Poll this!

I'm liking the breakdown from Reform Scotland's poll that's all over the news today. 

According to question one.

"If there was a Scottish independence referendum tomorrow where you could only vote either yes or no to independence, how would you vote?"
97.5% of SNP supporters naturally voted yes. Oddly enough 28.0% of Labour supporters, 9.2% Tories and 25.0% Lib Dems all selected Independence as their preferred option. Now the numbers are small, and those identifying with the SNP were in the majority, but still 28% of Labour and 25% of Lib Dems support Independence. If anything it shows that there are people in those parties who are bound to party/family loyalty but hopefully have the strength of their convictions when it comes to doing something for the greater good.


The other question I found interesting was the timing of the proposed referendum. Only the Tories favoured an immediate referendum with a whopping 47.7% of their supporters wanting it right NOW! Perhaps they're afraid that any more years of this pathetic coalition will simply play into pro-Independence hands. Interestingly the majority of Labour supporters want it like the SNP supporters, in 2014, with 25.6% Labour supporters and 59.7% SNP supporters willing to wait until the latter part of this parliamentary period.
Perhaps, like Gordon Brown's lack of desire to go to the country in a general election, many of the Labour supporters want to delay the inevitable. 

What is noticeable is the 8.5% Labour supporters and 16.3% Tories who never want to see the day Scotland has a referendum... That's your core Unionist support, the diehards who will resist change no matter the cost.

Devo Plus and Opinion Poll Bulletin

It's a long,long while from May to December.

Impressed by the hagiographic column inches devoted to the finally departing Leader of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament (LOTLPAISP) Iain Gray, I'm left pondering over whether this is the longest swansong in Labours Scottish political history.

When Henry McLeish replaced Donald Dewar as First Minister, the process took place within the 28 days as stipulated by the Scotland Act. The vote was taken by a "selectorate" of 80 Labour MSPs and members of the party's Scottish executive...yes count them 80!

Poor Henry survived the long knives of internal back biting for just a little over a year before resigning over 'Officegate'. A resignation that had more to do with one man's ambitious stoking of internal party strife than a powerful opposition.

Wee Jack replaced Henry, unopposed in a hasty 18 days. Yet when Jack fell on his sword after losing the May 2007 election to the SNP by one pesky seat, it took all of 30 days and a girls night out involving a Chinese takeaway for TheWendy to replace him. Even Iain Gray's installation as LOLITSP took all of two and a half months, despite an actual leadership battle, where the brave Iain saw off the formidable Cathy doll and former Murray Primary school boy Andy Kerr.

So fast forward three years, three months and two days and finally we come to the end of Iain Gray's reign as the Parliaments perennial Mr Angry.

Mr Gray announced his resignation on the 6th of May 2011, that'll be 7 months and 11 days ago, or 31 weeks if you prefer. During this time, he has gone about his business with a complete lack of grace, honesty and basic manners. His final conference speech was given over not to identifying the mistakes Labour had made and what plans he had to solve them, instead he launched a tirade about the rise of the Cybernat. It wasn't the cybernats who followed him into a sandwich shop or walked with him through the Killing fields of Renfield Street. It wasn't the cybernats who ran a campaign built on negativity, scaremongering and fear that has probably killed Labour for a generation. It was Iain Gray, his deputy and replacement Johann Lamont and control from London. Did Ed really get Scotland?

His final farewell today sees him using the very last of his headline grabbers to yet again attack the leader of the SNP. No fond remembrances for Iain Gray. Probably no ermine clad pension in the other place. Instead a pew at the back of the Holyrood benches where he can fulminate and nurse his wrath at the SNP backbenchers.

So farewell Iain Gray, you've given a lot of pro-Independence folk a lot of laughs. In a tenure bereft of dignity or humanity you've managed to traduce the once mighty Labour party to a minority voice in a changing Scotland, quite an achievement, especially considering the overwhelming backing of the UK and Scottish media that you've had.

Here's a final memento for you.

Skwerr Go...

George Square in Glasgow has been in the news quite a lot recently, particularly with the news of the #Occupy movement taking up tented residence, the subsequent rape of a young woman and the campaign rather meekly assenting to Glasgow City Council's request that they move to Kelvingrove, so as not to interfere with the impending rampant consumerist madness, called Christmas that they're supposed to be opposed to in the first place...

  

I've always had a soft spot for the square. As kids we were dragged in to 'ooh' and 'aaah' at the Christmas lights after shopping in John Lewis's, whilst the parentals lubricated themselves for the drive home via the Horseshoe bar. My wife and I would meet there as teenagers, indulging in post cinema Kia-ora and chips, joined by street philosophers from the nearby soup kitchen, who were willing to share their life experiences for the price of a cup of tea or a bus fare to a forever lost home. Later on we'd play dead as part of campaigns against nuclear weapons, (nein danke) or as students against the move from grants to 'loans'. Other times found us sitting/sleeping on the benches cooling down after a night of musical frenzy up the hill at Strathclyde Uni. Hogmanay was always special, long before TV discovered that filming a few washed up bands and comedians saved them the cost of producing an October Hogmanay. A pre-midnight stroll into town from whichever southside or westend bedsit we were living in, would find a similarly disparate group of folk out for an impromptu ceilidh as the bells rang out. Magical times, Asian tourists, African students and Clydeside Eldorado soaked mendicants all belting out Auld Lang Syne, arms linked. There was always an air of safety and bonhomie about the square, long before the arrival of CCTV.

I only really began to notice the built environment of the square in the late eighties, when for a short time half price cocktails in the Copthorne Hotel became part of Friday evening life. Looking out to the City Chambers, I could mock a distant relative who had became mired in Labour's brown envelope politics. In return for a massive contract to sandblast the municipal buildings he offered to gold leaf the spire atop the city chamber dome. He came unstuck when a trainee surveyor miscalculated the height, and cost him tens of thousands in brown envelope liquidity. Sitting in the Copthorne Hotel half way through a Tequilla Sunrise, we had a great view of the life in the square, as its inhabitants, waited, checked watches, preened themselves for a night of raucousness or as happened too often, young men with bad perms and catalogue jackets looked around forlornly, sighed, shrugged shoulders and jumped on a bus home. It took me a while and a few drinks, but gradually I began to notice that the overall look of the square with its statue of Queen Victoria astride a horse, her German consort Albert on his gee gee and the cenotaph to the dead of world war one was really no more than a pantheon dedicated to commercial Glasgow and its willing expression of the ideas of war and conquest of imperial dynasty.

I was aware of the modern history of the square, accounts of the 1919 Battle of George Square, when Bolshevism was roaring through Europe, that Scottish troops were confined to barracks, whilst troops were brought up by train from the north of England to suppress the protests for fear that Glaswegian troops might join the dissent, the stories of tanks and Churchill were still relevant in the dying days of Thatcherism amid poll tax protests. My  abiding memory of the square is of an impromptu party in George Square, with, amongst others, a future leader of SLAB, on the day Thatcher demitted office. I suspect there'll be a few folk in the square on the day she shuffles off her demementor cloak.

The genesis of the square is interesting, the city fathers inspired/envious of Edinburgh's new town, purchased the land which was part of a croft called Rameshorn. The Square was marked out in 1781. By 1801 it was described as  a “hove” or “hollow, filled with green-water, and a favourite resort for drowning puppies and cats and dogs, while the banks of this suburban pool were the slaughtering place of horses.”

General Sir John Moore. Not so popular with the weans.

As the merchant classes grew wealthier through the trade in slavery, tobacco and cotton, so mansion houses began to spring up around the square and a veneer of opulent respectability was slathered on. Glasgow,firmly embracing the mantle of being the second city of Empire and  the fourth most populous city in Europe after London, Paris and Berlin was struck with monarchist patriotic fever, hence the plethora of royally named streets George Street, Duke Street (after the Duke of York), Frederick Street, Hanover Street, and Regent Street culminating in George Square after the mad King George III.

A look at the 12 statues that adorn the square, shows that they are mostly devoid of artistic value, particularly the 88 foot high memorial to Walter Scott.

Then again they are subject to the fashions of their time. The Scott monument was erected in 1837 and prompted Edinburgh to try and outdo Glasgow by building a gothic spaceship in 1840 to honour the novelist and poet.

This has been quite a circuitous route I've taken to get to the point I really want to make. George Square is symbolic of an Imperial past that modern Scotland is finally moving away from, the easy bucks route from partnering up with a bigger bullying neighbour no longer work, they no longer appeal and are finally realised as damaging to those you wish to exploit, as they are to yourself. Yet George Square remains chock full of these symbols of Empire, there are 12 statues in the square. I can see that Burns and Scott have to be there as their work is immortal. James Watt, absolutely. Thomas Graham, how many of us know about him and his work that led to the dialysis machine? However, we have to ask of what relevance in contemporary Scotland are the equine statues of Queen Victoria and her husband looking down on the people of Glasgow? Do we still celebrate Field Marshall Lord Clyde for his sterling work in suppressing the Indian mutiny? Or General Sir John Moore and his brave work in the Peninsular wars? What about the Liberal and Conservative Prime Ministers Gladstone and Peel do we still praise them or their contemporaries Clegg and Cameron today? Or Glasgow MP James Oswald, who's been standing in the square for 135 years? Is poet Thomas Campbell more worthy of his place than an Edwin Morgan, Hugh McDiarmid Muriel Stark or Joanna Baillie?

Where are the statues to celebrate the Scottish men and women who lived, died and achieved in this century and the last one?

Not that statues and sculptural work are all about people and past glories...Look at the shoddy way sculptor George Wyllie's work has been treated. Revered by curators in Europe and America, George now living in a care home, is mostly ignored by Scotland's art establishment, too long a whimsical thorn in the side of their small 'c' conservatism. His exclusion from the Sculpture Show, a survey of the history of modern sculpture from 1900 is to be held at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh next month, has no place for a Wyllie. As a fan and a friend of the man, I'm dismayed that the Scottish art establishment is too outward looking, and incapable of looking around it's own wee patch just once in a while...

There are council elections in May 2012. The SNP have set their sights on taking control of the City Chambers. Prior to May's Holyrood elections, you would have been accused of living on cloud cuckoo land if you had said the SNP could take the city. Yet, we hear tales of panic, of Labour culling the old  guard in a desperate attempt to shore up the last bastion of Unionism in Scotland. Glasgow has become a city in state in paralysis, led by leaders wary of adopting positive change that has emanated from the Scottish Government, lest they show them in a good light.  The Evening Times,'Ripped Off Glasgow' campaign, driven by Labour politicians came to naught. Everything is up for grabs. Perhaps one of the first things that a new SNP city council might look at is a slight rearrangement of their front door garden, George Square. Remove a few of the old Empire adoring statues and replace them with work that best represents Scotland's place in the contemporary world. 

Taça Independência 1972

July 5th 2012 sees the fortieth anniversary of only the second ever game of football between Scotland and Brazil. The result on this occasion was 1-0 victory for Brazil in front of 130,000 samba strutting supporters at the Maracana stadium in Rio de Janerio and stopped Scotland from qualifying for the first semi final of an International tournament. Scotland were so well regarded at the time, they went straight into Group A, possibly the only time we've ever made it to the latter stages of a tournament without actually having to play first...

Truth be told I have no recollection of this tournament, as I was a mere stripling of a 10 year old lad and I doubt it was covered on any of the three council telly channels available to us at the time. The tournament took place in the summer, so the reality is that I was probably up in Ardnamurchan guddling brownies and shooting hoodie craws with my deadly Milbro catapult. The tournament was an invitation from the Brazilian football authorities to 18 countries and two continents, Africa and CONCACAF to help Brazil celebrate the 150th anniversary of its Independence from Portugal. Scotland drew 2-2 with Yugoslavia, Luigi Macari scoring both goals, then a 0-0 draw with Czechoslovakia left us needing a victory against Brazil, the then world champions.

The following video, has the only images I've seen of the game. What struck me was how relaxed the likes of Bremner, Buchan, Hartford, Graham, Law and Macari were on the ball. Contrast this with the displays of sheer terror we witness from the current Scotland team where the object seems to give the ball back to the opposition as soon as we win it.

     

I'm left wondering, that when Scotland finally regains her Independence if we'll have the confidence to host our own mini-copa and invite the world to celebrate with us, and whether we might finally get that elusive victory over the boys from Brazil... 

The great difficulty with politics is, that there are no established principles

There have been many exits in politics; many dignified, many reluctantly, some explosively, others indignantly, even petulantly. Few however, have been as undignified as the spectacle witnessed by members of the Labour party in Scotland at the weekend by Iain Gray, the man whom history will probably judge as being unique amongst Holyrood Labour leaders, for not having had one positive thing to say about his party, political philosophy or opponents during his three year tenure.

In his outpouring of bile at the weekend he devoted an exceptional paragraph shifting the blame of his and his parties failures to a few nameless individuals.

This afternoon we begin the process proper of electing a new Scottish leader for a new devolved Scottish Labour party.

I say to the candidates.  Don’t kid yourself.

You will be attacked.  You will be smeared.  You will be lied about.  You will be threatened. 

The cybernats and the bedsit bloggers will call you traitor, quisling, lapdog and worse.  They will question your appearance, your integrity and your sexuality.  They will drag your family and your faith into the lies and the vitriol.  If you are a woman it will be worse. 

It is no consolation to know that any journalist or commentator who gives you a fair hearing will suffer the same. 

This is the poison some have brought into our politics and it is vile. 

It is time we started talking openly about it and it is time the SNP did something about it. 

They know who some of these people are.

This is not how you build a better Scotland and Scotland deserves better.

But those who bring light suffer burning.  You will stand up to it and you should be proud to do so.    

As only one of a handful of bloggers to be pursued by the Scottish press and as far as I'm aware the only one to be hounded out of a job, I took fair exception to the utterly shambolic and pathetic attempt Iain Gray made to have one final kick at those he perceived to have brought about his downfall. Particularly his defence of 'any journalist or commentator who gives you a fair hearing.' Boo-fucking-hoohoo. 

For the record, I have never written or said anything "deeply unpleasant" about any Labour politician...or any other sort. I have never called a Unionist a traitor, quisling or lapdog...although I can't see why a fluffy lapdog would be considered offensive. I've never threatened Ian Gray, questioned his sexuality or dragged his family into lies and vitriol, although I confess to putting an SNP rosette on his wife's jacket as she and Mr Gray strolled along a beach on a winters day for the cameras... As to his integrity and appearance, these are the standards which politicians put upon themselves for election. I've found, as have the Scottish electorate, that Iain Gray is lacking in both.

The main reason the Labour Party has lost control of it's personal fiefdom, is not entirely down to the Tartan Overlords large shiny, smiley face. Rather, it is down to thousands of people in Scotland taking exception to the one sided, biased, blatant propaganda that has passed and still passes for impartial news in our newspapers and the state broadcaster. These people fed up with the lies and one sided nature of the Scottish media have discovered the internet, which has opened up the opportunity to search, research and respond.

 

As our newspapers shrink in actual paper sales, they have looked to an internet presence as the means to keep their shareholders happy and have created on-line forums to drive advertising revenue. Unfortunately, they have discovered that you can't have open access without the punters actually availing themselves of it. So, the past ten years have seen a Labour press release, with the obligatory kick at the SNP end up in the Scotsman straight from London Labour HQ, verbatim. Within moments of it appearing on-line, those of us with opinions on how Scotland will run better as an Independent country are ready to opine, and use actual facts to combat the press release. This is frowned upon in unionist Scotland. So what we mostly see are stories in the Scotsman coming on-line at obscure times of the night, always with sickening comments from Union supporters, invariably hours before Joe McPublic has had an opportunity to comment. These first posters do not engage in debate, instead they have brought, to paraphrase Iain Gray, 'vile poison into our politics'. Naturally, comments arise that these are people deep within Johnson press fighting to preserve the union at all costs. Much like Kevin McKenna confessed in his Independence 'epiphany' piece in last weeks Observer, that he and the Guardian man are both Unionists, so one must surmise are the majority of those scrivening behind the scenes at Johnson Towers. So for Gray to cry foul that those with the most power are victims, fair sticks in the craw. 

Gray will go down in Scottish political history as the man who lived up to his name, a cheap and obvious dig, but really what is our collective memory of him? Scuttling into a sandwich shop to escape natural Labour supporters concerned about the closure of a respite centre for the disabled, fag cupped in hand like a dodgy security guard gathering courage outside Holyrood on Thursday mornings before FMQ's or standing up in the chamber gesturing to Salmond to 'come ahead'.

He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat

Where Mr Gray's logic falls down, is in his belief that there is some secret cybernat army being marshalled by the upper echelons of the SNP, directing teams of Internet savvy operators to attack Labour at all costs. The cybernat is a Labour construct, there is no such thing. Instead there is a large, and growing number of people who are pissed off at the continual propaganda coming from the Unionist media which controls Scotland. That some professional members of the SNP buy into this construct is rather concerning. Perhaps it's easier for them to go down the knee jerk response road for fear of upsetting the horses and actually challenging those who control our daily news. 

More pants on fire from BBC Scotland.

The pro-independence world is in a tizzy this morning after yet another subtle piece of propaganda from BBC Scotland, in which they contrived to wilfully adapt an erroneous translation of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's deathbed statement into a full bloodied confession of mass murder. The ever excellent Newsnet have a concise skewering of the State Broadcasters murky ways here  See earlier Cheesier rumblings of their corporate shenanigans here and here . The Hootsman continue with their truly vile headline 'Megrahi's death bed confession'. Naturally, the more contentious or deliberately misleading a Hootsman story, the more they ban any comments.

Each time the question of blatant BBC Scotland propaganda comes up, brave cyber-warriors come on-line and claim how they won't pay their TV license. Proudly thumping their their collective chests, looking solemnly in to the mid distance with perhaps a wee hint of lachrymosity in their steely eyes and bellowing that they'd prefer a day in court or even a jail sentence to prove their point. This will never work. The BBC will never report one or two individuals not paying their license, at best the local media might portray non-payers as license dodgers in their pages of shame and blame, alongside the shoplifting and booze imbibing miscreants.

Those peeved at the continual goal post shifting from our State Broadcaster should take a glance askance at the current going ons in the good ole USA, where folk of all stripes, ages and colours are coming together under the #occupywallstreet banner. This campaign, inspired by the Arab Spring to become an American Fall has spread from New York to just about every major US city, where the authorities have found themselves on the back foot, incapable of coping with a sustained peaceful campaign. The mainstream media, permanently on alert for terrorist or tea bagger activity have been forced to give the protesters campaign against the corrupt financial system some media coverage, when direct action inconvenienced the 'new normality', albeit more down to police stupidity than cunning activist machinations.

If, dear readers, those of us tired of the perpetual stream of  blatantly skewed coverage within our own borders, that wishes to retain the Union and re-anoint Labour as our blessed saviours, want to make a difference, then perhaps we can look a wee bit closer to home for an example of a peaceful demonstration, that remained a painful and permanent thorn in the side of the Unionist establishment side for some five years.

The Democracy for Scotland vigil at Calton Hill was a 24 hours a day, seven days a week presence outside the Old High School from 1992 until 1997.  A group of roughly 100 dedicated men and women gave of themselves, to act as a semi permanent reminder of the lack of democracy in Scotland.  Their commitment to changing Scotland's future through night and day, dry and wet inspired many people to look at their place in Scotland a little bit closer.

If we want to make a change in the way that BBC Scotland portrays the nation of the people who pay this state tax, then we have to do more than the tantrum-like withholding of license fees. We have to build a sustained picketing of BBC Headquarters at Pacific Quay.  Embarrass them in their shiny new building. paid for with our taxes, where they contrive every day to feed us a diet of bland crap and skewed views.

Some of the above images were cheekily purloined from the excellent Scottish Political Archive on Flickr, thank you for preserving these.

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in...

Those lovely folk at BBC Scotland have gone and done it again. There I was sleepwalking towards Independence this morning when I noticed that the beeb were reporting the startling news that the coterie of tired former politicians who inhabit the House of Lords, were readying themselves to poke a big stick in the spokes of the Scotland Bill. 

This got me thinking about the lack of coverage from our state broadcaster on the most important story about, you know,  the TNS-BMRB Poll that shows supporters of Independence outnumbering those who would cling on to the last vestiges of Empire, under the detumescent 'We're All In It Together' banner. The Poll that might bring about the end of this Disunited Kingdom via that hoary old bitch Democracy. 

A quick check on Facebook, no mention, a scroll through their BBC Scotland website, nada, a long and involved wander through the Loch of Indifference that is their @BBCScotlandNews twitter feed, nope, not to be seen among the detritus of stories about missing kittens, porridge, tartan, the CBI prophets of Doom or the latest Death by Garlic Bread headline. I checked, I scrolled back through 108 tweets of varying fluffiness until arriving at their last tweet on the 4th of September and their first on the 5th of September, which matched exactly the timescale of The Herald, whom in the shape of the estimable journo with cowboy boots and a neat wee beard Robbie Dinwoodie unveiled the results of the Poll here. 

I pondered, mused and scratched my napper, for why would BBC Scotland news not report this surely important story, when on July the 4th a mere two months ago they deleriously tweeted and reported the story that Nearly half of English oppose Scottish Independence -poll? I dare say they have a policy that only allows reporting of polls that they commission and we pay for. It does fair point out an anomaly in their news reporting, that when the Scottish body politic is doing somersaults on an hourly basis, that the most recent up to date poll on the big question isn't deemed worthy or reporting.

In other news, this exclusive photograph of the combined beauty contests for the leadership of the Tory/Labour parties has revealed that it's all to play for, match the pins to the paper bag and you could win a front seat bench beside the opposition leaders...

 




 

All quiet on the Cheesey front.

This chaps passion has woken me from my slumber. The Tories are against the June 30th strike, Labour are against it, and artists are painting fucking trees....

"A motorway to independence with no U turns and no exits” Tam Dalyell on Devolution

I've been fairly quiet of late on the old blawg. Reason being I'm still sitting back and guffawing at the way that the 'No' vote are building their campaign for the Independence referendum. So far they've been entirely predictable, and to use a crude metaphor, have shot their load far too early. The weeks since the Tartan Overlord rewrote the face of Scottish electoral history, have seen commentators, mostly from the South, wake up to the reality that everything has changed and they are utterly impotent to do anything about it, other than pick up the baton of fear which they'll monger to the maximum for the next three years. Every inaccuracy they've mustered has been spat out, the pro-Independence movement have three years to inform and educate those who would believe the opponents of self determination.

This past weekend we've seen supposed differences of opinion on the fiscal probity of an Independent Scotland and today the frankly dribbling assertion from a nuclear consultant that Scotland faces a forty year period without any puff to drive our wind turbines. No doubt Kite manufacturers will have been leaping off cliffs at this bombshell. I fully expect another crank headline in the Hootsman telling us that our tides have turned and Scotland has now developed the ability to repel all forms of natural energy...


Anyhoo, I attended the 75th Saltire Society celebration up in Glasgow on Saturday (if you're not a member get clicking www.saltiresociety.org.uk) and found a body of mostly elderly (some of whom may have attended the inaugural meeting in 1936) amazing academics, enthusiasts, performers, poets, singers, musicians and digital day gurus, who promote and celebrate this wee bit of land we call home. I left with a further understanding that the struggle for Scotland's right to self determination has been going on for far longer than my own involvement. It's easy to dismiss what's gone before, but the old adage about standing on the shoulders of giants truly rings true. The SNP victory earlier this month was built on the hard work, goodwill and generosity of the likes of those Saltire Society members who see Scotland as something more than a surly peninsula of Northern England.

So by way of a circuitous digression let me take you back in time, to a photograph...in fact two photographs (thank you photoshop) that I took nearly twenty years ago, that encouraged me to become better educated about my countries history and people and reverse that Scottish school education which served up a succession of English Kings and Queens.

December 12th 1992 was a strange day in world history. 

Whitney Houston was still keeping dogs awake with her third week at the top of the poptastic charts with 'I Will Always Love You'. One of those little known natural catastrophes, namely a tsunami, had occurred off the coast of Indonesia, wiping out 3000 lives and 18,000 homes on the Flores Islands in a matter of five minutes. Nobody seemed to understand -- or care.

The tabloids were up to their Monarchist best with some full scale deflection in their coverage of the Royal Wedding between Princess Anne and Commander Tim Lawrence, who chose to get married at Crathie Church near Balmoral. After a year that had seen theRoyal Princes' Charles and Andrew separate from their respective spouses.  This latest Royal Wedding was seen as an attempt at stability and mass hypnosis.

Edinburgh was playing at being all grown up and important as the host to the the European Council and the President of the European Parliament. The delightful European top notch leaders condescended to visit Auld Reekie, to visit the castle, drink whisky, ogle our wummin and debate Denmark's rejection of the Maastricht Treaty and find a way of agreeing to their having certain exceptions before the Danes could have a second Referendum.

The genial host, was none other than the original Grey man. Prime Minister John Major, who said of his trip to North. "May I begin by expressing my thanks to the people of Edinburgh for the very warm welcome we have had and the excellent way in which we have been cared for throughout the last two days." 

Admit it, as you read that quote, mentally you were doing it with that horribly strangulated voice that Spitting Image used to lampoon the man who ran away from the circus to become an accountant.

What John Major, failed to notice, a mere eight months after he'd unexpectedly defeated favourite Neil Kinnock's Labour Party at the 1992 General Election. Was that the natives in Scotland were revolting.

General Election map 1992

Labour in Scotland had garnered 1,142,911 votes, the Scottish Tories 751,950 the SNP came third with 629,564 and the Lib Dems a distant 4th with just 383,856 votes. Which oddly enough returned them 9 MPs. The Tories had 11, Labour 49 and the SNP a grand total of 3. So a total of 72 constituency seats in Scotland saw Labour win 49 of them. The feeble fifty were reduced by one MP when Frank Doran lost Aberdeeen South to youthful Tory  Raymond Robertson. The SNP lost the admirable Dick Douglas, the former Labour MP for Dunfermline West, who had resigned the Labour whip and defected to the SNP in 1990. Dick had stood up to Labour over their simpering approach to combating the introduction of the Poll Tax. At the General Election he took the fight to Donald Dewars Garscadden constituency and took a sizeable 5500 chunk out of Dewars majority.

(C) Scottish Political Archive

 
For many Scots, the final nail in the 'Fighting Fifty's' coffin was the whimpering demise of the Ravenscraig steel works, which at its peak had employed 13,500 workers. It was closed by the British Steel Corporation in 1992 and the remaining 1,200 employees were made redundant. Industrial Scotland was well and truly deid.

Yet 1992 should have been a year of optimism, earlier that Summer, we had witnessed one of the most successful Olympic Games of modern history, with the games taking part in Barcelona, capital of that most autonomous of Spanish 'regions' Catalunya. These games were littered with firsts. The first unified team from Germany since 1964. Post-apartheid South Africa were allowed to participate for the first time since being banished in 1960. The biggest group of new entries came from those previously little known satellite states that managed to break free from the oppression and might of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the former Yugoslavia. Across Europe small, newly free nations were celebrating their new found freedom and expression. Scotland's hopes after the election faded like Liz McGolgan's hopes of Gold in the oppressive heat of the Women's 10,000 metres final.  

So, whilst Major was saluting the civic leaders of Edinburgh for putting on a tasty spread, some Scottish punters were dusting down their saltires, downing a fly nip and taking to the streets of Edinburgh for a wee wander to the Meadows for the then newish body going by the all encompassing name of Scotland United.

The aim of this loose gathering of Scots, was simple. Once again Scotland had rejected the notion of Tory rule from Westminster. The Feeble Fifty hadn't managed to save one industry. Scotland had been raped and pillaged of her natural resources, and her workforce cast aside like a Saturday night, back close johnnybag! (no illustration necessary). Led by the late Bill Speirs and sundry cross part leading lights, including a rather foxy Fiona Hyslop, George Galloway (who according to others denounced the British Army in Scotland as an army of occupation), John McAllion, Margo McDonald, Denis Canavan, Jim Sillars and even a svelte young chap by name of Salmond who was sporting Marjorie Proops spare specs....

(C) Scottish Political Archive

A motley crew of between 25,000 and 30,000 ironed their stonewashed 501's, plugged in their walkmans, spruced up their mullets and descended on the streets of Edinburgh to make a lot of noise, so that Mr Major might attune his ears to the local accent...

(C) Scottish Political Archive

 

I remember the day well, because I was there, with my wife pushing our infant son in his buggy. Carrying a massive Saltire we wandered the streets of Edinburgh, chanting, singing, trying to express a unified front that Scotland had firmly rejected the fourth election on the trot of Tory rule from Westminster. Many of the disillusioned Labour supporters that walked alongside us knew they were breaking rank with their Party hierarchy, they knew that Scotland could not continue as a nation with limited representation.

  
Fast forward the best part of two decades, and Scotland again faces the same situation. Do we continue to blunder along tagged on as an afterthought to England, hoping that an incompetent Westminster will turn its attention to our own part of the world and change our lives for the better, or do we trust in the ability of those Scots and those who choose to come her that we can make things better, that we don't need to go down the path of the diaspora heroes who left for pastures new, to find a place to realise their ambitions and hopes?

They hate it when a plan comes apart...

These hard, mother-sucking-clock-fluffers pictured below belong to the U-Team that Alan Cochrane wants to defend the little celebrated 304 year old Act of Union. Over the next few years they will go out of their way to denigrate Scotland and her ambitions to be normal.

Expect pejorative terms like separation, divorce, tearing apart the country and so on. It won't just be them, they'll have a Greek chorus in the shape of the so-called Scottish media, where we have BBC Reporting Labour still smarting over the greatest drubbing in their history. Atholl may have left, but the culture of union hacktivism is still alive and well, not only in the beeb newsroom but upstairs among the Gaelic mafia that govern BBC Scotland, a coterie of a few, who appear to suffer slavish devotion to London, barely capable of taking a decision that affirms positive life in Scotland without running it past LONDON.

Much like the Scottish people chose to dump the dependency parties of a discordant union at the Holyrood election, when given a clear choice with all the facts, they'll arrive at two roads diverging, and take the one less travelled and that will make all the difference.

Apologies to Robert Frost...

Adendum:

Now that Blogger is back up, apologies to BaronSarwar aka @weegietastic of Youtube and Twitter infamy. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I'd seen a Usual Suspects photoshopped job before. Thankfully I was reminded by the fair minded chap himself when he sent me this twitpic.

With my cultured bunnet on for a second, my only defence is the George McKay Brown one, when accused of plagiarising a Sorley McLean poem (or was it vice versa) on the flight of seagulls, he said, he'd obviously subsumed the original poem and reinterpreted it as his own original thought. I sir, am no Sorley or McKay Brown! 

The new political map of Scotland with added urgency...

They don't like it up them.

Our man in London.

What a heady few days we've been through. Personally, I'm still exhausted at observing the endeavours of others, well that and one too many drinks that's lead to the need to replenish my malt whisky collection...

There's simply been too much to take in since Friday. Trying to keep up with Twitter, Facebook and all the anguished fawning and hyperbole in the meanstream media has left me more confuddled than normal. However, one appearance on Newsnicht managed to pull it all together for me in a moment of blinding lucidity. It dawns on me that for all the Tartan Overlords charisma and ability, his positive message for Scotland has been reinforced by one man. One man who has done more for the SNP than any private donor, friendly columnist, movie star or the combined talents of the much lauded front bench. One man with access to the ears that-be in Westminster, one man with columns in the establishment media, one man who was sent North in 2007 to smack Jack McConnell around and remind him that he was only a regional councillor, with inflated ideas above his own station. That man, who has done so much for the path to Independence, whose actions and comments have led to a majority SNP government is none other than our finest ever double agent. Dear readers I present to you the man who set Scotland on the path to normality.

I suggest a column be erected in Holyrood park to this mans remarkable achievements. His crusade of negativity, of Fear over Hope has led Scotland from the darkness of London dominance to a bright new future. His last cunning ploy to suggest that the London Government could stop the people of Scotland from determining our own fate, was the cherry on the cake. I suggest when he returns home, we have a parade along Princes Street on an open top tram where the adoring masses can laud him with rose petals and confetti made from shredded copies of the Scottish press.

The ultimate reason for voting SNP today...

In an election where Hope must triumph over Fear...

Cheese has voted.

The next Scottish Government?

So, four long hard years of relentless negativity have boiled down the last lap before the polling booths close on Thursday night at 10pm.

At first Labour spat the dummy and refused to acknowledge they'd lost the moral right to run Holywood. Blair headed off for a life of perma-tanned perma-wealth with nary a glance to the land of his birth. Brown, bottled his rage up and took it out on staff and elderly bigots. Jack McConnell suffered for daring to want to fight his own battle, unfortunately for him Blair, Brown and McTernan stomped on his throat to show him who was really the boss. Dougie Alexander slithered around in charge of the election, blithely manipulating the electoral process, all the while proclaiming  a choir boy innocence. 

We've had colonial overseers come and go as Secretaries for the State of Scotland. In four years Salmond has seen off Messrs Alexander, Browne, Murphy, Alexander and latterly has had the woefully innefectual and utterly anonymous Micheal Moore, as the man London keeps in Edinburgh to keep an eye on the rebellious Scots. Similarly he's seen off McConnell and Alexander as his official opposition in Holyrood. Iain Gray, working with a limited team of talent has shown nothing in the way of ambition for Scotland and if there is any moral justice in this world, won't be the man to lead Scotland for the next five years after Thursday.


Labour offered nothing in the way of constructive opposition. Their abstentions and votes against SNP policy all carried out for the sake of spite. I thought as the science appeared to back up their caffeine proposal, they might have taken advantage of the opportunity and compromised a little bit to work with the SNP to combat Scotland's drink problem. Alas no, like a petulant child they voted against all and sundry all the while ticking off the days on their calendars until they were back in the ministerial tower. 


Jim Murphy, spoke of them having learned lessons and coming back into the election a little older and a little wiser. Sadly this hasn't been reflected in the campaign so far. It's been a repeat of 2007 but with added hilarity for the political anoraks, like myself. Funny for a while, but latterly, completely disheartening. Where is the vision, that prompted these people to go into politics?

Obama, before he killed people via games consoles, benefitted from artist Shepard Fairey adopting a photograph of him into the now famous 'HOPE' poster, which spread throughout America in the election year. Eventually posters that cost $45 were selling for tens of thousands of dollars. 

 I was reminded of the poster whilst reading Londoner John McTernan's cynically realistic mantra in the Scotsman that Fear trumps Hope. He contends that the electorate will respond more readily to fear than ambition. My first thought, without deliberately trying to invoke Godwins law, was that McTernan's philosophical stance wasn't too far removed from what went on in 1930's Germany, where fear was the catalyst that lead to global war and genocide.


All of which got me pondering, how best to sum up the people who would run Scotland for the next five years. What do they offer if not hope? The answer's obvious...

 

  

 

Desperate times call for desperate men.

Just when you thought they'd sealed his lid down in the North Queensferry bunker, who should Scottish Labour turn to in their hour of need, none other than the man who saved the world.

The proud owner of the almighty clunking fist, the man who was the bridesmaid for ten long, long, long years who bottled an election at the height of his popularity and was then revealed to be an electoral liability, the man who never was.

FEAR OVER HOPE

Following the relaunched relaunch of the new relaunch. Labour's John McTernan has advised Iain Gray to grow a pair and get nasty. Much has been written about how McTernan with his Fear over Hope agenda, has ripped open Labour's heart and finally revealed the visceral hatred within. I disagree. I think it's always been there. I believe that a profoundly honest social movement that mobilised to help the working man and woman has been subsumed from within by careerists desperate for power and willing to do almost anything to hold on to it.

With this in mind, and as a motivation to Iain Gray to see where this political philosophy leads to, I've decided to help him envisage how it might look.

Oh if he's going to add any other of those flexible manifestos, can I suggest the nationalisation of the countries take-a-ways and Barr's Irn Bru Bingo Buggies for all as a hard core Labour vote winner.

Perfect....

Nice to see Iain Gray giving some promotion to his truly lovely supporter Eddi Reader in his own special way.

The talented and bonny Ms Reader, as we all remember recorded 'Perfect' with her former band of troubadours, 'Fairground Attraction' who subsequently blotted their copybook by selling the lovely ditty to ASDA, I think I'm right in thinking that Eddi doesn't get any of the largesse from the advert as she didn't write said tune... All the same I reckon it's Iain Gray's campaign tune.

I love the smell of fearmongering in the morning.

Labour's electoral campaign has quite rightly been labelled a train wreck in waiting. We've been cursed with a triptych of Ed's, that is Messrs Miliband, Balls and Izzard who have all ventured North to tell us to think again, and be sharpish about it. The giddy Ms Bird on BBC Reporting Labour tonight gushed  that Ed Balls had informed us that Scots are like really stupid if they elect a party that would propose a democratic referendum on the nations Independence to the voters. So that's us telt then.

As much as we appreciate being talked down to by our obvious betters, you have to say these London labourites are amateurs when compared to their minions in Scottish Labour.  Today someone in John Park's election team managed to scrape the keech off the bottom of their poo encrusted hush puppies and add the following image to an election leaflet that's doing the rounds in the Southside of Glasgow.  I've left the image large, so you dear reader, can observe for yourself the implication they've gone for.

It doesn't take a genius to see that this is a new low in what passes for positive election campaigning from ra people's party. They'd be as well saying the SNP stab babies and eat their puppies on toast. Lovely people. Scotland will be much better off when they're consigned to the dustbin of electoral history

 The horror...the horror...the horror.

The party's over

Alas and furthermore alack, with the Hootsman this morning coming perilously close to endorsing the Tartan Overlord to continue his merry way as First Minister, by dint of him not being the besuited car crash that is Iain Gray, it looks as if the end of the road has finally jumped up and hit the man who has brought whinging to the status of Olympic sport, full on square in the face. He may be London's man, but he's had his supporters in the establishment closer to home, three years of his own personal brand of relentless negativity have been cheered by our 'media', as if each 'ye cannae  dae that' were slippery bon mots delivered by a tipsy Cyrano de Bergerac. 

Since the bloodless coup of Wendy Alexander by the Gray munchkins, Iain Gray has set himself out on a road of relentless negativity. Whereas the Wendy confirmed her status as a woman who had expelled two babelets from her womb and spoke unerringly of Hungry Caterpillars, Gray's time as LOTLPITSP was marked by being completely against everything the SNP proposed, whatever it was, he was against it. Naturally this put me in mind of the beloved Rufus T Firefly, no not the Embra troll, this one.

Astute observers will have noted that even that most redoutable scourge of the Nats, David Maddox, appears to accept that indeed the party is over, with his sweepstake of who'll replace Gray as LOTLPITSP, Maddox shows that he is no stranger to a heady combination of satire and surrealism by positing those intellectual giants Jackie the Hutt, Andy Kerr, Richard Baker as likely replacements for the Gray man. Maddox's touch of satirical genius, which near had me coughing toast out my nose, was the lament from an unnamed Labour source that, "Margaret Curran is the one that got away." 

I've no doubt there will be more dirty tricks to come in the remaining days till the polling stations close. BBC Scotland will continue to bang the drum and lead with Labour in every bulletin. Postal votes will be hugely in favour of Labour. The tabloids will be doing their utmost to rake bins and stir stoor on Salmond and SNP candidates. No doubt the cybernats will get another kicking for daring to point at the emperors bare bollocks.  Nope, it's not well and truly over until Jackie the Hutt warbles an aria with Karen Whitfield and Johanna Lamont providing backing vocals.

Only then when the ballots are scrutinised, counted and locked away in a Fred Goodwin like vault alongside the Marked Registers, can the people of Scotland truly say that for you Labour, the party is over.

The party is well and truly over.