Duplicitous lying bastards and the lying liars who tell lies.

Just in case any of my chumrades have missed this article by George Rosie and the normally reviled Magnus Linklater (just the once). Although I hear that Rosie and Linklater shafted the Scottish Review of Books who were supposed to have the exclusive.

Read on and gnash your teeth in anger...


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5728477.ece

Documents detailing secret government plans in the 1970s to prevent Scotland laying claim to North Sea oil have been seen by The Times. They show the extraordinary lengths to which civil servants were prepared to go to head off devolution, which was seen then as inevitably leading to independence.

The proposals included suggesting to Labour ministers, for whom devolution was a manifesto commitment, that progress towards a referendum should be delayed, in the hope that enthusiasm north of the Border would wane.

Treasury officials also advised that the boundaries of Scotland's coastal waters should be redrawn and a new sector created to “neutralise” Scotland's claim to North Sea oil – a step that was taken.

One Treasury official even proposed that a local campaign for independence in Orkney and Shetland should be encouraged so that Scotland would be denied access to more than half the North Sea oil. The idea was that the islands would prefer to throw in their lot with London rather than Edinburgh.

Among those advising Labour ministers was Sir David Walker, who is investigating the banking crisis for the present Government. As assistant secretary at the Treasury, he wrote in May 1975 that “progress toward devolution should be delayed for as long as possible consistently with honouring the government commitment to move down the devolution road and containing the SNP lobby in Parliament”.

Sir David's advice was heeded. It was another four years before the Scots were allowed to vote on whether or not they wanted an assembly in Edinburgh.

The documents – letters, memorandums and briefing papers from the Public Record Offices at Kew and in Edinburgh – show that some civil servants were alarmed by the threat that devolution posed to North Sea oil revenues, which were servicing Britain's external debt.

One paper, by Graham Kear, under-secretary at the Department of Energy, suggested that the Northern Isles might be hived off from Scotland. He wrote: “If Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands are both regarded as states, separate from the rest of the United Kingdom, median lines can be drawn to divide the United Kingdom Continental Shelf between Orkney & Shetland/Scotland and between Scotland/England.”

One way of doing this, according to civil servants advising Anthony Crosland, the Environment Secretary, would be to realign the subsea border between Scotland and England, so that it ran northeast instead of east.

Mr Kear's doubts were shared by his political boss, Tony Benn, the Energy Secretary, who wrote to Ted Short, the deputy leader: “There is general agreement that energy policy – its formulation and execution – should be a function reserved to the UK Government.”

Mr Benn told The Times yesterday that he had favoured Scottish devolution. “I have always taken the view that power was too centralised,” he said. “I think you have to determine what it's appropriate to devolve. On the question of ownership of natural resources, that has to be seen as an integral part of the country.”

"A culture of greed, unethical behaviour and indisposition to challenge."

So, Sir James Crosby, (twat above) has resigned as deputy head of the Financial Services Authority, because a nasty whistleblower (Paul Moore) put out a release about Crosby's contribution to creating the credit crunch in his previous post as boss at Halifax Bank of Scoland.

He sacked Mr Moore, who was the then head of risk at HBOS, who had been trying to warn the board that the bank was piling up unacceptable levels of risk. DOH!

The Beeb have the full text on their website, my but it's veh long so, as a favour to my newfound chums here in Mentalist Central

Here's the common sense extracts (the best bits) that those of us without a golden parachute, or a degree in toxic rich front loaded diversionary funding tactics might begin to comprehend...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7882581.stm


2.6 In my view, as an experienced risk and compliance practitioner, the problem in finding the real cause of the banking crisis is being made more complex than it needs to be.

2.7 I believe that we are missing the wood for the trees and that the key solutions to prevent such an event happening again are simpler than we think. In relation to policy changes, I make some short recommendations that the Committee may wish to consider in section 4 below.

2.8 But let's start with the cause and this fairly obvious proposition: even non-bankers with no "credit risk management" expertise, if asked (and I have asked a few myself), would have known that there must have been a very high risk if you lend money to people who have no jobs, no provable income and no assets. If you lend that money to buy an asset which is worth the same or even less than the amount of the loan and secure that loan on the value of that asset purchased and, then, assume that asset will always to rise in value, you must be pretty much close to delusional? You simply don't need to be an economic rocket scientist or mathematical financial risk management specialist to know this. You just need common sense. So why didn't the experts know? Or did they but they carried on anyway because they were paid to do so or too frightened to speak up?



2.22 To mix a few well known similes / metaphors / stories, the current financial crisis is a bit like the story of the Emperor's new clothes. Anyone whose eyes were not blinded by money, power and pride (Hubris) who really looked carefully knew there was something wrong and that economic growth based almost solely on excessive consumer spending based on excessive consumer credit based on massively increasing property prices which were caused by the very same excessively easy credit could only ultimately lead to disaster. But sadly, no-one wanted or felt able to speak up for fear of stepping out of line with the rest of the lemmings who were busy organising themselves to run over the edge of the cliff behind the pied piper CEOs and executive teams that were being paid so much to play that tune and take them in that direction.

2.23 I am quite sure that many many more people in internal control functions, non-executive positions, auditors, regulators who did realise that the Emperor was naked but knew if they spoke up they would be labelled "trouble makers" and "spoil sports" and would put themselves at personal risk. I am still toxic waste now for having spoken out all those years ago! I would be amazed if there were not many executives who, if they really examined their consciences closely, would not say that they knew this too.


2.24 The real problem and cause of this crisis was that people were just too afraid to speak up and the balance and separation of powers was just far too weighted in favour of the CEO and their executive.



3.3 It follows that there is a natural tension between the need to raise legitimate challenge on the one hand, and the likely reaction of those individuals who are the subject of the challenge. There is also the risk that the individual who raises the challenge will be criticised for the style or tone of the challenge.



2.17 At this point I want to stress in the strongest possible way that I am simply not interested in blame and I don't think it really ever works. I was ultimately fairly compensated by HBOS. What I am very interested in is the future. As I wrote once at to my boss at HBOS itself what we need this crisis to do for us is "to create a watershed here so we can move on from the issues of the past (from which we can learn but not blame) to the brave new world of the future." Although, key people at HBOS did do wrong, I am also sure that their intentions were usually good and, in a sense, they were also caught up themselves in what the Greek tragedies would call the "ineluctability of fate".

Islam profits from ethic investments

On the day that Brown spits the dummy about bankers bonuses here's an interesting factlet that we should all ponder. Apparently Islamic ethical investments have proved of far greater value than the avaricious trading exemplified by the likes of RBS, HBOS, Lehman Bros, Solomon etcetera.

Loved this

Islamic lenders are required to work in good faith with distressed borrowers to figure out ways to make payments manageable

From the san Francisco Gate.

As credit markets have imploded, triggering a global economic crisis, Islamically correct investors have seen a change of fortune: The conservative principles this small group of devout Muslims clung to during the economic heyday has insulated them from the worst of the past year's suffering.

Their renunciation of the interest-based economy kept them away from investments in financial services companies, whose stocks have collapsed, and out of traditional mortgages.

"There was a time two or three years ago that Islamic finance was considered simply too conservative," said Professor Ibrahim Warde, author of "Islamic Finance in the Global Economy" and an adjunct professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. "Right now, many people are recognizing that maybe it wasn't such a bad thing."

Dow Jones Islamic Market Indexes, which represent benchmarks for Islamically correct investment categories, have been outperforming their non-Islamically compliant counterparts by 3 to 4 percent in key indexes. The two Amana Income and Growth funds, the largest Islamic mutual funds in the country with $1.2 billion in combined assets, have been outperforming the S&P 500 in the past year by 13 and 7 percent, respectively. (Both Amana funds also outperform the S&P index on 5- and 10-year comparisons.)

Bay Area residents who bought homes through an Islamically compliant lender in San Jose, the Ameen Housing Cooperative, don't have to worry whether their lender will work with them if they lose their jobs. Islamic lenders are required to work in good faith with distressed borrowers to figure out ways to make payments manageable - and co-op leaders say they will.

Islamic investing

Warde and other Islamic finance experts and investors caution that the crisis doesn't mean that Islamic finance is a better model than Western capitalism. They say Islamic finance, a system of ethical finance supported on an institutional level, provides unique insight into an economic meltdown created in part by financial practices forbidden by strict observance of Islam.

"I don't think there's anything miraculous about Islamic finance, or that it's a panacea," said Warde, who will be speaking at a UC Berkeley School of Law symposium on the issue this month. "But we can understand why Islamic banks did well in the current financial environment."

Renouncing interest is the high-profile element of Islamic finance that relates to the current economic crisis. For Islamically correct investors, that means there are limits to how much debt a company can have or how much profit it can derive from interest-based investments. That criterion eliminated the possibility of holding stocks in financial services companies, like Citigroup or Washington Mutual, whose stocks lost 86 percent or all of their value last year, respectively.

Avoiding crisis' practices

Islamic finance also prohibits selling assets you don't own, selling someone's debt and engaging in high-risk investments. Thus, there was no participation in practices that have been blamed for Wall Street's meltdown: complex derivatives trading, short-selling and the $30 trillion market in credit default swaps.

While Islamically correct investing is a booming industry, it hardly guarantees good returns. The Iman Fund, run by Allied Asset Advisors and one of the largest Islamic mutual funds in the country, has performed worse than the S&P 500 and others in its category, according to Morningstar, a mutual fund rating service.

But performance alone isn't the point of compliance with Islamic law, known as sharia. For the committed, investing finance with faith is about living with values.

"We don't claim to our investors that we're going to be consistently outperforming the market because we have sharia criteria," said Monem Salam, director of Islamic investing and deputy portfolio manager for Saturna Capital, which manages the Amana funds. "We're going to give our investors the best return they can (get) based on the criteria. If that means outperformance on certain indices, then great."

The Islamic principles playing out across the larger stock market are also playing out in smaller, if no less significant ways for ordinary investors.

Housing cooperatives

In San Jose, the Ameen Housing Cooperative has helped roughly 30 members buy homes without mortgages. Yet the recession has had "no impact whatsoever" on the co-op, according to board member Humayun Sohel. The reasons have much to do with an Islamic requirement that the lender and the borrower share the risks and rewards of a loan.

Ameen members pool their money to give out loans. Borrowers put at least 30 percent down, and monthly payments are based on local rental values. Monthly payments pay down debt and pay dividends to Ameen members. In its 13-year history, Sohel said, Ameen has given a quarterly dividend of at least 3.8 percent and as much as 7.8 percent to co-op members.

When the deed of transfer is finally given to the borrower, Ameen members get a slice of the home's increased value - or take a loss if the price has gone down. With the median home price dropping as much as 40 percent in Santa Clara County and many worrying about their jobs, Ameen remains confident.

Borrower loses equity

As long as the borrower is earnest, Sohel said, Ameen will work to reduce payments, though that may mean a borrower doesn't gain equity or possibly loses some. If someone cannot pay at all for an extended time, Ameen will rent the home instead of selling it and locking in the loss, which is what banks do during foreclosures.

"What we are counting on is riding out this difficult time," Sohel said.

Islamic compliance also precludes investing in things Muslims are expected to avoid, like pornography, tobacco, alcohol and gambling. Those prohibitions drew Juveria Aleem to the Amana funds. But the Oakland Web designer feels like the relatively lower losses on her investments have only reaffirmed her faith.

"Not only was I keeping myself spiritually clean by not engaging in that in my life, but financially, it was helping me," Aleem said. "You cannot ever truly go wrong by practicing the principles of your faith."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/09/MN2D15J4HD.DTL&tsp=1

I Spit on your Marked Registers

Guilty conscience perhaps, as Lindsay Roy suggests recount for Glenrothes.




LABOUR MP Lindsay Roy yesterday offered to hold a recount in the Glenrothes by-election to clear up the row over missing voting records.
The SNP suffered an unexpected defeat when they lost the Westminster seat to Labour last November.
They are demanding an independent inquiry into what happened to the election registers, documents that record who voted but not who they voted for.
They had been held at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court for safe keeping but it emerged they had gone missing when SNP councillor John Beare asked to see them shortly after the poll.
Nat MSP Tricia Marwick last week said an investigation was needed "to confirm that the election was conducted properly".
Roy said he was happy to co-operate with any probe, adding: "It's a matter of grave concern that the register has gone missing and I support a full investigation into why.
"However, I very much regret that Mrs Marwick has claimed the election was unfair, which is a very serious allegation.
"If her view of unfairness relates to the fact that the SNP lost, then she should accept the result with good grace.
"The SNP are obviously very unhappy that they didn't win the seat, especially when they weren't expecting to lose.
"But if necessary, I would be more than happy to attend a recount to verify the result."
But Marwick responded: "Lindsay Roy's ridiculous call for a recount shows his ignorance of Scotland's electoral system.
"This isn't about how people voted but who voted.
"The marked electoral register is an essential part of democratic process for both parties and individuals.
"Its disappearance should be as much of a worry for Mr Roy as it is for me.
"Westminster elections are Scottish secretary Jim Murphy's responsibility. I hope Lindsay Roy is asking him what he is doing to make sure the register is found."
The Scottish Court Service have confirmed that an investigation is being carried out into the missing register.
It's thought the records could have been removed by accident during renovation work at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court.
Former headteacher Roy beat Nationalist candidate Peter Grant by almost 7000 votes to win the seat.


http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2009/02/09/exclusive-lindsay-roy-offers-to-hold-recount-in-row-over-missing-glenrothes-voting-records-86908-21108945/

38% support independence 40% oppose it

We need only win once.

You-gov had it at 29% last week

What a difference a week makes.




http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2487786.0.scotland_on_a_knifeedge.php

Scotland on a knife-edge

POLL EXCLUSIVE: 38% support independence 40% oppose it By Tom Gordon and Paul Hutcheon

SUPPORT FOR independence has hardened in the face of the global recession, despite Labour predictions that the crisis would see more Scots turning to the Union for protection.

The latest TNS System Three survey for the Sunday Herald found support for leaving the union rose three points during the last quarter, while opposition to a separate Scottish state fell to its lowest level since the poll began 18 months ago.

The findings suggest the public has ignored Labour warnings that a breakaway Scotland would be doomed to join Iceland in the "arc of insolvency".

The poll was taken after opposition parties initially voted down the SNP government's budget on February 28. Voters were reportedly unimpressed that MSPs could not agree a budget despite the country suffering the worst recession in decades.

The poll asked 971 adults how they would vote in a referendum on whether the Scottish government should open negotiations with Westminster on independence.

Support for commencing talks on separation was 38%, compared to 35% in October, while opposition was 40%, compared to 43%.

When TNS System Three began polling on the question, shortly after the SNP entered government, opposition ran as high as 50%. The new survey shows the gap between opposition and support, which widened to eight points last October in the initial reaction to the banking crisis, has now returned to the two-point difference seen last June.

Chris Eynon, managing director of TNS System Three, said the figures may well show a protest at Scotland's lack of powers to address the current crisis and the loss of institutions such as the Bank of Scotland, despite membership of the Union.

They could also reflect a growing confidence in Scotland's ability to go it alone after initial concerns about the economy reduced support in October.

"Either way it would appear that the global financial situation has not had any damaging effect on Scottish aspirations towards independence," he said.

"At a time when the worsening financial meltdown might have been expected to turn people against the potentially riskier options of independence, there has actually been a strengthening of support to 38%, from 35% in October, with opposition similarly declining by 3% to 40%.

"Not only have figures returned to levels similar to those recorded last June, before the financial crisis hit, but the actual percentage opposed to negotiation is the lowest since the poll was first taken in August 2007."

While leading the SNP in opposition in 2006, Alex Salmond said Scotland could be part of "northern Europe's arc of prosperity" alongside "Ireland to our west, Iceland to our north and Norway to our east".

By last October, the same countries had been dubbed the Arc of Insolvency, as Iceland's banking system collapsed and Ireland was forced to slash publish spending in an austerity budget.

Jim Murphy, the Scottish Secretary, led Labour's charge that the arc of prosperity had been a Nationalist delusion, and the global recession had exposed the brutal reality of being a small economic player.

Nicola Sturgeon, the deputy first minister, said: "This is an excellent poll, demonstrating that support for independence is rising as the SNP deliver good government through measures such as freezing council tax, reducing business rates, abolishing prescription charges and delivering a record number of police officers.

"In August 2007, the gap between independence and the unequal Union was 15 points; by last November it had halved to just eight points; and now independence is running neck and neck with the status quo. It is a hugely encouraging trend."

A spokesman for Scottish Labour said: "The vast majority of Scots do not want to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK. The question wording proposed by the SNP tries to soften the reality of their hard-line approach, but Scots are cannier than that. People want us to work together to get Scotland through the economic crisis, not break up the UK."

The poll also found support for independence was greater among men than women, the middle age ranges, and those living in the north of the country.

Top Twat

So just to be clear, here's exactly what he said:

‘In England we’ve got this one-eyed Scottish idiot, he keeps telling us everything’s fine and he’s saved the world and we know he’s lying, but he’s smooth at telling us.’

Daily Mail (Scottish edition), 07 February 2009

My tuppence. To Clarkson and the vast majority of people, when talking to Johnny Foreigner about back home they refer not to Britain, Great Britain or the UK, but England and England alone.

I'm probably not alone in the experience of meeting lovely English folk on holiday, who recognise me as Scottish then, if newly arrived, ask me of news back in 'England'. The stock response of, "I don't know I live in Scotland." Oft produces bewilderment, when they realise that I don't consider England and Great Britain as being synonymous.

This is what is at the heart of the complaints and faux outrage by the likes of Baron George Foulkes von Cumnock, Iain Gray, Gordon Banks* et al. Clarkson resents a Scot being in charge of England and the other minor bits that make up 'Great Britain'. If he had refererred to Brown as a "one-eyed British idiot" the whole thing would have been dismissed in a jovial manner as 'typical Jezza, what a lad'.

*There is of course a delicious irony that Gordon Banks MP namesake is a one-eyed English ....goalkeeper.

Bashir Ahmad RIP

RIP

Bashir Ahmad 12 February 1940 - 6 February 2009

Scotland's first Muslim MSP

Founder Asian Scots for Independence

Scottish Government budget passed

Bonkers Bitchin' Broon Boy Backs Budget




Soooo it finally passed. Was this finally acknowledgement by
Labour and the Lib Dems of the error of their ways, have they
accepted they should not play politics with people’s jobs?

Naturally, Patrick Harvie voted against it and killed off any
chances of the Greens being electable in Scotland for years
to come.

Here's what it's worth …

• Continuation of the Council Tax freeze saving bill payers
up to £400

• Support for 5,000 jobs – particularly in the construction
sector

• Abolition of business rates for 120,000 struggling small
businesses

• £70 million of early investment in affordable housing

• £60 million for town centre renewal

• £40 million increase in funding for free personal care

• Over £300 million of additional spending in the NHS

• Extra funding to put even more police on the beat

• Extra funding to reduce prescription charges further

In essence we're talking EXTRA investment worth over
£1,200 for punters in Scotland passed by the Scottish
Parliament.

Consensus politics dontcha just love it?

Camel - Back and Indeed Straw

OK this is the one that did it, that drove me to abandon constructive debate with the delightful unionist dependence junkies and finally commit some nouns and verb to t'internet.

How can supporters of a party that was
founded on principles of equality
and the finer essence of humanity turn
themselves into a rabid hold-on-to
-power at any costright wing cabal.
Two instances over the last couple of
days, fetched my goat and kicked its pan in.

(1) Wildcat strike. "British Jobs for British Workers."
Ok the spin they put on it sounds weak,
but hey benefit of the doubt and all that. What he
really meant was train British workers to do jobs
in Britain. So how do they respond? They wheel out
Baron Fey of Hartlepool to tell the workers in
best Daily Mail stylee, "If you don't like working
here fuck off to foreign."
Ok I paraphrase, but that is the essence of his message.

(2) Titian. Wonderful news that an acclaimed
masterpiece gets to stay accessible within the
shores of this island. So what do we get on a
day when we should be celebrating the fact that
the Scottish Government saw fit to involve itself
in the campaign to retain the work here?
Ian Davidson Labour MP for
Deep Fried Poverty South West whining that
it wisnae wurf it. What a chundering dobber.
Anti-intellectualism went out of fashion
with Madame Mao.
Look at the benefits Glasgow has had from
Dali's Christ on the Cross. 
It has been the backbone of the cultural
renaissance of Glasgow's
economic regeneration. Does he not see now that
'Diana and Actaeon' will have a similar effect
on Edinburgh and the places it tours with the
Bridgewater Collection.

However, I digress. I'm good at that.
What really slapped a saveloy up
my goats back passage was the following.
Go on Labour, let's hear you blame the
SNP ran council. I look forward to the current
MP Lyndsey Roy of Mordor explain away
his concerns, free from the
constraints of a Labour party
gun-toting PR lovey working him by
means of cold hands up his shirt tail.













GLENROTHES BY-ELECTION REGISTERS GO MISSING

Tricia Marwick MSP for Central Fife today
(Tuesday) called for an inquiry following
the revelation that the marked electoral
registers for the Glenrothes By Election
have gone missing.

The marked registers are the only record of
who voted during the election and were
delivered to the Sheriff Clerk's Office
in Kirkcaldy by the Returning Officer
at Fife Council.
The marked registers must be kept
for a year and are made
available for inspection by
individuals and political
parties.

John Beare the Convener of the SNP
in Central Fife first
asked for the marked registers in
November and following
numerous phone calls the Sheriff Clerk's
Office finally admitted
on Friday that the records were missing.

Tricia Marwick said:

"The marked registers are an
essential element of any
election campaign.

“They allow a check of who voted,
but not how they voted,
to confirm that the election was
conducted properly.
Without these records there is no
evidence of either a fair
or unfair election.  This undermines
the confidence of everyone
who took part.

"It is almost beyond belief that a
by-election which attracted
media coverage throughout the UK,
which delivered such a surprise
result and had a much higher
turnout than anticipated now has no
records to show who actually voted.

"There now needs to be the
fullest independent inquiry
carried out.

“The registers must have
gone missing almost immediately
after they were delivered to the
Sheriff Clerk's Office because
the SNP first asked for copies
on the 19th November. I also want
to know why we were not
told that the registers had gone missing
when we first started to
make inquiries about examining them."



Shocker eh? Let's see them squirm and blame.
Make accusations of sour grapes, blame the
SNP council, anything but open their
eyes to the possibility that the Labour party
are a corrupt cabal only interested in retaining
power and privilege.