Like snaw aff a dyke...

Shitting crikey. This weather is not a disaster; it is not catastrophic, Scotland is not gridlocked, there are no Godzilla's roaming the earth munching people in their slow moving cars, flaming meteorites are not thumping into the planet, we are not ruined, we've not ground to a halt, being late to work is not a tragedy, zombie snowmen are not eating your babies as they walk home from school in the snow, roads have no emotions, they are not treacherous, sub-zero temperatures do not equate to a cataclysm. 

It snowed, some people decided to plough on despite the warnings of err snow, more fool them. 

Here's Dougie with the sports news. 

A Scotsman, an Englishman, a Welshman and an Irishman walk into a bar...

I've always been miffed at the stereotype of the cheap, miserly, frugal, parsimonious Scot, the type who created the Grand Canyon when he dropped a penny down a gully. I always believed it was a myth broadcast good naturedly by our English friends, much like they've created jokes about everyone else in the world, you know Krauts, Frogs, Eyeties, Dagos,  Spics, Yanks etcetera. Then there's the really embracing racial ones that I'll refrain from using. But back to stereotypes, much as Paddy is thick and Taffy a thief. Jock is always tight with his money. It's an image that's been perpetuated around the world through popular culture and commerce. 

Companies use it in advertising discounted goods and deals. I've seen tartan clad images extolling the savings to be had from Floridian garden centres to French bags for life. Other nations portray us as tight wads who'd rather die than spend a penny on an indulgence. Take a wander in Southern Germany and grimace while the locals explain to you why the Scots are similar to their covetous, grasping, money obsessed Swabian neighbours...

I don't know the origins of where this reputation for parsimony came from. I suppose a people traditionally never more than a wage packet away from poverty have had every right to be frugal and careful with their money. But to be openly chided as being money obsessed, well it's a bitter pill to swallow. Dr Johnston's quip about oats when he grandly rumbled "a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people" perhaps set the tone. I would have had a lot more respect for Boswell if he'd turned round and lamped the good Doctor rather than obsequiously titter at his wit and erudition. The twat.

Since Charles Dickens misread an Edinburgh gravestone marked 'Ebeneezer Lennox Scroggie - Meal Man' and somehow contrived it to read as 'Ebeneezer Scrooge - Mean Man' and thus created the archetypal Scottish miser in 'A Christmas Carol' we've all been screwed. Even Robert Louis Stevenson gave us the truly wretched miser Ebeneezer Balfour in 'Kidnapped'.  Disney got in on the action as early as 1943 when they created the prototype for Scrooge McDuck in this propaganda film that was supposed to stop honest working Ducks from spending their dosh on zoot suits and hootchy cootchy red hot mamas and spend it on tax for guns instead...




The above film was supposedly banned, not for the couthy but biased depiction of the Scot, but instead for suggesting that taxes should be used for guns -- mmkay guns are bad...

The writers of the Beverly Hillbillies created Milburn Drysdale, the greedy Scottish American banker who tried to steal the Clampett's money and stop them spending on luxuries. Generations of kids around the world have grown up with the Glaswegian Scrooge McDuck as their dominant example of what a Scot is like and how we react to money and its non spending. In The Simpsons we have the two best known 'Scots' in the world in C. Montgomery Burns, as a Scottish-American miserly Billionaire and arguably the most famous Scot of them all, Groundskeeper Willie. A man not known for his profligate ways...

So it's fair to say that culture has given us a reasonable kicking as stingy tightwads. Proof of our nations generosity during the annual charity whine-a-thons is always mentioned on our local news but only ever raised for comic effect down south, where it is suggested that we donate more per head, because -- we have to. 

In the world of reality even Andrew Carnegie, possibly the greatest philanthropist the world has ever known, a man who gave away £80 million for libraries around the world was regarded by the London and American press as a miser, because he didn't tip in restaurants... 

In political life, despite all evidence to the contrary, the hard of thinking Unionists trot out the timeless nugget that all Scots are state subsidised spongers too mean and miserly to let go of London's benefits largesse... 

All my life I've fought against this mince, believing that the people and friends I see around me, are generous to a fault, give freely to charity, man the stalls and barricades, lend a hand, support each other. That Scots are far removed from this hurtful and malicious sterotype.  

That was until I had a look at the results of the latest poll done by the Scottish Social Attitudes survey, conducted by Professor Heinz Wolff  sorry Professor John Curtice of the Scottish Centre for Social Research. Media commentators barely able to contain the squirming in their pants gushed forth, telling us that support for Independence was at a low of 23% -- a full one percentage point lower than when the SNP took Government in 2007. 

Ha, they laugh in the face of Independence. I had a look at the poll and yeah verily it stated that when 1,495 folk in Scotland were asked for their Constitutional preference, a mere 23% of the face painted, die hard, deep fried mars bar warriors expressed a desire for an Independent Scotland.


So that's it then, the game is indeed a bogey, there's no point in continuing with the struggle, nuts to all that as-long-as-one-hundred-of-us-are-still-standing malarkey...We're well and truly rammed up the chuffhole without a puggle.


But wait one wee minute, further down the poll, in fact the very last part, has this thoroughly wordy, but worthy set of questiona:


Say that it was clear that if Scotland became an independent country, separate from the rest of the UK, taxes would be the same as now.
 
In those circumstances, would you be in favour or against Scotland becoming an independent country?

Now, let us say it was clear that if Scotland became an independent country, (separate from the rest of the UK), people would on average pay an extra £500 a year in tax.

In those circumstances would you be in favour or against Scotland becoming an independent country?
 
And, say it was clear that if Scotland became an independent country (separate from the rest of the UK) people would on 
average pay £500 less a year in tax.

In those circumstances would you be in favour or against Scotland becoming an independent country?

	Taxes same	TaxesUp	Taxes down
	%	%	%
Strongly in favour/in favour	36	16	45
Neither in favour/nor against	23	15	17
Against/Strongly against	38	66	35
Don’t know	2	2	3
Sample size	1495	1495	1495

So look at that, if your average tight fisted miserly Jock can be persuaded that he or she will save £500 a year on their tax bill they'll be quite happy to vote for an Independent Scotland, all for the saving of roughly £1.37 a day. A jump from 23% to 45% in favour of Independence all for the saving of £500. To those 22% arrivistes, you cheap, miserable, miserly 90 minute patriots, you're selling your countries future for the equivalent of a Daily Record and a Mars bar a day.

Imagine how many more of these free loading bastards would sign up if we could show them that an Independent Scotland, successful in business and society could save them a grand a year? 

Give me fiscal autonomy or give me debt.

Yep, I know I've been quiet of late, weather, family, life etcetera has got in the way. Also, every time I've spotted something approaching half interesting to write about, the ever expanding and fact-tastic Scottish bloggeratti usually get to it by the time I've stopped musing...yep I do have occasions to muse.

Anyhoo, I spotted something yesterday that seems to have been lost in the plethora of St Andrew's day malarky of Scotland Bills, hilarious and terrifying Wikileaks and the ongoing snowpocalypse.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, she of President Bill and the current US Secretary of State, sent Scotland a Happy Saint Andrew's Day card on behalf of the American people. 

On behalf of President Obama and the people of the United States, I congratulate the people of Scotland as you celebrate St. Andrew’s Day on November 30.

Scotland’s unique culture and traditions have long been admired around the world, and the special ties between our two nations date back to the founding of the United States. From Patrick Henry and John Paul Jones to Davy Crockett and Neil Armstrong, trail-blazing Scottish-Americans have helped shape the history of our country in profound ways.

Today, the United States and Scotland continue to share strong ties rooted in our common ancestry, values, and interests. Our people work together on many of the most pressing challenges of our time, and both houses of the United States Congress have Friends of Scotland Caucuses to further promote friendship and cooperation between Scotland and the United States.

I wish the people of Scotland a joyous St. Andrew’s Day celebration and a successful year ahead. We look forward to further deepening our friendship throughout the future.

Now colour me sentimental, but I was really chuffed by that random act of pleasantness. Naturally I'd have been happier if she given us a wee row of kisses at the bottom, however, the sentiment is there and that's enough for me. Given the madness emanating from the Megrahi affair, I found it comforting that the USA could be bothered to extend a friendly hand for shaking. Naturally this err positive story didn't impel the Scottish media to give it much coverage as they were universally writhing in paroxysms of orgiastic delights over the fact that we can now set our own speed and alcohol limits and shock horror oh and ban neds from shooting drug dealers with air rifles. Only STV managed a bit of online presence and covered the story, highlighting the fact that this greeting was delivered by telegram. The site of a young feller wading through the snow to deliver this missive to his Eckness fair cheered me up no end.

It was particularly nice, as some of our blessed Unionist dependence junkies have decided to add the Megrahi effect to the Gary McKinnon extradition bollocks mix and come up with the entirely without-any-foundation claim that McKinnon will be extradited to the USA. This despite the intervention of that one eyed bloke who used to be Prime Minister's intervention, who, fair do's to him, plead for McKinnon to serve any sentence in the UK.

My local MSP Elaine 'Tiny Tears' Murray in  The Herald

was front and centre with her own distinctive brand of caterwauling. “There is no doubt that Kenny MacAskill’s flawed decision to release the Lockerbie bomber damaged our international relationships, but it is important to establish that it did not have an impact on other specific cases.” 

Now that sounds to me like she's calling for an investigation into the Megrahi release which will display concrete examples of how compassionate release equates to 'damaged international relationships. In the words of the Wendy, bring it on. It'd be nice to see Tiny Tears doing something worthwhile for a change, she's been gulping at the public teat in Dumfries since 1999 and has exactly diddly squat to show for all her harpy like shreiking.


Anyhoo back to the 'telegram' from Mrs Clinton. She makes reference to trail-blazing Scottish-American's Patrick Henry, John Paul Jones, Davy Crockett and Neil Armstrong. John Paul Jones and Armstrong are well known for having Dumfries and Galloway backgrounds. I might claim Davy Crockett as a D&G boy, although I can only loosely presume he is connected to Crocketford... Patrick Henry, on the other hand is someone I'm not too aware of, other than his "Give me Liberty or death." speech he's never really registered on my Scottish connection radar. So I was delighted that a wee internet trawl revealed that his father was from Aberdeen and attended the city's Kings College before heading off to Virginia as an, ahem, plantation owner...where young Patrick was born.

There's a fabby wee biography about the chap here I particularly like his role opposing the Stamp Act which revolted against the Westminster Parliament's claim of authority to tax the colonies...sounds familiar!  One of his more famous orations, the Ceasar-Brutus speech, inferred the British king was facing assasination if he continued to quash American liberty, I'm sure things don't have to go that far today, after all we live in a democracy, don't we?

It won't go away...

Whilst BBC Scotland and STV were behaving like proud toddlers displaying a freshly laid turd in their little hand, with their exemplar coverage of Scottish prisoners getting flat screen tellies and Anne McLaughlin tweeting that listening to Labour MSP's in committee would go down better with a dose of anti-depressives, a real story was taking place, this past week, in of all places our pretendy wee Parliament in Holyrood.

Media coverage of the 'Justice for Megrahi' campaign group appearance was displayed in all its cringe laden paucity. Thankfully those legal beagle coves at The Scottish Law blogspot have done a fantastic job of providing tip top coverage of it, including video of the committee sitting and testimony from Prof Robert Black, Dr Jim Swire et al. If you're interested to read, see or hear the evidence that was dismissed by our three noble Scottish judges, then these clips behove you to listen to what wronged a man to universal vilification.

As  Professor Black told the committee, 'the conviction rests on the premise that Mr Al-Megrahi was the man who bought the clothes from the shop Mary’s House in Sliema, and which were later said to have been wrapped around the suitcase bomb which destroyed the Boeing 747'. According to this theory, consistently rejected by amongst others the Maltese government and Air Malta, the bomb left from Malta and was transferred onto the Pan Am Flight in Germany.

Professor Black continued,'Tony Gauci, the Maltese star witness for the prosecution, had only ever said that Mr Al-Megrahi looked “a lot like the man” who bought the clothes from his shop in the days before the bombing.'

“He also said in his first police statement that the man was more than six feet tall and over 50 years old. At the relevant time in 1988, Mr Al-Megrahi was 38. He was then, and remains now I presume, five foot, eight inches tall. Still, the court held that he had been positively identified,” 

It's rather ironic that today, 14th of November, is the 19th anniversary of the day that Megrahi and Fhima were accused of being the bombers. It's an ugly anniversary coming a mere six weeks before the 22nd anniversary of the plane blowing up over Lockerbie. 

The near three years of investigation, when huge amounts of pressure were put on eensy weensy Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary to come up with suspects and the Scottish Judiciary to firm up a conviction have to be reexamined. The Scottish Government were not in existance at the time, let alone in power. This investigation took place during the dying days of the Thatcher government. A government more noted for sleaze, corruption, dodgy arms deals than honesty.  


The Scottish government have three important questions to answer:
  

• Will you open an independent inquiry into the 2001 Kamp van Zeist conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in December 1988 as called for by the petitioner and for the reasons given in the petition?

• If not, will you provide a detailed explanation why not, specifying whether there is any legislation which would prevent you from holding such an inquiry, what this legislation is and how it prevents?

 

• Who would have the power to undertake an inquiry in the terms proposed in the petition? 

 

 

 It's time...



 






.

Boobs, tubes and pubes.

Since last Thursday's spectacularly biased Question Time, the ugly spectre of media bias has been twisting and turning throughout these tartan tinged interwebs. Blog posts have been written, complaints sent to the BBC, a collosal 10 minutes on Saturday morning before 9am were devoted to the perceived anti-Scottishness on Radio Scotland. A campaign was even started on the People-Power-Change campaign site 38Degrees (more of that later), ohh and the Scottish wing of the Labour party held their conference in the 650 seater Corran Halls in Oban.


Naturally the BBC had to cover the conference. We'd already had circa 200 hours of coverage from proper London Labour, but hey here's a chance for our Scottish media to swirl a glass or two with some holidaying big Labour hitters, getting down with their Celtic brethren whilst getting misty eyed about Grannies Hielan hame...

Friday morning conference started with Iain Gray appearing on Radio 4's Today programme, where he was given the opportunity to dazzle and shine a UK wide audience with his wit, erudition and statesman like utterings. Rather predictably he duly ignored every question Evan Davies put to him about what he would do for Scotland and instead whined out his default setting about the SNP and their 'Broken Promises'(c)Labourparty2007-2011. 

Similar cringe laden coverage continued throughout the day on the various BBC 'outlets'. The Northern British department were cock-a-hoop with delight at the thought of pressing the clammy flesh of alien-in-human form hithing Ed Miliband. Young Jamie McIvor drove North, looked Red Ed in the eye and gushed his way through his interview with the great leader in waiting. I would have given a link to this, but rather unsurprisingly 'Reporting Scotland' is 'Not available') on the BBC's iPlayer...although the Labour Party Political Broadcast is still available, as is 'Conference' which was played on BBC 1 last night and will be available until the 8th of November... 

Saturday saw bonny lassie Harriet Harman wade into the conference and upset the SNP hatefest by labelling a Lib Dem twunt a Ginger twunt .

This attack on Danny Alexander overwhelmed the rest of her speech in which she accused all Lib Dems of being Tory mutants...bang goes any chance of a reprisal of the Lib-Lab pact 1999-2007, unsurprisingly her speech is still available on the iPlayer...one blessing is that it utterly overshadowed any coverage of Iain Gray's leader speech...

Obviously BBC Scotland are a wee bit miffed that they'll have to wait until nex year to continue the live Labour love in, but that doesn't stop them giving prominence to the best of the conference throughout their website and letting us read the thoughts of Anne McKechin Labour's shiny new shadow Secretary for the State of Scotland...no, me neither... I don't mean to be overtly insensitive here, but, could someone please suggest the poor woman undergoes a SuBo type transformation. I mean FFS I thought this was Prescott in a wig at first. Back when I were a lad the lassies that supported Labour were hot-to-trot-sassy-right-on-young-things, what the chuff have they morphed into? Have the Baillies, Lamont's and Currans of this world eaten their aesthetically pleasing easy on the eye Labourite lovelies...and not in a good way?

However, I digress, as per normal. Now that the Conference season has finally come to an end, it's interesting to note the differing coverage given to Labour's Northern British branch versus that given to the Scottish Government. SLAB were give live streaming throughout the conference Friday to Sunday. The SNP were given the Tartan Overlords speech on the Saturday. Labour proclamations were reported as good news, SNP utterances were prefixed with the phrase 'SNP Accused of' (c) Scotsman 1926-2011

Now I'm sure this is just the usual canard of paranoia that we Independence supporters are routinely told we suffer from...but the following images, I think tell a wee tale. The first is a screen grab of todays Politics section on the Scotsman, you'll note there are exactly nine articles headed 'Scottish Labour Party Conference'. The other  image is a screen grab from Monday the 18th of October, the day after the SNP conference in Perth, it has five stories headed 'SNP Conference'. The Labour articles are reported with gravitas, even the fluff job the normally splendid Kenny Farquharson gives Iain Gray, although his charismatic tattie scone gag falls a bit flat, as does the alarming prospect of retro Labour. The corresponding SNP articles are mostly trivialised coverage e.g, 'A tip of the hat to FM's wife' and and Angus Robertson laughing at himself...ho and indeed ho.

 

 

All of which makes your average Independence supporter ponder just how heavily stacked in favour of Labour are the media cards? Even something as simple as the Conference tv coverage is dubious, SLAB on Beeb One last night. SNP on BBC Two two weeks earlier, now everyone knows that BBC One has higher audience figures than Two, so why did the Beeb in Scotland choose Beeb One for Labour?

Those admirable coves at Newsnet Scotland have covered the perceived media bias extensively, as have Ms GoLassieGo, Gerry Hassan and even the Borders favourite stay-at-home blogging Spectatorite Alex Massie joined in, with a youth speak dig at Dimbleby. I was therefore delighted to discover that someone had decided to suggested a campaign against this malarkey to 38Degrees. They've recently thrown themselves behind such campaigns as Stopping the Tories selling off the Forests and fighting the UK governments plans to store phone and internet data..those campaigns received, respectively 71 and 38 votes before the organisation set about their targets with great vim and gusto. So far, so admirable. Yet the current number for a campaign against Media Bias is sitting at some 673 votes with a respectible 204 comments. Enquiries as to when they might engage with the campaign or even chat about it, are met by a firewall of silence...Could it be that our hip young digital age gunslingers are only interested in the big issues that like concern London and Londoners? Are these Nathan Barley's at all interested in points North of the M25...If you're on facebook, give their page a visit and make their acquaintance, you might even want to leave a message on their wall.

There's nae Oil, ye cannae cope, yer doomed.

Following the Tartan Overlords less than tub thumping speech at the weekend, where he deliberately refused to walk on water, heal the lame and cure blindness, the Scottish media are set to turn their whinge levels up to eleven and go on the offensive of belittling Scotland and those of us who choose to live here, but want a better country. 

The cries of doom, gloom and the end of the world are already sharing newspaper space with some neddish English footballer and the conundrum of where he'll find his next wodge. Apocalypse noo seems to be the phrase du jour.


Chief among the whingetastic this morning is an article by Brian Currie, formerly of the esteemed Evening Times and now political editor at the Herald, which has as expected, a cringe laden response from three of the finest Unionist Stooges in Scottish politics.

Messrs Gray, Rumbles and Brownlee, take great umbrage at Salmond's comments about Scotland having a 'pocket money parliament'. They decry him as a 'spoilt child' so ner ner ner ner ner, as their level of debate goes. 

Mr Rumbles of Sunderland Poly and Sandhurst College, goes a little further and accuses Salmond of "bombast about his dream of a separate country." Mr Rumbles, the very epitome of a bad weather Geordie, might have been better served making a comment about a little commented or explored story concerning his own Aberdeenshire constituency and emanating from a seat of learning a mere hop, skip and a jump from his Durham primary school.

Professor Jon Gluyas a renowned global expert on CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) & Geo-Energy of Durham University has calculated that oil recovery using carbon dioxide could yield an extra three billion barrels from the North Sea over the next 20 years - enough for all UK power, heat and transportation for two years.


Prof Gluyas report commissioned by DONG energy and Ikon Science Ltd states, "My figures are at the low end of expectations but they show that developing this technology could lead to a huge rejuvenation of the North Sea." The amusingly titled DONG energy are the Danish state owned leading energy company. With revenuue in the region of some £7 billion, they are leading lights in windfarm, biomass, hydro and geothermal power. Oh they also own and operate oil licenses in their small section of the North Sea...

So how did the Scottish media react to this press release sent out by Prof Gluyas and his team at Durham University?

Well a quick online search reveals the story was picked up by an impressive TEN media outlets. Chief among them the mighty Aberdeen Evening Express whose reporter Charlotte Jordan, who normally covers important stories like Dog Bites Horse,
managed to squeeze out an impressive 77 words about Prof Gluyas 'suggestion'. What's that I hear you say, what about the Scotsman, the Herald, BBC Scotland and the plethora of London media titles who become Scottish by adding the misnomer Scottish to their mast, how many of them reported this rather important story? Not a fuc*ing one of them, that's how many.

The other nine titles who picked the story up a mere five days ago are mostly engineering titles oh apart from The Northern Echo who trumpeted, 'Report Aims To Secure Our Energy Supplies For 50 Years'. Similarly nebusiness.co.uk played up the fact that Teeside can expect to exploit this North Sea Oil and Gas boom...


So coming after an exceptional summer of fresh oil discoveries in Scotland's sector of the North Sea, here we have further proof that if we were ever to believe the oft repeated mantra from our Unionist dependence junkie politicians that the our Oil is running out, that all not need be doom and gloom. We need only to start pumping carbon into the oil wells, to displace the previously difficult to get at oil...Don't expect to read about it in our slathering Union loving press, after all we wouldn't want the Jocks to get uppity again...

======================UPDATE===26==FEBRUARY===2012=================

Click photo below to enlarge and read.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be...

BBC Scotland's online front page seem to find itself in a right fankle this morning.

First of all they lead with the rather wooly Scots 'tend to blame Labour' for cuts.

Which somehow over the course of the morning morphed into the more definite Labour 'more to blame'.

 

I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at this wibbling, as the task of convincing the electorate that Labour has nothing to do with the cuts is as big a task as persuading Tommy Sheridan that although honesty may be the best policy, dishonesty, by a process of elimination, is not the second best policy...


The IPSOS mori poll that the beeb are trumpeting uses the rather loaded "From the following who do you think is responsible for the spending cuts that are soon to be announced?" They then go on to list the previous Labour Government, the current coalition, and then, no doubt with an eye on equal opportunities, the present SNP government. A quick perusal of their findings reveals that the blame fairly and squarely lies on err almost anyone but Labour.  According to the poll 47% of men and 58% of women blame the coalition and the SNP for the coming cuts.  How can anyone in their right mind blame either the Tories/Lib Dems or the SNP for the massive debt we've all supposedly been saddled with, when Labour have been in charge of the chuffing purse strings for the past 13 years?



All this talk of debt and our by now resigned acceptance that cuts are inevitable  got me thinking about it at a local level and how this will impact on poor wee Dumfries and Galloway.


We've got a declining population of 148,600 of which less than 58% are of working age. We've got 32,000 under 19 and a whopping 43,000 folk of pensionable age. We've got high pockets of unemployment with multiple generations of families never having worked. Wages and household income levels are among the lowest in Scotland and the UK coming in at 92% of the Scottish average. Our affordable housing is so strained with the number of people from outside the region choosing to retire here that our young cannot afford to live in the place they grew up in and are now abandoning the place at a rapid rate of knots.

Those fortunate enough to be in jobs are mostly employed with the council, some 8,000 at last count. NHS D&G contributes to a fair whack of weekly incomes. A few SME's apart the rest of our employers can be found in the Agriculture and tourism markets...all of which brings me to question our sustainability and how D&G can cope with the cuts that Labour have brought about the need for?

Dumfries and Galloway council has a budget of £348 million. According to John Swinney we have inherited a PPP/PFI commitment of some £20 million per year, which varies year on year, but runs all the way until 2041-42. This money has been spent on new schools, school refurbishments, the sports centre and the Eco Deco plant operated by Shanks who recently sold their PFI subordinated debts on to Laing Investments. Cf passim 

On top of that, we have the recent news from Professor David Bell of Stirling University that Scotland's councils are in debt to the tune of £9 BILLION. D&G's share of this is a mere £160.4m. Thankfully, this doesn't compare to the whopping £1.200 million that Edinburgh owes or the eye watering £1.426 million that Glasgow owes to the men in the pin stripe suits. As Prof Bell says, "Councils can generate revenue via council tax, business rates, the sale of land and charges for services like care, parking and sports facilities". So let's look at these: 

(1)The council tax has been frozen by the Scottish Government, in an attempt to make councils more efficient. Without doubt this has helped families make their money go a little further. Councils have gobbled down the £70 million sweetener yet come back in Oliver Twist demanding more!
(2) Business rates. With retail disappearing from our town centres and Dumfries being named as Scotland's top 'clone town' attracting large retailers and their juicy business rates has never been more difficult. The Scottish Government in an effort to encourage small business decreed that those with properties under a rateable value of £10,000 now get them for free...
(3) Land sales. Given the recession started with the heavy mortgaging and ludicrous pricing of commercial property to such an extent that the bottom has well and truly bottomed out, what chances does D&G have of selling off any left over land it might have previously used to dig itself out of a hole with?


(4) Charges for care, parking and sport. Well care charges are a convoluted and despairing arena which I'm not venturing into. Car parks, Dumfries has universal free parking around the town centre, don't fancy staying for half an hour in Bank street, park on the sands and you're allowed three hours free. Sports, we're already charged more than enough for the shoddy facilities.

So given the fact that Gideon Osbourne is likely to aim at a figure between 17- 20% in cuts to the Scottish Government and these costs will be handed on to local authorities throughout Scotland, I hereby nominate Dumfries and Galloway as the first Scottish council likely to be bankrupt in the next four years. 

Oh for your information, for the last decade or so, we've had a Labour MP, a Labour MSP and a predominantly Labour council. I tend to blame them.

Perhaps we're all heading to debtors jail...

Except for viewers in Scotland...or what is the point of BBC Scotland?

Stand by for an important announcement. 

This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the news. There is no news today.

Well apart from our dispatches from the Delhi Commonwealth games where England are doing remarkably well what with having to cope with Johnny Foreigner and his brutish attitudes to food, cleanliness and poverty.

Sitting here at the old babbage machine, I can conjur up live images from Delhi a mere 4800 miles away, or 23 hours and 30 minutes by direct flight from Glasgow. I can watch England's triumphs and other home nation 'epic fails' online, on HD, 3D, Super HD, Super 3D, Super super HD television, listen on the radio or download it onto my phone. I can hear expert analysis from Olympic greats and home grown not so greats. I can gaze in awe at the Rolex wristwatch that Mark Foster is doing his best to get in every shot. The interactive red button means I can watch a plethora of hitherto forgotten and ignored sports. Where else would I have discovered that Lauren Smith had won a bronze medal for Scotland in the solo err synchronised swimming event?


Cast your minds back to the incredibly expensive BBC coverage of the World Cup in South Africa, where the corporation more or less moved Table mountain to give themselves the vista they wanted. A ONE MILLION POUND state-of-the-art studio revolving atop a Cape Town hosptial roof, meant that Messrs Lineker, Shearer and Hanson not once needed to crane their necks to enjoy the view. I suspect, although they were working, that many of the other 292 BBC employees who were wined, dined and supplied with their national team stab jackets at our expense in South Africa are similarly employed in Delhi, bringing us these great images...

Therefore it comes as a bit of a blow to discover that the BBC have declined the opportunity to become the host broadcaster for the 2014 Commonwealth Games to be held in not so exotic Glasgow. This might come as no surprise to some viewers in Scotland who have become used to a shoddy, part-time, negative stereotype enforcing quango which demands our license fee on force of criminalisation and reflects little of life as we observe and understand it in Scotland.

But hey the Beeb have got money to throw at other events they cover. They employ some 751 staff specifically for covering large events, World Cups, Olympics, Wimbledon, Glastonbury and the err Commonwealth Game. When accused of milking their monolpoly, you know things like helicopters to Glastonbury for Mister Yentob and his busy executive friends, the Beeb always trumpet, " We cover all the major events our audiences expect to see and hear." and this old chestnut, "We always keep value for money in mind."

So why have the BBC declined to be the host broadcaster for the XX Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Surely it's not a problem of distance. Last I checked Manchester, which hosted the Games in 2002 was a mere 171 miles from Glasgow. It can't be a question of finance, as there are barrel loads of dosh being spent on London hosting the Olympic Games in 2012. In Roger Mosey, the Beeb have a director of London 2012 who is, "overseeing all preparations including not just sport but the Cultural Olympiad, Olympic news, and information services and everything that will bring the story of London Games to audiences at home and abroad." Roger is as excited as a pooch with a new bum, he's trumpeting how the BBC at London 2012 will be broadcasting of Super Hi Vision, which will only have limited availability in a few cinemas and the homes of Beeb executives, but hey ho...

So what excuses can we expect to hear from BBC Scotland head honcho Kenny MacQuarrie as to why the supposedly best digital studio in Europe won't be showing off it's bells and whistles in four years time? Will Kenny march into his boss Mark Byford's London office smack him about the jowly chops and tell him in Gaelic, that the BBC in Scotland will be standing up to their obligations and become the host broadcaster. 

Or as is more likely will Kenny chill out in his 'open space' and think about the impending joys of retirement and hope that his successor might provide the vision and creative leadership necessary to deliver what approximates to a normal independent media for Scotland. You know, the sort of organisation that perhaps takes pride in a global event taking place in its own city, that affords it the opportunity to show that they can handle the responsibility of being creative, innovative and using their resources efficiently...like any other independent countries state broadcaster...

I dare say Lord Reith and his comedy eyebrows are birling six feet below at the pathetic mess the BBC has become. 

 

PFI/PPP/GTF

Here's something that grabbed me by the sniffly nose today. Shanks, a company I always associate with the manufacturing of toilet bowls in Barrhead, have sold on their 'subordinated debt' and 80% of their equity in two of their contracts to former builders, now global investors, John Laing Investments PLC.

Before I go off on one about what exactly 'subordinated debt' is, let me reflect on the company John Laing PLC first. Founded near Carlisle in the early19th century they pootered about in Cumbria as successful builders until the arrival of John Laing Jnr, grandson of the founder. He built the company up to such a grandiose state that they had to flee Cumbria to ThatLondon. A deeply religious man, John Laing took business decisions based on his Evangelical beliefs, he introduced such pioneering ideas as paid holidays and annual staff outings, he nurtured staff and became that rare beast, a humane capitalist. In 1909 the company was on the slide, bankruptcy was inevitable. John Laing made a pledge to God, if his company survived and his employees saved from unemployment, he vowed for every pound he earned, to donate a significant percentage to charity. By 1978, the company was worth several hundreds of millions of pounds, Sir John (he'd been ennobled by this time) left a personal estate of £371. From being a small housebuilder Laing became the countries biggest construction firm, motorways, airports, reservoirs, hospitals, nuclear power station bridges...the very infrastructure of the UK. 

Fast forward a couple of decades, stock exchange flotation, FTSE 250 throw in a few mergers and acquisitions and we now discover that the company has divested itself of its construction wing and moved full on into the murky world of über-profitable PFI/PPP. In 2006 they were bought over by Henderson Group, who naturally kept the name, due to the kudos of tradition it brings. Not surprisingly Henderson Group are incorporated in the tax free Channel Isles, I suppose there's a connection to the building trade as their chief executive is called Andrew Formica...

So back to 'subordinated debt', now according to a chum who lives and breathes this nonsense on a daily basis, let me get this right, it works like this. In the case of a default, creditors with subordinated debt would not get paid until after the bigger debtholders are paid in full. Which means that subordinated debt carries more risk than unsobordinated debt...So far so confusing, in essence, due to the risk involved, the holder of the subordinated debt is entitled to charge higher interest rates.

Now as I'm a fan of The Sopranos and only the finest of gangster movies, you'll understand this resonates with me as a scene I've seen many time, where our poor anti-hero, degenerate, drunk, lost gambler takes out a loan with a low level loan shark, after missing a few payments, pliers are applied to teeth and a baseball bat to knee caps. Only when our poor hero finds his true love, sobers up, starts to get back on his feet, does he find that his debt has been sold onto an ever bigger more vicious gangster, ohh and as always there's an increase in the vig, aka the interest on the loan. 

Which brings us back to Shanks selling their PFI/PPP subordinated debts to Laing PLC. I'll ignore the East London Waste Authority and focus instead on Dumfries and Galloway Council. Simply because I was in the room some ten years ago when a senior council officer announced to the councillors and assembled guests, who were there trying to stop a tourist orientated incinerator, that he and a colleague had saved the council a fortune on consultants fees and had cobbled together an agreement with Shanks to deal with the councils waste problem. In short, for a substantial amount of money paid every year, for the next twenty-five years, Shanks would build an eco-deco plant which would negate the need for land fill. It wouldn't be a recycling plant but instead a plant that creates fuel blocks out of paper, plastic, wood etcetera. I asked at the time, what happens at the end of the 25 year PFI contract when the council doesn't own the plant and has no facilities to deal with the wasted. The then deputy council leader joked, that he, the officer, 'didn't care because he'd be dead in 25 years'. My retort of,  'Yes but what about my kids, how will they cope with the waste?' Was met with some embarrassed coughs and close up shoe inspection by the council officers and councillors.

So now we know that, the council tax we pay every month so that the council can collect our household waste gets taken to the eco deco plant. We no longer do genuine recycling, no blue boxes or bottle banks in D&G, everything to the eco-deco, where Shanks have just sold their subordinated debt and equity in the contract on to the City of London equivalent of the Sopranos.

I suspect that rumbling noise I hear every time I drive by the eco-deco plant to Carlisle, might just be Sir John Laing gyrating in his grave...


Here's an addendum to this fascinating tale (to me anyway) of high finance and rubbish. It's now rumoured that Shanks have divested themselves of this subordinated debt to tidy up the shop in the hope that the profoundly evil Carlyle Group come back sniffing for a buyout. Carlyle infamously count President Bush and his idiot son President Bush junior among their employees ooh and former PM John Major. The Carlyle group  really made a shitload of money when they bought up the former military and airforce bases which had been re-branded by the Labour Government as QiNetic. Carlyle made a 780% profit on what had been a taxpayer owned entity...

You just know PPP/PFI is wrong when vultures like this lot come sniffing around.... 

Bring on the heavy horses. Non political post, sort of...

Whilst perusing these internets today I was rather pleased to discover a friend had posted the following video clip, with the proviso that it had only been played on USA TV once.




Rather touched by the film but unsure what to make of a commercial brewery associating itself with such a tragic event, I was surprised after a glance at the comments below the video to discover that Clydesdale horses are synonymous with Budweiser beer in the USA. 

Seemingly Budweiser have been using them in promotions since the first crate of post-prohibition beer was delivered on the back of a dray towed by a team of Clydesdales to the Governor of New York and to President Franklin D Roosevelt back in 1933. The company have been running television adverts featuring the Clydesdales during every Super Bowl since 1967.  They are regarded as an American Icon.



Now ordinarily I rate Budweiser somewhere between our own fizzy pish cooking lager -- McEwan's or Tennant's, preferring perhaps those amusingly named Yankee beers of the seventies and eighties Schlitz and Colt 45, which seem to have vanished from our off licenses and supermarket boozeshelves, along with Sapporo and wur ain home-brews like 'Skol' and Double Diamond. 

However, I digress, as usual, the point I'm going to try and unsubtly wedge in here is that a huge American audience owes a massive brand loyalty to a beer, that has as its mascot, a big horse from Lanarkshire, Scotland. Little is made of the horses origins in the States, even those coves at the fount of all knowledge, Wikipedia cite the big gee gee's origins as the farms of Clydesdale. Yet, we rarely celebrate it, or dare I say exploit the marketing potential of the quiet dignity of the big strong horse. I'm not suggesting we strap the Tartan Overlord into a pair of chaps, slap a stetson on his napper and send him and Hopalong MacAskill off on a goodwill tour of the States...but -- a closer association, with a beastie that is Scottish, at a time when our currency in the USA is particularly low thanks to the ongoing anti-Megrahi mince encouraged by wee Dick Baker and his pal Elmer Fudd, might see our fortunes rise a wee bit, subliminally or otherwise.

The sculptor Andy Scott immortalised the breed when he chose one to represent Glasgow, by placing his sculpture beside the M8 motorway. The inference being  that the city and the horse, both once used to hard work, were now better known for show and display. The splendid photograph below is David May's.

  
Rather surprisingly, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust still place the horsey in the vulnerable category. At one time there were believed to be 140,000 of them throughout the UK, by the 1950's we were down to 80 licensed horses. Thankfully as the horses were exported around the world the breed survives quite nicely today, with some 600 foals born every year in the USA alone, where they are hugely popular. Earlier this year, after Budweiser was subsumed by evil megacorps InBev, the worlds largest brewer, with no taste for tradition, they decided to drop the Clydesdales from this years Super Bowl advert. Needless to say the yanks went crazy, petitions were set up, facebook erupted into a cauldron of Clydesdale loving frenzy, and the horses continue as an American Icon...

It's time to wrap them in Tartan, feed them shortie and reclaim them.



 

The Hound of the Bakervilles...

Tomorrow an emissary of the evil empire is due in Scotland to prod, probe, provoke and preach to us on morality and expose our own craven weaknesses. Oh and Pope Benedict XVI is also going to be in town.


Yes, finally we see the result of America's strong arming step ashore and smite us with the arrival of a US Congressional staffer in Holyrood to conduct an investigation into the whys and wherefores of the Megrahi release. The anonymous staffer or staff (plural) are here at the behest of Robert 'Bob' Menendez the Democratic senator for the State of New Jersey, who in a desperate attempt to shore up support for the forthcoming mid-term elections has done his best to conflate the release of Megrahi with BP and their quest for Oil licenses in Libya. Petulantly ignoring the fact that the Tartan Overlord would rather exist on a diet of rice cakes than agree to a Prisoner Transfer Agreement to appease Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and the shareholders of BP, this American-Hispanic Inquisition blithely sails on its merry way, casting aspersions on Scotland, the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish people. All the while ignoring the fact that the USA has by far the lions share of Oil licenses in Libya, and BP's license has sweet Fanny Adams to do with the Scottish Governments decision to release a dying cancer victim.

The most likely candidate to be representing Senator Menandez is a chappy straight out of West Wing central casting, step forward Mr Danny O'Brien.

  
Mr O'Brien, is Senator Menendez's Chief of Staff and wow what a number of staff this chappy has. In the financial year 2009-2010 Senator Menandez employed 58 people in his office, including Danny O'Brien. His staffing budget for the fiscal year 2009 was an eye watering $3,018,836 of which Danny O'Brien was alloted a mere $84,729.48. Danny boy is a previous White House staffer, former Chief of Staff to Senator Torricelli and former Chief of Staff to Senator Joseph Biden, the man who's now a heartbeat away from the Presidency of the USA. Ahh if only he was still by Joe Biden's side he could be the Vice President's Chief of Staff, ho hum, at least his new guy has the bit between the teeth with these pesky Scotch guys... In essence Danny is a smart operator, all the data I've read on him suggests he knows a good fight when he sees it and knows how to get his sleeves rolled up and get into the mire, I'll skip how he ran the Nevada campaign for Al Gore in 2000 or how during the early 1990's he err brought 'Democracy' to eight countries in Latin America and Eastern Europe, whilst working for the acronym boys...

Unfortunately for Danny, his supreme Eckness told Senator Menendez and his committee to travel and copulate simultaneously, thereby limiting the possibility of this Auto de fé spilling over into Bellahouston Park.   

  
Similarly Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill also told the US Senator's committee to go forth and multiply. Which sadly leaves Danny* (if it is he) to discuss matters with shadow Justice Secretary the snivelling, whining toad junior, Richard Baker MSP, as the sole representative of Scotland's political class. 

Whilst the Emissary of the Americano peoples will be steering the conversation towards BP, Oil, Libya and deals in the desert. Richard Baker will, according to the esteemed Press and Journal  be ignoring any mention of deals and deserts and instead suggesting that the Inquisition "should now concentrate their efforts on forcing publication of the medical records." Believing this to be a "much harder subject for the 'administration' to come up with satisfactory answers." For this snivelling milksop of an English public school educated boy to use his office, to direct the representatives of a foreign nation to make life difficult for the Scottish Government is beyond reprehensible. 

One can only hope that Danny O'Brien, on the face of it a sensible chappy, takes one look at the spittle flecked invective emanating from Toad juniors gaping maw and decides to ignore Bakers pleas to sign his DVD box set of the West Wing and take a wander over to Bellahouston Park to see what many of the Scottish O'Brien's are up to.

*In the interests of serendipity, I hope it's not Danny O'Brien who conducts this investigation, instead I'd prefer if it is Senator Menendez's wonderfully named Chief Counsel, Kerri Sherlock Talbot. I mean come on, Sherlock, Edinburgh, Conan Doyle...it all fits together...doesn't it?