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@oldnat
I think you're turning 'community of the realm' into something more than it actually is. It could just as easily refer to the right of powerful factions (like the clergy or merchants) to involve themselves in decision-making.
It's not even a distinctly Scottish concept, it's occasionally mentioned in medieval England as well.
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#106 oldnat: You are right about Linwood, but didn't mention the biggest cause of failure - the unions. There were strikes and stoppages morning, afternoon and night. Quite literally. There was sabotage. Pilfering supported a giant black economy in the area.
It was communist-inspired. Nothing do do with fair deals for workers, but about bringing down the UK economy. The same thing was going on in steelworks, mines and shipyards.
I was there. I could name the people involved. Even bus strikes were run by communist agitators.
Margaret Thatcher? She sorted them. She "lost it" towards the end, but none of the present impostors could fill her Y-fronts.
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#106 oldnat
Linwood was an excellent example, and the 875cc all-alloy OHC engine was years ahead of its time, espeically when compared with the old BMC A-series in wide use at the time.
Letting Rootes be sold to the US rather than helping it was a big mistake of the 1st Wilson government.
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110 Anaxim
In medieval England (and elsewhere in Europe) the term is more than "occasionally" used, and you'll still find references to its use during the early 14th century. It's almost always used in terms of resistance to imposed authority.
While I'm not going to push this too far, what is distinctive in Scotland (I didn't claim it to be unique), is how the thread continues well beyond the medieval period within legal and constitutional thinking (at least to the mid 18th century), and throughout the modern period as a popular concept.
It recurs in the Radical Rebellion, Walter Scott's "mythological" history, the 1880's re-incarnation of Scotland as a political entity, the Home Rule Movement of the early 20th century, the 1950's Covenant Association, as well as the modern Claim of Rights.
Its constant reassertion is required to counteract the doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty (but we've already fought that one to a standstill!)
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#111 Brigadier
I know a number of people who worked at Linwood. Their memories are not so distant from the situation that you describe. However, there is an additional dimension they have mentioned - the complicity between management and unions.
They tell me that the slow sales (and massive warranty problems) led management to seek ways of cutting costs - the easiest being wages. By proposing a minor change in something like the tea-break rules, a strike would result, and the wages bill dropped.
Management win, agitators win, workers lose.
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#109 brigadierjohn
I fully agree that there are a lot of "liars and rogues", but you seem to think they're all politicians and not the members of the fourth estate. Sadly every profession has its share and if you think the media have behaved impartially on this issue then your defence of your former profession, while touching, is in conflict with the facts.
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A few have commented on my last post. It would appear, generally speaking, that there is agreement that British industry lost competitivity (if that's a word) through lack of investment. That is the traditional failing of British industry, always in for the quick buck. Maximum accumulation for minimum investment. I'll give an example I'm familiar with.
The Nobel company, a division of ICI, were still using a machine to manufacture detonators (for civil use mainly) using a machine they gained through war reparations from Germany. One of their rivals in the business was a German company. Guess what apparatus they weren't using?
An excellent documentary on the Clyde shipbuilding industry, shown on BBC last year, also highlighted the antiquated nature of the machine tools the workers there were having to utilise, while at the same time trying to compete with foreign yards, government subsidised, with the very latest technology.
It's absolute nonsense, as one person here has suggested, to blame "communist agitators" for problems in British industry. I knew several communist shop stewards and TU officials in places I worked and elsewhere. They were always dedicated to the workplace and to its success and fought consistently for greater investment- but not at the expense of the workforce! You only have to look at the example of the UCS struggle to see that. The mining industry would be another obvious example where the unions were acting in the best interests of the industry while government and management were doing all in their power to undermine it.
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#116 jam804
I don't think it matters which side of the left/right spectrum one's on, few would disagree that lack of investment in UK industry was the most significant factor in the decline that occurred in the '60s and '70s.
Unfortunately neither Left nor Right had an answer, and both philosophies added to the problem rather than solving it.
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Brownedov
There's another UK poll in tomorrow's Independent on Sunday
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Oldnat,
I reckon it began immediately following WWII. Sadly, it was connected to the election of a "socialist" government and the subsequent flight of capital.I came here in 1972, and found a source of the glass tubing I used as a raw material. It was manufactured in Sunderland, and was, at best OK. As I grew more competent, I began to find that the tubing wasn't staying within the published specification, and I tried some German glass a friend had suggested. The specifications (and prices) were identical - the difference was that the German stuff sailed down the middle and the British was all over the place, and the labels on the German cartons (much better designed) were stuck on straight!
WHY? Because, thanks to British ingenuity and bouncing bombs, the German works were flattened and subsequently re-built, using Marshall Plan money partially funded by British lend/lease repayments, while in Sunderland, there wasn't any money to upgrade the works....
I got a visit some time later from a rep who said I should be more patriotic and buy British. I said, "But I'm American!"
He said, "So are we, now that Corning has bought us out."
"Is the tubing any better, now you're American owned?"
"Yes. We make it on the same kind of equipment the Germans use. As a matter of fact, we don't make it in Sunderland any more, but in France."
I tried some of it, and the German stuff is still far better.....and the labels are on straight and there's no breakage in shipping and the workers still obviously identify their interests with the firm's interest. THAT's where it went wrong here, in my not-very-humble opinion.
Slainte!
ed
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The tartan tories and their thatcherite policys, will not help Scotland one jot.
Keep the threads coming the reel is nearly empty.
Brownedov and co, your doing a fine job for the labour cause.
YES INDEED, FINE,,,,
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#114 oldnat: Some of the cars were terrible as you suggest. Was it poor design and materials, or shoddy workmanship and sabotage? There is anecdotal evidence that some customers were very pleased. So not design and materials then?
I can remember the day it closed. One shop steward, who had strutted about for months shouting the odds about showing the management who's boss, was almost in tears and offering to do anything, agree to anything to save the plant.
#115 Brownedov: I wasn't seeking to defend journalists. Of course they are required to write to their papers' political viewpoint. I don't see much lying, as such, rather a news selection decision will favour the chosen party. The printed media has no obligation to be impartial. They have a perfect right to support the ideas they think are best.
Newspapers thrive in boom times, through extra advertising. Why on earth would they promote a political viewpoint they believe runs counter to their own prosperity?
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Hello boys !! and no im nae wearin a Wonderbra..... re #70 aye ill agree with you on that point.. got mine dead cheap. Also whilst its one thing to blame Thatcher for years of misery... look at
the misery the unions are trying to inflict on us now. If you dont like your job get another one, simple as that.
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#116 jam804: You are correct about lack of investment. But nothing was so outdated as the trades union practices about demarcation and wage differentials. In Germany, Japan, almost anywhere, the workers were shipbuilders. In Scotland they were boilermakers, shipwrights, welders, riveters, joiners, carpenters, caulkers, etc., etc., and it needed at least three different trades to bore a hole.
I too, knew communist shop stewards. They were brilliant at convincing workers they were on their side. The CP ran classes in it. They all believed, deep down, if Britain could be brought to her knees, a new "enlightened" communist regime would quickly follow. That is what 99% of strikes at that time were about.
UCS is too complicated to address here. But Jimmy Reid, in his world-acclaimed "no bevvying" speech, acknowledged what had been going on. It was in the end a rather sad attempt to convince public opinion that the unions were not so bad. And to convince workers that they had not been betrayed by the unions.
Even with modern equipment, union wage demands would have made our shipbuilding uncompetitive. They would have demanded bonuses for retraining and for handling new gear.
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#73 mair fool you for nae buyin yer hoose then !
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British manufacturing, destroyed by middle and senior management and inept political regimes like the tories and snp.
A litany of evidence and historical facts.
look it up..........oldnat
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On re-reading my #119, I feel I should note that I'm not blaming the workforce, or at least not wholly. It was largely the management's failure to invest, as well as to somehow keep the workforce believing they were valued partners, rather than "the opposition".
The problem is in the polarisation, and I have related ideas on the situation between forestry and farming. In Norway, every Farmer is also a forester, but here, if you plant an area, your farming friends will know you've 'given up' on that bit of ground...I exaggerate, of course.
Slainte
ed
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#126 Ed: The problem is in the thinking. Be it glass tubes, cars or consumer goods, the German philosophy is "Build a good one." The British philosophy is "Build one that will sell for a certain price.
People will pay well over the odds for a German car, etc., but shun the British goods (if we still make any) because they are utilitarian, badly designed, badly built... and you get what you pay for.
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#124 rabbiehippo
Your comment says more about you than it does me.
I'm all right Jack! "No such thing as society"? Dog eat dog et al...
Are you a Tory or a tartan tory?
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re.125 "inept political regimes" - but not ones that spend billions on wars and nuclear weapons and put young working class soldiers in harms way in the cause of an economic war for oil ?
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#116 jam804
I worked for ICI during the 1970s and often visited the Nobel plant. I fully concur that investment was always a problem, although labour relations were usually very good.
#117 oldnat
Thanks for the poll info. Anyone wanting to download the detail can get it in PDF format at ComRes' IoS Poll August 2008. I'll try to look at it in some detail tomorrow, but although the UK weighted sample is 1015, there are only 90 Scots voters included, so the Scottish results won't be any more informative than last weekend's. By the way, ICM still don't link to full details of last week's poll for the Grauniad, but the PA poll details are now available at Ipsos MORI shows record conservative lead. The PDFs are shown at the bottom of the page.
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#128 jam
Rabbie's winding you up. But "tartan tory"? Check his previous - he doesn't have a NuLab bone in his existential body!
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re-129
Many labour voters and politician did not agree with the Iraq war.
Blair is history,its time to bring the troops home.
Its time for labour,under the values of progression for all,to end this tartan tories flatulence and burst their bubble.
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#128 Neither i'm a nationalist. Its all very well saying that the right to buy is a rubbish policy but how else are the majority of young people gonna buy there homes? The Daily Mail reckons the average wage in Scotland is 25,000 a year ...well i dont know much folks anywhere near that. Im allright jack ... lol at least ive got some ambition. By the way ive had a solid job for 20 years, paid a fortune in council tax (no streetlights, no speedlimit, no pavements, have to pay for the bus to school etc) so i think im entitled to the reduction when i bought my house.
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#119 Ed Iglehart
In some ways it started before WW2 by having been too early in some new technologies. The London telephone exchange was one of the first in Europe to go fully electromenchanical and one of the last to go electronic. When typesetting was moving to new technology in the early '80s, that caused significant delays in the ability to switch to remote printing and to access US packet-switched services effectively. See also quality control below.
#121 brigadierjohn
You have a point in your response to oldnat but another very significant factor was poor quality control and inspection procedures, which undoubtedly had a part to play in the woes Ed describes in #119 and is still shown in the motor industry. Opel are deservedly neck and neck for sales in Switzerland with VAG whereas near-identical Vauxhalls still suffer from a deserved poor reputation. UK car dealer satisfaction surveys still compare very unfavourably with the same makes and models in the rest of the EU.
Re media bias, you do have an interesting point in the print media playing to their market. Perhaps they don't ask their readership often enough or perhaps they see a federal UK or independence as potentially damaging to their market.
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Thanks oldnat. He touched a raw nerve.
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#131 Oldnat.... there you go again using big words i dont understand.....existential ... ill have to look it up :o)}
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#136 rabbie
It's my role in life to bring wisdom where it is lacking. It's such a burden :-)
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rabbiehippo.
Do you think that 20 consecutive years of employment, entitles you to street ownership?
So you are also against taxation as well.
Hey! you are a classic "TARTAN TORY"
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#133 A nationalist that reads the Daily Mail?
There are alternatives to buying a house although the RTB policy has made this very difficult for young people. Your neighbours who remain tenants contributed to your "reduction" in the cost of your ex-council/NTcorp/SSHA/SH house They're still paying for that reduction -literally- to this day.
I've worked all my life too, with the two exceptions of a years' sabbatical courtesy of Mrs. T's economic policy in 1980-81 and a four year stint at uni as a mature student in the late 80's.
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OLNAT
Why is it your roll in life to bring wisdom?
Your just a grease monkey,trying (feeblest) attempts to organise your "TARTAN TORY" fellow bloggers.
As i've said, NO where to hide..
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oops .... shouldnt have mentioned the Daily Mail ... didnt do much for my cause. Actually the only reason i read it is its the paper of choice for the airline i work for and other than reading The Sun or The Daily Star its better than nothing. Obviously im aware of its political stance but its no worse than the Daily Record ...well apart from all the middle class rubbish and its sudden desire to be young and hip by including bebo and myspace references in stories all the time now .
#138 im not gonna argue with you.... your nuts going by most of your posts ... besides i have to go evict some travellers off my land
#137 well its not a word i use everyday. What news of the SNP candidate for Fife ... any skeletons lurking ?
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#140 ... i think you should concastinate these 2 words .... "b****r" and "off" lol
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rabbiehippo, hck
CONCATENATE,
Did you hear that while campaigning in Glasgow?
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#141 rabbie
Got a sneak preview from the Hootsmon on the scurrilous behaviour of Peter Grant -
"Fifers are paying more than £200,000 worth of bills a month at the Kingdom's under-threat Post Offices. Post Office Ltd plans would see 15 Fife Post Offices all close. But since Fife Council introduced its new Payments Strategy in April of this year, business at local Post Offices and PayPoint outlets has boomed."
"John Park MSP (Labour, Labour, Glorious Labour) attacked Grant for using Fife Council to prevent the rationalisation of the Post Office."
(The first paragraph is true.)
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Now this is worth reading! Note the headline THE BBC is to introduce substantial changes to the way it commissions programmes in a bid to wrest the television agenda from the Scottish Nationalists
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And Gordon's big idea to save Labour in Glenrothes
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#144 .... oooo hes a baddie ... maybe John Park has shares in WH Smiths .
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#86 bighullabaloo
I note your comments and your concern about the media.
Reflecting further upon the media and upon what the SNP attitude to Thatcherism during the Thatcher era actually was, I found myself calling to mind a vivid image which has impressed itself upon my memory so firmly that, in contemplating it, it is almost as if I were standing again on a pavement in Perth opposite the hall where the NUM conference was held that I mentioned in my first post. On this other occasion the scene was subtly different. Actually, it wasn't. It was as different as could be. This time I had to stand outside, because they wouldn't let me in. Not only that but they wouldn't let anyone else in who hadn't been invited. Invited to the annual Scottish Tory conference, that is, and it was the day when Mrs Thatcher herself was coming to address the assembled representatives, who could not have been less representative of the people of Scotland if they had tried.
Quite a crowd had gathered on the pavement opposite the hall, the pavement on the hall side having been cleared and closed off. It was at this crowd, the people of Scotland, that the heavy weaponry of a contingent of armed police was directed. The automatic weapons were held by an indeterminate number of rather humourless-looking men in flak jackets, staring down at us from the roof of the hall and the roof of the neighbouring building. I'd never seen anything like this in my life either. While contemplating this bizarre and starkly alien spectacle, for the citizenry of Perth didn't usually have to be kept in order with quite such a heavy hand, I became conscious of the fact that a familiar figure had joined the crowd on the pavement: George Reid, who had been an SNP MP and was then working for STV again. So the future Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament stood there chatting with us and facing the guns as the VIPs swept in without a glance in our direction and Mrs Thatcher was smuggled in by the back way, so that none of us saw her at all, and nobody got a chance to express the views of Scotland anent either Thatcherite economic policy or Thatcherite social policy (or even what nice weather it was), although the presence of the small army that was guarding her did rather suggest that the message had got through. Those views were, of course, in any case, entirely academic so far as the Thatcher regime was concerned. It didn't need our approval and didn't seem to care whether it was denied it. It seemed to have no more concern for us and what we thought than the unionist media evidently have for the truth.
The image, as I say, remains in my mind, the image of an SNP politician and journalist choosing to stand out in the street with the people as the high and mighty of the Thatcher regime swept by contemptuously like patricians being given safe conduct through the 'profanum vulgus'. This image seems to me to be perfectly symbolic of the position adopted by the SNP vis-a-vis the Thatcher government at the time and since. In other words, the SNP no more identified with it than I did. In addition, the image is indicative of the fact that, overwhelmingly untrustworthy though I have always taken the Scottish media to be, there are honourable exceptions among its journalists. Another that I can think of is the estimable Iain MacWhirter, whose views concerning the BBC you will be familiar with.
For what it may be worth, while noting what some others have said upon the subject in this thread, I take the duty of the Fourth Estate to be to stand with the people out in the cold and to stand shoulder to shoulder with us when, as now, we are in the greatest need of honest journalists who respect the facts and the truth regardless of party allegiance, for without access to the facts and to the truth the power of the electorate is effectively taken away from it and democracy is mocked. As Edmund Burke is reputed to have said, referring to the Reporters' Gallery in the House of Commons, "Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, more important than them all." Except for the Fifth Estate, of course, the BBC, "which is completely impartial."
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#145 just an idea ... but what about dumping bbc 3 and making it bbc scotland ... might that not appease the masses
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Even Grey won't touch Brown
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It's hardly surprising that John Park is being quoted by the Independent as contender for Glenrothes. He's been the Labour rent-a-mouth for the last while, and as a list MSP, he'll still have a job when he loses.
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Brigadier,
It's much deeper than that.Management/owners regard the workers as the enemy who are lazy and resentful and thus won't give an inch. Workers regard management as the enemy who is ripping them off, and thus refuse to do more than the minimum or give a damn about quality...a classic positive feedback loop (vicious circle to the layman)
It is an eternal irony that positive feedback loops have almost universally negative outcomes, while negative feedback loops are the heart and soul of stability (their names often end in 'stat')
Slainte
ed
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Scotland to go it alone in 2012 Olympics ..... from this site .... "Meanwhile, Labour leadership contender Cathy Jamieson has called for Scotland to have its own Year of Sport in 2014. " A year of sport ... christ i doubt most of us could do a day :o)}
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I am missing something here but he did say
"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."
Whatever way you look like it, sounds like a major own goal to me.
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#145, #146, #150 & #151 oldnat
Thanks for seeking out these gems - NuLab have really brightened my Sunday morning with their ineptitude.
The Gray story must be particularly heartwarming for Brown & Darling. You're probably right re Park who might just have the whit to limit some of the damage, but we can live in hope that the choice is McTernan, who would make a perfect target for the SNP.
The MoD legal action and Brown's complicity should play well, too. What a weekend for NuLab. 5-0 down and all own goals. Perhaps the cunning NuLab plan is to overload the SNP with targets in the hope of burning them out before polling day?
I'll come back shortly with some analysis of the Indy ComRes poll, but there won't be much conclusive because the sample only contained 60 Scottish voters out of the weighted sample of 1015 planning to vote at the next general election.
The MORI poll details are completely useless re Scottish opinion as the regional breakdown is only South, Midlands (inc Wales?) and North (inc Scotland?). Unless they are holding back details the pollster are going to have difficulty using that data for anything much because the 59 Scottish seats can be expected to behave very differently from the rest of "The North".
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@oldnat
The weak historical line you're claiming for 'community of the realm' is reminiscent of religious scholars trying to make bronze age texts relevant for the modern age. No matter what's done to it, it's still out of date. No mention of individual liberty, for example.
It's also ammunition for ultra-reactionaries. It'd be a simple matter to redefine 'community of the realm' back to its original meaning of the great, the good and the godly.
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Oh dear, President - sorry First Minister - Salmond has placed his feet into his mouth.
I have read his comments numerous times and also studied at great length various comments, including this blog. Yet I fail to understand precisely what Alex was trying to say.
If he is talking about about her economic policies, could there be similarities with Government policy allegedly affected by political donations by businessmen? (ie a certain bus company comes to mind).
It is an unusual piece by Alex, as for once he is not demanding a Scottish this or that - his latest is the Olympics team. What's next Alex, a Scottish Network Rail?
It is dangerous territory coming out and apparently praising a political opponent's policies. Tony Blair dropped himself in it. The correct approach is to say nothing, and if questioned on the subject have the standard political response - ie nothing.
Alex is quite bullish however, since he is almost certainly guaranteed another blistering victory in the latest by-election.
The danger is that now Scotland does not have effective opposition, and the SNP are in the same position Labour were in 1997 in Westminster - they can practically impose any policy they wish.
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#157 Neil_Small147
I agree with much of your last para - certainly an odd situation for a minority government. However, the rest is utter tosh.
It has been well clarified by many above, but in a nutshell the FM is inherently a polite man when not attacked. He was interviewed by a Thatcherite and managed to dole out a crumb of comfort to him by pointing out that her economic policy was less awful than her social. End of story.
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#156 Anaxim
"the great, the good and the godly."
Sigh, You've discovered my secret - I meant me. :-)
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#157 Neil
The first part of the sentence is certainly true. Fortunately minority government prevents the second part being the reality. It's now clear that Labour and the Lib-Dems had always planned a system whereby, they (in coalition) would be able to replicate Westmidden and "impose any policy they wish."I've never known any party/government not to come up some stupid or ill-thought ideas in their time. A system which prevents that happening is a good thing.
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Iain Dale has a sharp eye for an opening. This on Gordon Brown's peculiar reaction in an interview.
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As promised in my #130 & #155, here are some thoughts on the ComRes poll for the Indy.
As always with UK polls, with only 90 Scots voters inc refusals & don't knows, the Scottish sample is very small. Because it asks specifically about how interviewees voted in 2005 we can get an idea of how representative it is:
This seems either to show that Scottish voters have very short memories or that the sample is not very representative. It may even be demonstrating one of the alleged flaws of telephone polling to the effect that when having to respond "publicly" to questions the answer may be skewed in favour of what the questioner "wants" to hear.
Although it is not representative, the sample may still provide useful indicators of the change in Scottish voting intentions if we can assume the 2005 answers are true. This gives us:
For reasons at which we can only guess, the decline in Labour voting intention is much smaller than we have seen in any recent poll and the changes in all of the other party voting intentions are also much less marked except for a surprising increase in the Green and other non-SNP "Other" vote now at 10% of the total. If those changes really are representative, they indicate that Labour might just hang on to Glenrothes, with the poll looking something like:
Frankly, I think those sort of results are just at the limit of possibility for a general election, but are totally unrealistic for a by-election, which will be seen by most as a "straight fight" between Lab and SNP, to the extent that I would place a small wager that "the field" will get nothing like the 8,890 votes or 27.99% of them a simple extrapolation suggests. If the by-election effect is anything like we saw in Glasgow East, "the field" will do well to retain the 15.23% they shared there, with Mason undoubtedly the beneficiary. That factor alone would probably turn a theoretical Lab majority of 836 into an SNP one of 2,000+.
Without wishing to cherry pick the ComRes stats, there is one interesting column in them which does support the contention I made re Glasgow East that a low turnout would be beneficial to The SNP rather than Labour. This is in the responses of 29 Scots who said they were unlikely to vote at the next exlection but asked to pick a party if voting were obligatory. Only 1 would have voted SNP while 3 would have voted for each of Lab, Con & LibDem. 6 refused to say, 6 didn't know and another 6 said other. So, the lower the turnout the lower the vote for each party, but the SNP would lose only 1 voter for each 9 lost by the 3 "UK" parties.
Whether this is a "rogue" poll, we will have to wait and see, but I think we'll not have to wait long.
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#161 oldnat
Thanks for putting a smile back on my face after I've just been analysing what is a less than happy poll for despisers of NuLab.
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Would you buy a used bank from this man?
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Back to the old topic of the Council Tax that the Tories introduced. They're now complaining that NuLab are applying the inevitable consequences of it The actual uses of surveillance by Rotherham Council are
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#165 Oldnat
While it seems a bit extreme and intrusive, all the council is doing is trying to make sure that people are paying the correct council tax and not claiming allowances they are not entitled to.
Any system that is potentially open to abuse will require (to a certain extent) stuff like this to happen.
I would expect similar things to happen under LIT eg surveillance to see if people were working "on the black" or "cash in hand".
I also see a potential increase in neighbours "snooping" and claiming people are working as above.
Of course, these things are probably already happening.
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#165 Aye that seems about typical of Labour that one. Make sure that the wee people are not up to no good .. but turn a blind eye to the big corporations not paying theyre dues ie Tescos (Private Eye 1216)
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More woo's for the nats, they have under estimated the rate of inflation against their health budjet and a short fall of 85m,will bring more trouble to patients care.
The NHS is in a real mess, minority government is losing control.
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#169
Are they? The London Government are responsible for controlling inflation that has slowly went out of control recently (with the Bank of England). The Scottish Government can do very little with the powers that they have right now. However since inflation has went out of control and increased far more then the experts estimated then other Government Departments across the country, whether they are from the London or Scottish Governments are feeling the pinch.
Of course. As long as you show your anti-SNP attitude and your distaste of the Nationalists being the Scottish Government then you don't care much for the other little bits of information.
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#168
Also, why do you insist on attacking the Nationalists on their budget and managing skills? Lets take a look at the London Government. Almost a trillion in debt (and rising) and you are still cheeky enough to complain about the Scottish Governments financial matters.
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Hello Thomas WELCOME BACK,
The point I make Thomas Is not about the overall control of the budjet,It' about how the Scottish government have failed to recognise that rise and adjust their budjet accordingly.Its called responsibile control.
Gobal economics is a disadvantage to all at this time.
Are you in the nat camp now.
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#171
How can the Scottish Government adjust their budget? We receive money from the London Government. The London Government will have to send the Scottish Government more money to cover inflation. (which they do for England/Wales)
Can we expect Gordon Brown rushing in to help Scotland cover inflation? The same man who publically stated that he would not work with the Scottish Nationalists? The same person who has rumoured to ignore all calls which Salmond makes? I doubt it.
The Scottish Government are sittings ducks. The Nationalists have attempted to ease the burden during our uncertain economic times and we should make do.
The only camp I have visted in the past week were Fort George, Cameron Barracks and Glencouse Barracks (I don't know how to spell it). I am only defending the Nationalists against what you wrote for the simple fact that inflation is something the Scots Gov has no control over and the London Gov controls the money Scotland receives so we can not throw more money like we see from our London counter parts.
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Thomas the budjet allocation must prepare for the un-seen,nicola sturgeon the minister in control, has a budjet for health of 11.2Bn, she must distribute that budjet accordingly,in difficult times when inflation does rise, more money from westminster would be nice,however,the government of the day SNP must insure health is a priority and adjust to the new situation.
I,m not attacking the nats,I want to know what benifits their Independent flagship policy would have for the people of Scotland.I also have great doubts about a federal Scotland in the Eu,would Brussels control north sea oil revenue better?
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#171
Wait. Are you suggesting that the Scottish Gov should re-allocate money to the NHS? If they did that then what do you expect would happen? Labour would accuse the Nationalists of cutting frontline services and what would that achieve? Nothing, nothing at all.
If we were to take drastic action then I would be happy if the NHS was no longer free. The Government could subsidise the treatment and continue to ensure that the most expensive treatment would be totally free. Taxes might be able to be reduced and everyone who then uses the NHS would only be asked to pay for about 1/3 of what their actual bill would be.
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Far too much vitriol has been poured on Lady Thatcher by the good denizens of this blog! Much of the economic policy, while painful, was necessary to allow Britain to reinvent itself - just as it has been able to reinvent itself every generation to keep pace with world demand and trends.
I realise that this is not what people who lost their jobs during the decline of Scotland (and the UK's) heavy industry want to hear.
However, whilst it took some time, it cannot be argued that the UK came out of all the turmoil of the 80's leaner, fitter and far more able to cope with whatever the global economy has had to throw at us. A legacy that Labour has proceeded to throw away over the last few years, by their insistence on throwing money at the public sector (which before anyone asks - I work for!!) without the fundamental restructuring that it needs.
Yes, it was painful, yes, it was unpleasant - but that wasn't just for the West of the country (although statistically they did have more heavy industry). But the West of the country was also the least likely to embrace 'new industry' and the training packages that would allow the workforce to become reskilled. In that respect the West lost out - possibly for being too thrawn to see what was happening.
For far, far too long the Unions had been allowed to get away with holding British industry to ransom and as such making it uneconomic and unprofitable and unable to adapt freely to a changing world - for that they owe much of the country a huge apology, and Lady Thatcher deserves huge kudos for taking them on.
Whether you agree with her societal comments or not - and personally I don't - Governments don't make societies, people do. Governments don't bring down societies - people do, and to blame Lady Thatcher for societal breakdown is really taking irony to the extreme.
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Thomas, Private health care,the poor law.
Is the army not argreeing with you.
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I cant beleive there are 174 commments on this.
It just goes to show that maggie thatcher is like marmite.
You either loved or or you hated her and that no politician or anyone in fact can even attempt to take a middle of the road position as regards her politics either social or economic.
I think that one thing the whole country needs to do is figure out what it was about that woman that made us all so angry that her name cannot be spoken of.
Once we do figure that out we have to make sure it can never happen again.
So i would like to say a big thank you to alex salmond for opening that discussion.
Maggie thatcher made me angry because the whole of scotland did not vote for her policies but we got them anyway. That made me feel powerless and as if my vote counted for nothing. It felt undemocratic in fact it was one of the reasons i voted for a scottish parliament to stop another "thatcher" type ever doing the same thing again.
however the labour party failed to live up to this expectation for me which is why i became an snp supporter.
The one and only policy i agreed with in any way the whole time thatcher was in power was the sale of council houses (economics there i suppose) I didnt see that as a social policy.
So i see what alex meant.
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#173
Like I said in #174 we simply can not take money from another department then add that money to the NHS. The NHS would have to accept cuts but also ensure that those cuts do not effect the most common problems. I also wrote the way I belive that NHS should operate as.
Also, it is simply not fair to talk about what the SNP would plan under an Independent Scotland. The Nationalists may not be in Government by then but we also can not assume what Scotland would be left with after Independence. Negociations would cover alot of areas and we simply can not predict that outcome.
I would also not assume that Brussels would control the North Sea Oil. Scotland and the other states within Britain would have to negociate their own part and we simply have no idea how that would work out.
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Regarding LIT versus CT for avoidability, it's much easier to hide income than to hide a house.
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Thomas, stop being personal.
The snp have a policy for Independence, they will put that question(IN SOME FORM) IN 2010,
Thomas,go to BBC website, look at the barnett formula and the Scottish budget.
In the meantime be rational,your to aggressive.
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179 Anaxim
"it's much easier to hide income than to hide a house."
Agreed, I was more angry about the badly thought out Council Tax, which requires things like 25% discount for single occupancy etc to be built in, and then have the inevitable intrusive and expensive checks like the ones I mentioned being required.
My preference is for the Green policy of a Land Value Tax (even more difficult to hide the land!), combined with the potential for those on low incomes but occupying high value properties being able to postpone the collection of a proportion of that tax until the land is sold/inherited - no exemptions required just deferment.
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Karinm
The right to buy,be careful here,many homes bought then sold,may one day be pulled down, due too the materials used at the time, led,asbestos, weak concrete,out dated electrical wiring, economics, more a short term fix with serious underlying problems.
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#180
I am not being personal at all. The only person matter I brought up was about my theory on how the NHS should operate.
I belive that it is quite unfair that you are attempting to blame the SNP for their failure to provide the money to cover the NHS. Inflation is not their responsibility. The London Government and the Bank of England are suppose to control inflation. They have failed and as a result Government Departments are struggling but it is a problem for Scotland because our Government relies on money from London when London can borrow money from elsewhere.
I am well aware that the SNP have a policy for the Scottish Gov to negociate Independence. Whether or not the Bill gets past Parliament is another matter that is still to come. I simply am not the person to assume the future when we we still are living the present.
I am also well aare how much Scotland generates annually and the barnett formula. I do not like going into something without first knowing the full facts. It is quite foolish to ignore certain issues.
But then answer me this. If inflation is suppose to controlled by the London Gov and the Bank of England then what do you suppose the Scottish Gov should do? All Government Departments are struggling so what do you suppose we do that will not effect Scotland as much in the long term?
You have complained but not put forward your own thoughts or ideas.
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Re Donstim
I agree that Labour has made a huge mistake on the public sector by not reforming as they applied additional investment. Teachers are teh prime example, huge pay rise no mechanism to get rid of the useless ones.
However Mrs T argued that people should make their own provison ultimately this would apply to healthcare, pension all aspects of social care...............
So Governments do create society, without universal education and helthcare we would have no society. thankfully she was stopped before going any further.
there is now universal agreement that her economic reforems were required, maybe could have been done in a different way.
however there in another interesting angle, if Scotland had got independance in 1979, which party would have taken the mantle in scotland? can't see labour or SNP undertaking such a programme of reform. Would we have been better or worse off now?
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Brian, can we open up a debate around why it is not a good idea for Scotland to contend as a nation at the Olympics? Clearly, we would miss out on funding, coaching opportunities and the range of events currently enjoyed by Team GB for starters. What do others think?
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Thomas.
Its for the Scottish parliament to decide on how they distribute their 30Bn budjet, I 'm not telling them how to do it, I'm asking a question (in difficult times) how they do it.
Hope that answers your point.
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#186
You have decided to change your statement.
"It' about how the Scottish government have failed to recognise that rise and adjust their budjet accordingly.Its called responsibile control."
Here, you have freely stated that the Scottish Government have failed to adjust their budget to cover the gap in the NHS. (officially blaming them)
Now in #186 you have decided you are claiming to have asked how the Government disturbutes their grant during the hard times.
Your first statement I already pointed out that inflation is out of the Scots Gov control and that the London Gov and the Bank of England should take responsibility for the problems that we have ran into. (Hand us more money whatever)
Your second statement of 'How the Scots Gov might distribute their grant'. I would suggest you copy how England has coped with the rise in inflation. How has England coped? Their Gov Departments would also be effected so I would suggest the Scots Gov would copy the London Gov.
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#185 weeroo1
Frankly, aggregating the performances of individual athletes by the team they belong to seems fairly pointless. If you want to see what happens when you simply draw from a bigger unit then have a look at a different medal table Europe "wins" with 84 Gold, 99 Silver, and 92 Bronze medals.
I remember in the 1970s, Scotland judging its identity through sport (because at that stage we weren't really sure who we were). We're past that now (though don't take away our fitba' team!), and it's interesting the English and the Brits going through that same identity angst that we went through 30 years ago.
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Thomas,
I have not changed my position,I 'm still asking the question,how do the Scottish government address the short fall in the NHS. Thomas, inflation will rise and fall, thats a fact, the question is about responsibile control and how you adjust to the economic climate.
Thomas, stop moving the goal posts, look, whats your point here (dont you understand devolution)
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#189.
If you have not changed your positon then I would be grateful if you made your point clear. (others will make their own judgement if you have appeared to change your stance) As I stated earlier you appeared to have changed from blaming the Scots Gov for their failure to re-distribute resources into the NHS from other Departments to asking how the Scots Gov should handle the current crises. (a crises that is expected to continue with inflation increasing)
I am still waiting for your own thoughts on how the Scots Gov could handle the crises. I
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Nicola sturgeon has set the budjet for 2008 - 2009 for health,inflation has moved and she has failed to react (failed to plug the shortfall)
Again,its a case for the snp government and how they govern.
Thomas,read the threads right.If your defending the government,then thats your choice.
Again I suggest, you brush up on your understanding of the process of devolution.
Thomas I HAVE TRIED TO BE FAIR WITH YOU.
Now! do you believe that making people pay for health care, is the answer....
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#191
You are not actually being fair at all. You have failed to ensure that you made your point clear. I still am going back to re-read your first statement that appears to be you complaining that the SNP have left the NHS with a shortfall of cash. I then continue to read on and discover that in your own words, you want to know, "How do the Scottish government address the short fall in the NHS?."
Inflation does not only effect the NHS but every Government Department. Inflation was a suprise to the London Government aswell as the Scottish Government but how can the Scottish Government move to fix the problem when budgets are already set out for the whole year while the London Gov holds the purse over Scotland?
You also are neglecting my own question. How do you belive the situation should be handled?
I do belive people should pay part of their healthcare. It's a personal opinion that I hold and you can disagree with my opinion but don't disrespect my opinion by acting as if I am wrong. During economic uncertainty I am confident the public would appreciate paying less tax to the NHS in exchange for paying installments when they do come to use the NHS. Even paying 1/3 of their treatment then the Government pays the rest would save our almost bankrupt Goverment an incredible amount. While the majority who do not use the NHS pay less for the privilage through taxes.
I have shared my view on the future of the NHS. Could you please share your own view how the SNP should handle this 'shortfall'?
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Yes Thomas,inflationary measure have to be taken into account,its up to the snp government to react........
Would an Independent Scotland be free of inflation and interest rates or would an Independent Scotland within the EU have shared rates.
If inflation falls, does the snp government surrender some of their budjet back the the uk treasury.
ITS clear that you would(in your opinion) address the short fall by making the public pay for health care,IS that an snp policy...
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Thomas.
A joke 4 you,
a frog goes into a shop,
the shop keeper,says,"what do you want"
the frog replies, "have you got any grapes"
the shop keeper, says, no! now get out of my shop,
the next day,the frog goes to the same shop, again, the shop keeper,says, "what do you want"the frog replies, "have you got any grapes"
the shop keepers,shouts! no! and if you come back into my shop I will nail your web feet to my floor,
the next day, the frog goes into the same shop, the shop keeper, yells! want do you want, the frog says, "have you got any nails" the shop keeper, shouts, no!
the frog then replies,have you got any grapes then........
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#192 Thomas_Porter
You're lucky to get anything vaguely coherent from our resident troll, let alone any sense. By getting him to claim he's not NuLab you've got much further than most of us. I'd quit while I was ahead if I were you.
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derekbarker .... i do beleive your a wind up merchant . Answer the mans question and spell budget properly.
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derekbarker .... i do believe your a wind up merchant . Answer the mans question and spell budget properly.
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#192
Hi Thomas could I suggest that one doesn't feed the troll as honesty and integrity is not in their dictionary.
I wonder why Westmidden has subjected its subjects to forever shoring up a bank, at taxpayers expense, even tho they had the information that it was going to cost the taxpayer tens of billions and never a hope of recovery.
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Further to my #162, there is another YouGov poll for Compass and The Observer today and at first glance gives some comfort to NuLab in Scotland. It has a Scottish sample size of 214 (weighted 179) and isn't based on a skewed voting pattern at the 2005 election.
So we can table the voting by parties as follows:
Despite being higher for NuLab than other recent polls, these changes would give something like the following at Glenrothes:
These results are slightly down on previous predictions because NuLab seem to be making a small recovery but that doesn't look nearly enough to hold the seat even before we take by-election factors into account.
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cynicalHighlander, rabbiehippo
Not a TROLL nor a wind up merchant.
I dont set the governments budGet,its up to the snp to set the budget, I cant be any clearer than that!
Brownedov, I thought it was obvious that I have a strong dislike for that word Nulab.
Integrity;: why question my principles,there clear and honest....
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#200 derek
You're not a troll when you're off the baccy.
You may not like the word NuLab but you clearly are, since you're simply parrotting SLab on the NHS in Scotland.
Go get another spliff.
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oldnat
If the snp fail in their 2010 did, to return an Independent, YES vote for Independence, would you consider that the Scottish parliament is nothing more than a "PARISH COUNCIL" a bureacratic second tier, an event not a process and would be better abolished.
Not sure what reference you mean by "spliff" if its the one I think, NO!
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Oldnat .... i believe spliffs make you mellow out .... this ones on some sort of medication that makes you speak gibberish lol ... Brian ... new blog please.
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Whatever people think of Thatcher, those who remember the state of the UK in 1979 understand that change was required, much in the same way as 1997.
But regardless who imposes what policy at whatever time, your "average" person in the street will point the finger of blame at the sitting Government.
It is no good talking about the previous administration - people basically don't give a monkeys. And after a few years without any change, they will ask just what has been achieved.
Apologies, but I must return to the planned re-regulation of buses proposed by the SNP. But what a surprise, no change. Maybe political parties should only ever receive state funding, with all private donations banned.
What would Maggie think of that?
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Thomas at #192
I do belive people should pay part of their healthcare. It's a personal opinion that I hold and you can disagree with my opinion but don't disrespect my opinion by acting as if I am wrong. During economic uncertainty I am confident the public would appreciate paying less tax to the NHS in exchange for paying installments when they do come to use the NHS. Even paying 1/3 of their treatment then the Government pays the rest would save our almost bankrupt Goverment an incredible amount.
The SNP are in favour of this?
OK, how would this be handled:
A few years ago, I changed jobs. Higher salary, company car etc. But 2 months into the job I fell seriously ill with a collapsed lung. I ended up on sick pay. My previous company had private health insurance, but the new one did not. So under your proposal, I would have only made two instalments. So would I have had to take out a "loan"?
The other problem is that people cannot afford to pay for 1/3 of the treatment. If you reduce tax to replace with instalments, what is the point? At least tax is easier to collect.
Perhaps the SNP would be better to keep prescription charges where they were, and only make a reduction for the chronically ill or disabled. I don't object to paying full prescription charges.
Don't forget, if the Barret formula is ever changed as now seems likely, the SNP will lose the funding they rely on to push through such policies. Hypocritical that the SNP don't vote on English-only issues, but are quite happy to accept their taxpayers money. (Don't use the oil argument).
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Derekbarker.
One of the good things that will surely come about in an independant Scotland will be a return to basic education.
One of them being spelling and grammer. You would do well to enrol.
It is within our budjet after all.
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#206 philandkirsty
Basic Maths will also be on the agenda. This will help Neil_Small to understand that the fiscal deficit in Scotland was similar to the UK (probably smaller now) and when they stop spending our taxes on post-imperialist posturing like Trident and Iraq, ours will be even smaller, if not surplus.
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What do you mean by "basic education"
Is there another hidden agenda, relating to education, that the snp will introduce.
Just a fair question, relating too your post.
On another point, are the snp proposing to fund the entire commonwealth games in 2014
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Public spending expert Arthur Midwinter, who advises the Labour party, said the SNP had over-promised and under-delivered on the NHS, adding: "Their financial incompetence is now coming home to roost."
well he would say that woulnt he ....
derekbarker ... either your a party activist or an ex mp/msp who lost there seat to the SNP ...... such hatred .... you need to calm down a bit! as Oldnat says ... have a smoke
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Derek, give it a break man, you've been arguing with yourself blue in the face this weekened when most of us have been mellowing :)
Wake up and smell the anti-socialist coffee.
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Derek
You have made some good points, some people seem keener to rubbish you personally rather engage in debate.
We need to keep a open mind on the SNP government praise where earned and take them to task where appropriate. All sensible opinions are valid none should be rubbished.
Keep up the good work, this SNP lovin needs all challengers.
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It strikes me , yet again, that the media is hell bent on minute scrutiny of the SNPs every utterance having failed to scrutinise the previous incumbents years of mal administration and dicey donations.
What were the media doing when PFI was itroduced?
What were the media doing when the Iraq war was supported by the Labour Party in Scotland?
What have the media been doing over dodgy expenses claims and dodgy election donations?
It strikes me that you have to be anything BUT SNP or ' the man with the tan' to get any positivity from the media of Scotland.
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northhighlander ... somehow even if the SNP gave everybody 200 quid for being awfully nice .... Derek would still not be happy .... things need to be put into perspective ... its alright rubbishing the SNP but to be fair they are a minority government and its fairly certain none of the media are on theyre sides either. Labour had long enough to change things and did next to nothing .. ok banning smoking in pubs was great ...
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#207 oldnat
What is your objection to Trident? Your view on Iraq I understand, but Trident is there for a reason.
While no sane person wants nuclear weapons, you cannot uninvent them.
Added to this, countries such as China, Russia and Iran do not share the same morals as we in the UK do. Having such a deterrent - however awful - is one of the most powerful tools in a diplomats armoury.
Iran knows very well that if it ever launched a nuclear attack, it would be responded to in kind, destroying the country. But if the target had no nuclear weapons, you are not telling me that they would not make a serious threat. My understanding of fiscal matters may not be particularly great, but I know defence politics very well.
So the SNP want rid of nuclear weapons. Fine. How do you re-employ 11,000 or so people who depend on Faslane. Open a new Tesco?
And - correct me if I am wrong - the SNP are also against nuclear power AND coal-fired power stations. Exactly how are we going to supply the energy needs for Scotland in the short term?
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#212 DisgustedDorothy
Well said, but could there be a glimmer of awakening at The Scotsman with today's: By-election disaster fears grow as latest poll puts Labour 21 points behind Tories? Funnily enough, that's the oddball ComRes poll I cover in my #162 while they don't mention the YouGov poll I cover in my #199, which is much worse news for NuLab.
OTOH, their Scotland on Sunday branch were on form yesterday with SNP breaks promise on more police. When you read the story, you find that the SNP handed over all the money they promised but the Chief Constables spent it on other things. Truly balanced reporting, eh.
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northhighlander
Thank you.
Yes your right again.A balanaced view and a level headed approach.
Personally I believe everyone has a worth and I do try to stay clear of poor judgement.
Ciao 4 now
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#212 DisgustedDorothy
Today even The Herald are getting in on the act of putting the boot in on Brown with PM drops baton over GB football team, while of course this website puts the opposite spin on it with Salmond rejects UK football team. With even Cathy Jamieson against Brown's plan, no wonder she's considered too much of a left by London Labour for the Scottish "leadership".
The Herald also manage to mildly knock the MoD in their MPs Family Criticises Delay In Compensation For Asbestoslinked Illnesses. That story was in the London papers last week but still hasn't seen the light of day on the BBC website.
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Correction to The Scotsman link in my #215
See By-election disaster fears grow as latest poll puts Labour 21 points behind Tories.
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#213
I believe the smoking ban thing was originally an SNP proposal, so Labour can't even claim anything from that.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#214 Neil
However, you are not. Trident is not under UK control. The missiles are not purchased, they are leased from the USA, and held within the US Trident store until they are released to be fitted in a UK submarine. They can only be fired if the US releases the firing codes.If you were arguing for an independent nuclear deterrent, then we could have a debate. I would quote the testimony of such as Gavin Strang on 14 March 2007
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#196: I commend this post to everyone who wishes a preview of Scotland's future.
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"They can only be fired if the US releases the firing codes. "
No, that's a myth.
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Someone quite correctly points out that trident supplys 10 thousand jobs. I would like to point out that the many, many billions would be better put into providing modern equipment for the disgracefully equiped army.
The left-overs could then be used to re-train the 10 thousand in new jobs inside and indeed outside the defence industry.
Why pay for nukes if you can't hand out bullet proof vests?
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#223 Anaxim
Do you believe that the firing codes are hard wired into the missiles? Each missile is given a firing code when it's released from store.
Were Britain following a foreign policy significantly contrary to the USA, or was likely to involve a nuclear launch without US approval, would the missiles or their firing codes be released to the UK?
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223 , How do you know its a myth, no way the US would let turkeys like Brown have the codes, even though he would not have the backbone to do anything , by the time he had stopped dithering it would be too late anyway.
Its an expensive toy to try and fool people into thinking that Britain has any clout in the world,
sadly we have pensioners dying through lack of heat so that Brown and other such clowns can strut about the world stage.
Get rid of it and spend the money on making Scotland a better place to live.
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224, show us some proof that they support 10,000 jobs. Even if they do we could still spend the same money supporting 10,000 jobs where people were building things to help the countr y, not just useless toys so that we can pretend we are big tough boys.
Any money spent on that could be better used employing people to improve the country, long term beneficial projects.
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The government has repeatedly stated that the system is operationally independent, requiring only the UK prime minister's approval. They could be lying, I suppose, though you would think that it would have leaked out if US approval were needed.
I don't believe every missile has its own code, then again, I'm not a rocket scientist. Hardwired codes could simply be rewired.
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#205
Neil can you not read my comment? I stated that my personal belief was for the people who use the NHS to pay part of their treatment. It is not an SNP opinion. It is actually a Conservative opinion (If I had to choose).
I am aware that there shall be some who are unable to pay for their treatment, no matter the amount of installments that they choose to pay back in. It's not my problem to be honest. My idea has its flaws and you are are correct that people could have trouble paying for their treatment but I am looking out for the majority who do not use the NHS (in long term may well save money from taxes).
I have private health insurance and the military looks after me anyway.
#223
Anaxim, you are actually partly right. Britain owns only several missles from our nuclear fleet. I find a nuclear fleet pointless though. If Russia for example was to launch their nuclear missles what do you think would be the first targets? They would ensure that Britain is unable to retaliate and our fleet would be gone in the first hour.
Of course bring on the poverty as long as Trident remains nice and shiney.
#227
Goodingm.
Trident does provide quite alot of employment. However these people are some of the best minds Britain has to offer. It would not be difficult to put their minds into real use for the good for all man kind, not to destroy all of man kind.
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229, I would still bet that it is nowhere near 10,000 jobs to support a handful of submarines , considering the majority of the work is already done by the US.
Lots more productive things they could be doing as well that would potentially earn us income from sales or improve our country in many ways , so any claims that getting rid of Trident will somehow lose us jobs is absolutely incorrect, and in fact the opposite applies if the corresponding money is put to proper use, ie get them working on renewable projects such as wind, tide, hydrogen , etc.
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#222 Brigadier
If I understand your cryptic posting correctly, you'll like the 2nd photo from the top in John's blog
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Once again, I'm astonished at the hypocrisy on show from the snp here. To scream bias, while simultaneously enjoying an incredible free run from the Scottish media beggars belief. Your leader can stand up and blatantly LIE in parliament, yet we hear not a peep from the supposedly 'biased' media. Broken promise after broken promise, to the point where almost all of your manifesto pledges have now been simply discarded, and and still all we hear is how well the snp government are doing. I dread to think what a supposedly non-biased media would look like.
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#214 talks about superior British morals as compared to other countries.
Makes me laugh. Take off the blinkers. This is the country that raped and pillaged half the world.
Illegally made war on Iraq against the wishes of the world. There is an endless list of British amoral behaviour going back centuries. Britain is in no position to lecture any country on "morals".
Incidently. Possession of WMD like Trident (plus loads of others, is in itself been declared illegal and immoral. Plus it diverts precious resources into a dead end that could be put to positive social use.
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goodingm,
Well said! SECONDED!I second your remarks.
Anaxim, Your faith is touching, if a bit "touched". Any code "hard-wired" or not, if properly set, would prove more than a simple task to "rewire"...unless it's set up by the same folk who seem in charge of UK data system security.
Thomas,
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
ed
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#232
Yes of course. The Nationalists are being given a free run, how dare they. Is that their problem? Course not. The Opposition is terrible and as a result the Government are flying high. The Government are also popular because the other Parties are keen to unite with the Nationalists on common interests to pass legistration through Parliament. It's how the system works. You scratch their back, they scratch yours.
Broken promises? Shall we go through the past 11 years and re-discover the promises Labour have made? I'm still waiting for this 'World Class' schools that Gordon Brown made a priority when he became PM.
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#233 jam
Now, be fair.
Neill didn't say that British morals were better. He said "countries such as China, Russia and Iran do not share the same morals as we in the UK do".
In some ways he's right (though customs and beliefs would have been more accurate). In other ways he's wrong and the moralities are an exact match -
imperial oppression, subjugation of minorities, possession of WMD ......
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#232 Edin-lins
Strong words from a Lib-Dem! Are you getting nervous waiting for your new leader to be announced?
BTW What's your take on Trident having been voted through by the LabCon alliance at Westminster?
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#232 edin_lins
"Once again,"
A very odd way to start your very first post!
Odder still for it to be a pure rant with no shred of argument to back it up. I'm not SNP but can see for myself they've implemented many of their promises and are trying to implement more.
Please give some examples of where they "LIE in parliament" and to make your case, please quote at least a couple of the "Broken promise after broken promise" you're on about.
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#235
I never mentioned Labour promises, broken or not (minimum wage - not broken; devolution - not broken, among many others). If the only argument you can come up with is 'they did it first', well then, that's not much of an argument at all, really, is it?
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226. That the US has ultimate control of our nuclear weapons is a myth.
I know it goes against the grain of your average nationalist but you have been told a porkie. Do yourself a favour and check out what other nationalists tell you befoer you accept them as fact.
The UK built, owns and maintains the subs and the warheads. Only the missiles came from the US and are still maintained by them.
However, the UK has full control over launch. Why on earth would any government cede control of our nuclear deterrent when we are fully capable of building our own?
Get a grip.
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238. Brownedov, even a quick look at your previous posts identifies you as yet another of the SNP activists that have recently flooded these boards.
Are you the same 'Brownedov' that Google shows is all over various Scottish newspaper websites?
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Brownedov
The y certainly are as economical with the truth as any other government.
Today we learn 150 Police officers is actually 97. Appears to be a lie in Parliament.
(It was supposed to be a 1000 in manifesto)
First time house buyers help?
130m for further education that turned out to be 30m
Thats 3 for a start.
There are many more. Thats why we need some objectivity on these blogs, not just a SNP love in
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Why dont the snp put their mouth where the heart is.
The 6 nationalist MPs should refuse to sit in westminster.
Is the leader, still on two wages......
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Ex-pat,
Assertion doesn't make it true. Have you anything a bit stronger?Why on Earth did we idiotically and uncritically go "shoulder-to-shoulder" (though that's not the visual image of posture which springs to mind)? If we could build our own, why don't we?Woof! Woof!
ed
Q: What is the appropriate posture to adopt when approaching a Shrub?
A: With hind leg raised.
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#241 Reluctant-Expat
In electoral situations where I believe they have the best chance of beating NuLab, I am indeed a fellow-traveller of the SNP but as I have explained many times, I am an old Liberal (NOT a LibDem).
If you Google "Brownedov" you'll find a couple of pages of hits, almost all of which link to BBC blogs. You'll also find a post I made on the Herald site to confirm some details copied from a BT blog post of mine. If other people have read a commented on my posts elsewhere, good for them.
And what's your point, exactly?
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#239
I am not to bothered about what one party has promised. I am more conerned about what that party does inbetween elections. What I am disappointed about is the constant "The Nats break all their promises." we hear and at the same time other parties are left in the dark, as if they never promised anything in the first place. Before the next election I will take a step back and listen to what each party had acheived during the last four years.
It's more important to learn what one party can do rather then what they were unable to do.
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#232 edin_lins
Good stuff!
You needn't bother with the manifesto promises; they can be weaseled out of by saying - We are in a minority. We can't do everything, the others won't let us.
Get them on the LIE. Give us chapter and verse. Facts is chiels as winna ding ( and two fngers to Jeremy Paxman!). If you can do that for us, we'll have the SNP love-in on the ropes so quick as you can. Thanks
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#242 northhighlander
I am not an apologist for anybody, but re the police issue, I suggest you read the Scotland on Sunday "SNP breaks promise on more police" story I quoted in #215 and then comment on how fair you feel the headline was and how you suggest the Scottish Government could have ensured the money was spent by the Chief Constables in the way desired.
If you feel they have broken other promises, link to some references to the promise and the breach and no doubt you'll get a response from me and/or others.
If you need help on posting links, see my #75 on the New ways into blogs thread.
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#240 Expat
My comments did not relate to the Vanguard Class submarines, nor to the warheads (now redesigned to the specs required for the Trident II D5 ballistic missiles), but solely to the missiles themselves (without which the entire system fails).
As you know, the UK does not own any of the missiles but has access to 70 Trident missiles held in a communal pool at the Strategic Weapons facility at the Kings Bay Submarine Base in Georgia, USA, which handles their maintenance and in-service support.
Now, it may be that the electronic launch systems used when the missiles are loaded into the Vanguard subs are different from those used when they are loaded into US subs, and that these systems are now totally under Royal Navy control.
If you can assure me from your personal knowledge that this is the case, then I'll accept that. Otherwise I maintain that the system is not independent, but is subject to US control.
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#247 handclapping
Totally agree with you! If you find evidence of the SNP telling a lie, then that deserves to be exposed.
Why haven't you done so?
Incidentally, as I've posted previously - like Brownedov, I'm not a member of any party, and an old Liberal in attitude.
I support the party most likely to bring about independence for Scotland. Currently that's the SNP, but I trust no party - especially those with a history of being "economical with the truth".
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Turns out one of the regular bloggers, is abit of a Mr Bean, "NO"I dont mean the TV one, I mean the can one, the one with 57 different "VARIETY'S"
DO DO DO DO DOOOOO.....I'm lovin it.....
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#248 Brownedov
As I understand it, the Scottish Government does not have any direct control over the Chief Constables and how they spend their money.
So it was a bit daft, in my opinion, to make a promise like that in the first place (much better to say we'll give them the money to pay for 1000 extra officers).
But that's the SNP way, set up a "deal" in such a way that if it works they get the credit and set up a fall guy to take the blame when it doesn't.
The next one will be the Local Councils. They'll be blamed for not spending the money properly when it was the SNP that removed the ringfencing to force them to spend it in the required way. They can hardly complain that the horse has bolted when they left the stable door open in the first place.
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I must be having a "bad typing" day today!
Correction to the 1st link in my #248: Scotland on Sunday "SNP breaks promise on more police"
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I love being Scottish and being pro-trident, anti-EU and not wanting us to pull the troops out of Iraq. I feel so un-SNP.
I must say, I enjoy reading the comments on this blog compared with virtually every other website with similar content. The banter is considerably better and the other sites are so bad that most of the literacy here is actually of a readable quality! Who'd've thunk it.
I am starting to despair about Scottish politics though. The opposition is so awful that the SNP have had a fairly clear run to make themselves look better than they are. What do people think of the current Scottish Labour leader candidates? Any of you fancy any of them to give Scottish Labour a bit of edge?
I'm not really of any particular political persuation, by the way.
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#252 Bangingonabout
Apart from the "managerial issues" which tend to dominate modern politics, this is one of the few issues of political philosophy that divides the parties in Scotland.You make your position clear in the section that I highlight in your quote. Labour's ethos is based on the concept of "central planning" - everyone has to be forced to follow all the details of a centrally determined agenda. The Lib-Dems (when the SDP faction dominate share this view - the old Liberals don't).
The SNP and the Greens believe in "subsidiarity", where ring-fencing is inappropriate.
I have no idea if the Tories have a stance on this.
Labour's problem is that the locus of central planning causes schism. Your MPs want the locus to be in London (hence they rubbished the MSPs and loathed Scottish Labour policies like free personal care). Many MSPs prefer the locus to be central planning at Holyrood, and resent the interference of the MPs.
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#252 Bangingonabout
Frankly, you seem to be making a good argument in favour of full devolution of powers in Scotland (which I would support) or full independence (which I'm less sure of).
Strictly speaking, you're right that every i should be dotted and every t crossed in any manifesto promise to avoid being tarred with the same brush as NuLab over the EU referendum. Wouldn't make reading the things much fun, though.
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#252 Bangingonabout
I agree with you on that, but the trouble with all political parties is that "soundbite" politics is a game they all play. Not because the media is biased, but because the press seldom does any in-depth journalism any more, but simply repeats any headline they pick up on the net.Complain about this comment
Right .... hands up how many of you anti SNP bloggers are Tories ........ ill bet most of you are NuLab, spiteful at being in the sidelines for a change.
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#254 drewthomson
If you want to despair of politics enough to cut your throat, have a look at Edinburgh Council's spat
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Here's a story that the anti-SNP lot should be able to get their teeth into and which is more than relevant to this thread and future ones: The Scotsman's Inside Holyrood - End of the phoney war as big guns head for front line.
If the Scottish Government is as discredited as you claim, why do you think they're planning more ministerial visits to Fife?
Your take on the final para would also be welcome: "The problem for Labour is that in the current difficult circumstances a visit by a UK minister, even by the seat's neighbouring MP [Brown] may not have such a beneficial effect."
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#254 drewthomson
"I love being Scottish and being pro-trident, anti-EU and not wanting us to pull the troops out of Iraq. I feel so un-SNP."
We obviously don't have a lot in common apart from not being resident in Scotland at the moment, but with your views how would you advise voters of Glenrothes to vote and why:
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#259 oldnat
Thanks for the link
So the torys and ex-lab don't think the kids did well and won't even congratulate them to try to score a political point. So there you are kids; all that work and only the lib-dems and snp think you did well. Labour and tory would even take back the congratulations that you got from the Council.
It reminds me why I called a curse on both their houses.
I hope edin_lins comes back with the LIE then we'll have the SNP as well.
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Brian has put sport and national identity on a new thread.
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#261 Brownedov
I'm not entirely sure how I'd advise voters. It's tricky really. What I want to see is Scottish Labour coming back a bit in Scotland, in order to give the SNP a run for their money. Unless the Tories fancy a go at it...
I don't find it to be particularly healthy (or interesting) having little opposition to a leading party.
As such, I'd advise voters to do what gives Scottish Labour the best signal for getting back into the game:
Perhaps a by-election victory for Lab will kick them into gear (and maybe inject some charisma into the leadership contenders). Perhaps, though, SNP snapping up another tight by-election victory could do something for Labour.
On reflection, I would tentatively suggest voting for Labour.
#260 Brownedov
Personally, if I was in doubt about who to vote, I wouldn't mind a wee visit from Mr Brown.
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#255, #256, #257
oldnat/brownedov
To answer your points in no particular order...
I hate "soundbite" politics and "headline" journalism too for that matter . But for any party to make promises about things they have no control over is just making the problem worse. If politicians stopped going for the easy soundbite then maybe the media would have to start working for their living.
I generally support devolved decision making and devolved government. I voted for devolution in Scotland but I wouldn't vote for independence (at least not until I had sufficient information to make a properly informed decision). However, the Government (whichever one it is) is responsible for setting the agenda nationally. This may involve projects which it requires the local councils to manage on its behalf. In those cases, I think it's entirely appropriate to ringfence money to ensure that it spent to achieve the required goals. I'm not for ringfencing for its own sake but I think it has its place.
Politicians should make the effort to dot i's and cross t's when making commitments (I prefer that to "promises") in manifestos. However this doesn't mean that the manifesto should be hard to read - it just needs clear plain English. If, in making a commitment, they have to fill the manifesto with caveats (over and above the general "health warning" that comes with these things) then perhaps they aren't clear themselves about what it is they are committing themselves to.
Personally, I wouldn't mind too much (that's a topical phrase!!) if a party didn't fulfil a commitment, if they accepted responsibility for it and explained clearly why they didn't fulfil it - rather than just playing the blame game. Sometimes things just don't come out as you expect.
Finally, don't call Labour MPs "Your MPs". I don't vote Labour (I don't have a fixed party before you label me Conservative or something else) and think the current shower in Holyrood are appalling.
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The UK does NOT require authority from the US president to launch a nuclear attack in retaliation to an attack from another country. The warheads are owned by the UK, missiles leased from the USA. Release codes are used for warheads, not missile bodies. There are multiple safeguards and while an agreement to launch would almost certainly be made between the UK and USA, the UK can still launch a retaliatory strike if need be.
Someone also quoted a statement from Michael Ancram saying a cold war was unlikely. Well, look what has happened in the past fortnight.
Twenty billion is a lot of taxpayers cash. You could get two London Olympics (if figures are to be believed) out of that and have change for a Scottish Parliament building.
The fact is that no one knows what will happen in the world over the next five let alone twenty years.
Until the world grows up, better to have the capability rather than none.
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#264 drewthomson
Thanks for the response. I disagree with you, of course, but it's a perfectly valid one. On current performance, I think it's highly unlikely Brown will dare to show his face in Glenrothes.
Trouble is, the LibDems are having trouble getting back in the game, even with their federal party structure and semi-federalist goals.
As a unionist party, Scottish Labour are inherently a contradiction. If their Scottish "leader" has no authority outside Holyrood, then they're effectively admitting that any future Labour FM will be a puppet of London Labour, whether London Labour are in office or not. I simply don't see how Scottish Labour can "come back a bit" in that scenario. OTOH, if they federalised themselves, they could develop separate national identities within the UK, but Brown would have to go first and the new leader of English Labour would almost certainly become federal Labour leader.
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#265 bangingonabout
You shouldn't be surprised that when you espouse a system of central planning, that I assume you support the party that has that as a central tenet of its belief system.
#266 Neill
Was anyone claiming that a Trident launch had to be countersigned by the US President?
I think you are naive about Realpolitik. British leaders want nuclear weapons so that they can retain permanent membership of the Security Council seat, and continue their post-imperialist posturing. They don't give a damn about the "independence" of such a system, since its about politics not "defence".
If you really believe that the USA would allow "their" missile system to be independently fired then you need to go beyond reading "The Secret Five".
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#265 Bangingonabout
Fair points, but to become practical it would require a reasonably balanced media.
However, so long as powers are not devolved fully, there is bound to be bickering between Holyrood and Westmidden. If the UK government reserved only powers of foreign policy and national defence it could be much smaller and each side could be judged more fairly.
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#267 Brownedov
Federalisation of the Scottish Labour lot is so vital to their success. There are so many people that completely dismiss ScotLab as being puppets for the British lot. If they were to lose that tag - maybe with the help of a new leader with the ambition to help them lose the tag - they could make a bit of a move.
I almost entirely forgot of the Lib Dems existence when considering the parties. That's how much of an impression they've made on me! They always get a little bit less attention than they perhaps deserve.
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#270 drewthomson
We do agree on something, then re Scottish Labour. Of course, if Brown had any guts he could stand as MSP for Motherwell & Wishaw in the forthcoming SP by-election. If he managed to hold on to the seat, then he really would have a mandate to be National Labour leader, but failing that, he's the block in Scottish Labour reforming themselves.
Anyway, on to the new thread, I think - we're long off-topic on this thread.
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NEIL_SMALL 147
What tosh you speak. RE-READ your post.
If we own the warheads but not the missles...and then decide to send them overseas... at what point do we ask uncle Sam's permission..
A. When we launch our leased missile.
B. When we launch our leased missile whilst deploying our fully paid up war-head.
C. Only when Uncle Sam tells us. (When they do it for us).
The codes can only...AND WILL ONLY...be released for our Independant nuclear deterent...when America decides it is right.
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Neil,
How about just for fun?The ability to reduce someplace to a radioactive hole in the ground? What for?
Salaam/Shalom/Shanthi/Dorood/Peace
ed
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