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On the 31 st July 2023, I did a blog post called ‘political death looms in Rutherglen’, my contention was that the by-election on paper see... -
When former Nicola Sturgeon was cornered like a rat by the Holyrood press pack, you could see in her demeanor that she extremely uncomfortab...
Another prominent Scottish journalist, not Kevin McKenna, someone much smarter than him, observed that about 70% of Westminster MP's could make a better living outside Westminster and they do it for public service. The London Evening Standard keeps them on their toes and everyone respects that and leaves it alone because they know it works.
ReplyDeleteIn Scotland, I doubt if there is a single MSP who could make a better living and many couldn't make any kind of living outside of Holyrood. So, I agree with you and if Holyrood was closed tomorrow then all that would surprise those inside Holyrood would be the complete public apathy towards its closure. Many of us would celebrate. Is there a single MSP Minister who is useful? That's a serious question and if there aren't any, and I don't think there are, then should someone not be saying something about it?
It has been a complete failure and, as you say, it is getting worse instead of better. In terms of morally reprehensible though, the re-set of £600,000 and being investigated for perjury by Plod Alba is also pretty bad. These alphabet women really are venomous snakes, just not of the LGBT kind. I wonder if we will ever find-out who they really are?
One minor point about presentation: you say 'at the end of the day' too often. Apart from that, and that is very minor, the content is fabulous. Well done and thanks.
Dear Anon
DeleteThank you for the feedback, I am working on how I do presentation, learning from scratch
Talking about the precipitous decline of Scotland under Holyrood, I'll repeat an interesting statistic I heard last week: Did you know that you could order three, 300,000ton double-hulled super-tankers from any ship-yard from Norway to Turkey and get them delivered to you within 9-months for £250million. We cannot build two wee ferries for the Western Isles for £250million and it takes us about 6-years. If we had a half-decent press, they would be telling us that of course but if they tried, they would never work again. That's what happened to Stephen Daisley at the BBC. If the BBC cannot stand-up to the SNP then the Herald aren't going to either.
ReplyDeleteLord Hennessy is an eminent political historian. I can't say I have ever heard of him, mind you. He has said that Boris Johnson is the worst PM ever and has debased the office due to Partygate. He obviously never tuned in to the Fabiani Inquiry at Holyrood then. That fandango must have passed him by.
ReplyDeleteIf the Secretary of State for Scotland got involved and said some of the things you are saying, that would help. Is he too timid; does he think we wouldn't agree with him? He may be surprised.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the UK Chancellor Philip Hammond was an old Captain of Industry and used spreadsheets all the time. He lowered the deficit to virtually zero before Covid. Can you imagine wee Derek with a spreadsheet?
If you paid all the men at Ferguson Port Glasgow £40,000 per year, the yard would cost far less than £20m per year to run. How then have they run-up costs of £240m already? That sounds impossible to me.
ReplyDeleteI think the presentation is pretty good. That's my opinion. It's not easy to speak fluently for 20-minutes on any subject. Most at Holyrood couldn't do it and I couldn't do it either. It's the content that counts. WoS was a great site too but he just ran-out of steam. You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink and I think that was the problem there. This site isn't narrowly defined to the independence debate which is dying-out now and that makes it more viable.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of Michael Kelly earlier today. He was Lord Provost of Glasgow in the 80's. Then, Glasgow was nearly on a par with Edinburgh and we produced Jock Stein, Alex Ferguson, Billy Connolly, Beltrami and one or two others. Edinburgh only produced Sean Connery. There was an optimism about the city which has been lost and I can only see a return of Susan Aitken, who is hopeless, and who will just continue the decline. As a rule, I reckon the Conservative Party's biggest failure is that they will do nothing for anyone, but they are good organizers and that is what Glasgow needs just now. I cannot see it happening but come 5th May, they would be a better alternative to SNP or Labour for the city.
ReplyDeleteMackay exists in the public consciousness only because of Holyrood. No Holyrood, no Mackay. He would exist as a Councillor at best and would be out of public view. Same with Constance, Somerville, and all the rest of them.
ReplyDeleteHolyrood was conceived in the late 80's early 90's which was a time of great optimism in the UK. We've since had the banking crash and so these days are gone and will never return. That cost us 1Trillion and even all of the destruction in Ukraine, it is reckoned to be running at only about half of that amount.
So, the UK is broke and needs to start cutting its cloth. The 80's and 90's will never return.
Prior to Holyrood, Scotland had the UK's best NHS, Education service and law. Now, it is the worst of all three. Law has disappeared completely as far as the working person is concerned.
Close Holyrood and give us all a break. Too many of them wander around our towns and cities at election time as if they are celebrities. They are utter failures and they have let us all down.
How do you think the governance of Scotland would stack-up against the governance of a good privately owned company? That's a good question. How do you think it would stack-up against any other government in the western world? That's a good question too.
ReplyDeleteI think that when Jack McConnell was FM for example, Holyrood showed promise that it could deliver. Sturgeon and Swinney though are capable of acts of evil. You only have to look at the Fabiani Inquiry. Would you see that anywhere outside of Central Africa? It has failed and got so bad that no-one wants it now.
ReplyDeleteIt was George Robertson who said that Holyrood would kill Nationalism stone dead and we all thought he was wrong. It has taken twenty-odd years but Nationalism is now as good as dead. Twenty years of watching the SNP up close has shown Scots what a corrupt shite-house of a country Scotland would become if we left them in charge. Send the auditors in and jail the bastards and don't believe that Labour and the Conservatives are any better because if they are Scottish Labour and Conservatives, they are as bent as the SNP. Privileged and bent. Over-promoted councillors, the whole lot of them.
ReplyDeleteGeorge - I'm dealing with Holyrood on a matter just now that you are aware of; it's the new school that's sinking into the mud. I can tell you - dealing with Holyrood is like dealing with a nursery school. If it suits the Labour Party they'll do it and if it doesn't suit the Labour Party they won't do it. Ditto the Conservative Party and the SNP. It's been a comprehensive failure then. Any other government in the world can do things in weeks which Holyrood cover-up for months.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Neil is a chap that you have to watch because he follows his own agenda most of the time. He called Scotland a banana republic without the bananas some time ago. Most would have thought that he was exaggerating to make a point. I can tell you, he wasn't exaggerating. He was bang on the money. Our administration appears to me anyway to be as bent as a nine bob note.
They'll be a Westminster Inquiry into Boris and Partygate after all. We can only hope it can live up to the exacting standards set by our infamous Fabiani Inquiry. Remember Maureen Watt? The blank sheets of paper submitted as diary pages? The intervention of legal plonker James Wolffe to tell all of our MSP not to name the alphabet women? Westminster do real Inquiries....Holyrood do cover-ups.
ReplyDeleteBoris Johnson's get out of jail card is to ensure that all the guests at his Downing Street Parties were alphabet women and alphabet men. When asked to provide the guest lists he will provide a blank sheet of paper. That works up here. I wonder if it would work down there?
ReplyDeleteOne of your most profound posts. What has Holyrood done for Scots in the past 20-odd years? A small number of people make a great living out of doing nothing. Scotland is now a veritable shite house. A saw an article on Reporting Scotland last night about a group of Hibs supporters who had got together to organize transit to Scotland for Ukrainian kids and so the spirit is still undoubtedly there, but Holyrood is a godless shit-hole of PR spin. I'm surprised in a way it has lasted this long.
ReplyDeleteTalking about Fergusons of Port Glasgsow - this contract that seems to have gone missing. Is that really credible? I mean, look at all of the parties involved from Fergusons to CMAL and their respective lawyers. Are we supposed to believe that the contract that they are all supposed to be complying with at the moment has been lost by everyone and in this digital age, it cannot be located anywhere and in any historical correspondence? That seems impossible to believe. Lessons will be learned I suppose.
ReplyDeleteIt looks increasingly likely that Boris will be strapped to the ejector seat soon for the goings-on at Partygate. It makes you wonder how and why Sturgeon gets away with it, doesn't it. All the scandals, the missing cash and all the rest of it. It increasingly looks like two separate countries, Scotland and England. In terms of law anyway and the public service provided by law. It all looks to have been ditched by stealth by the SNP. Can you imagine Police Scotland investigating and fining Sturgeon? She treats it as her own private Police force.
ReplyDeleteJason Leitch is a bought and paid for civil servant. He's a dentist but lectures us all on virology and immunology. He's been winging it for two years now and, personally speaking, I never listen to him. Nowadays he goes on Radio Scotland to absolve the FM of any wrong-doing for not wearing a mask. Do you think in England that Patrick Vallance would do that?
ReplyDelete