Labour drone assault continues.

 

Forces loyal to beleaguered Labour Leader Iain Gray vowed to continue their attack against SNP Rebel held positions across Scotland last night.  

With a record-low popularity and facing an electoral wipeout, sources close to Mr Gray, speaking from the parties alpine chalet atop Arthur's Seat, known as 'The Doos Nest', said, "Although Iain is unpopular with voters and our policies simply do not stand up to the mildest of examinations, we know that it is our God given right to rule Scotland. The glorious thousand year reich started by our saviour Tony the Blair in 1997 will not collapse over something as flimsy as democracy." He continued, "Our councillors, council placemen, Quangocrats, media commentators, journalists, state reporters, MP's, MEP's and MSP's are armed to teeth with an arsenal of lies and innuendo, we will not stop, until the smile is wiped off Alex Salmond's ample coupon."

As shelling continued over key marginals, the United Nations taking advice from officials at Westminster declined to enforce a 'No Fly Zone', citing that this was a local issue that would only be inflamed by outside interference. The smaller Independent nations throughout the European Union have called on the EU to send in International electoral observers, particularly to oversee the expected huge surge in postal voting that appears to favour the Labour Party by a mind boggling ration of 10:1. The devolved governments of Northern Ireland and Wales have demanded that the EU impose sanctions on the Labour Party and State Broadcaster BBC Scotland for their overt bias in a supposedly impartial election. A spokesperson for BBC Scotland said, 'Get it round ye."

The SNP led by long time freedom fighter and pie connoisseur, the Tartan Overlord, have vowed to fight on until the last issue of Saltire is delivered. Speaking from outside a Greggs Pie shop, the sleekit leader opined, "We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long days of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: we shall fight them at invisible bowling, fight them in the Subways and fight them at the ballot box. Iain Gray's personality may embody those very drones that are flying over our heads as we speak, we shall however, raise our faces skywards and give them an almighty Victory sign."

Despite the exposure of their sinister plans for Independence, by all sides of the Scottish media* the SNP have simply gone about their evil business and are out on the streets of every town in Scotland, smiling and handing out saltires to tousle headed, terrified weans and their gang pressed families. Their pathetic message of Hope has no chance of winning the electorates heart when matched with the universally popular Labour parties serious warnings of Fear and Doom

* BBC Scotland understand some delusional downmarket English tabloid have come out to back the SNP.

         

'Ye Labourites by Name'

Loving this. 

ElliotSteven adapted the lyrics of Burns anti-war, humanist 'Ye Jacobites by Name' to 'Ye Labourites by Name' stuck it up on the cheesey blog and the delightful Weegiewarbler sitting on a boat somewhere sunny, I presume the Dominican Republic, belted out her take on it...Brilliant!

Ye Labourites by name, lend an ear, lend an ear;

Ye Labourites by name, lend an ear;

Ye Labourites by name,

Your fautes I will proclaim,

Your doctrines I maun blame--

You shall hear, you shall hear.

Your doctrines I maun blame--You shall hear.

II.

What is right, and what is wrang, by the law, by the law?

What is right and what is wrang, by the law?

What is right and what is wrang?

A short sword, and a lang,

A 6 month prison term

For them a', for them a'

A 6 month prison term For them a'.

III.

What makes heroic strife, fam'd afar, fam'd afar?

What makes heroic strife, fam'd afar?

What makes heroic strife?

To run wi'oot a fight

And excuse a coward's flite

Wi' bluidie war, bludie war

And excuse a coward's flite wi' bluidie war.

IV.

Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state;

Then let your schemes alone in the state;

Then let your schemes alone,

Adore the rising sun,

And leave a man undone

To his fate, to his fate.

And leave a man undone to his fate.

A giant leap for Mankind... It's more like a stumble in the dark.

When Space 1999 landed on one of our three TV channels in October 1975, the thirteen year old me was delighted. Here, at last was proof that nuclear power was unsafe. For those of with you with only memories for the kitch sets and Barry Morse's hair do. Let me enlighten you. Moonbase Alpha was Earth's Space Research Centre, where we had been storing our nuclear waste in gigantic bunkers on the far side of the Moon. Following a thermonuclear explosion, the moon is sent hurtling into space where the crew of Moonbase discover aliens, dystopian societies and all the mind-altering phenomena you're likely to encounter on a mystery bus tour with Iain Gray and Baron Ffoulkes of Cumnock fuelled on a heady cocktail of Cremola foam and lsd. 

When the series was broadcast young teenagers in Scotland saw it as a portent to a bright new space age future. Iain Gray at this time was a spotty 18 year old wannabe Ned smoking behind the butlers quarters at the fee paying George Watson's College and dreaming of one day walking the killing fields of Cambodia before they happened. We'd already had some bloke from Langholm walking on the moon, Gerry Anderson had progressed from astronauts held up by string to dyed blonde Americans in UFO (ponounced you-foe) and Kubrick had made the seminal 2001, which the teen me fell asleep watching. So the reality of cars that could drive themselves, meals that went into a box in a sachet and came out a few seconds later as a turkey with trimmings and jetpacks to get us down to the shops for the messages could only be a few years away. Sure enough microwaves and GPS eventually popped into the mainstream. After the Los Angeles Olympic games in 1984 it became obvious that Jetpacks were to be the sole preserve of the lunatic fringe of the wealthy/suicidal/obese.

They were a glorious idea, which at this stage in our technological development remain just that. Their lack of appearance at the Haddington branch of Lidl doesn't mean they won't happen eventually. They were never promised. Gerry Anderson never stood up unassisted on Tomorrow's World and said, " One day I guarantee you, we'll all have the jetpacks that you see on Space 1999". Didn't happen. Besides when 1999 finally did come around Labour were still considering such hi-tech solutions to dealing with nuclear waste like dumping it in the Scottish hills.

 

Therefore, at a time when your party loses support on a weekly basis, now is not the time to base the relaunch of your faltering Holyrood campaign on the claim that Alex Salmond has verily failed to deliver jetpacks to each and every postcode in Scotland. Might I suggest a fresh new start, with ten days to go to polling day might include a pledge on minimum pricing, an Independence referendum, a wee bout of self flagellation and putting your colleagues, Baron Ffoulkes, Lamont, Kerr, Baillie, Mcneil and the boy Baker in the stocks?

It's evident that the Scottish Labour Party figure is a fantasy.

Following last nights avian themed analysis of the Scottish election campaign on Newsnight which preceded the latest Iain Gray car crash on Newsnicht, I thought it apposite to warn the leader of the Labour party in Holyrood that the vultures have moved from circling overhead and are just about to commence feeding on his gaffe prone legacy.

The last few days have have seen Labour in Scotland become entrenched in trying to clearly explain their earnest endeavour to slow down and hopefully eradicate knife crime. It's a noble aspiration, but one which they appear utterly incapable of either succinctly explaining or delivering. 

'Carry a knife go to jail.' It's no more than a slogan, intended as a hard line approach to warn the predominately young Scots who carry a knife. If you'll excuse the misappropriation of 'The Untouchables' line, 'it brings a cannon to a knife fight.' It suggests a hard man challenge to our young. It's confrontational and there to appeal to the inner Ned.

 Yep good old BBC and their competent captioning...

Little prominence is given in their campaign to the fact that the reason many young people carry a knife is down to that one simple emotion - fear. They are afraid of being attacked. 

Young Scots are statistically our most vulnerable people. Urban teenagers have little in the way of facilities. The youth clubs of generations past are either underfunded, non-existant or staffed by those who somehow managed to scrape through a Disclosure Scotland check intact. Our young people are increasingly faced with monotonous choices, a life at home plugged in online chatting with their pals on the 'safety' of the internet or alternatively heading outdoors to hang out with their pals, usually on street corners, often near well lit off-licenses. Why do they do so in numbers? Safety, quite simply because they are afraid, and there is safety in numbers.

In 2006, David Gillanders a Glasgow based, world class photographer did a series of documentary reportage photographs for Getty Images on the effect of knife violence in some of the poorest parts of Glasgow. It's a harrowing account that encompasses young lives through bragadaccio, barbarism, buckfast and solemnity. 

  (C) David Gillanders.

David's photographs are exceptional they show in close up the effects of knife crime on young people. The young man above, with lacerations to his ear, face and most worryingly his throat, where an attempt was made to decapitate him with a machete, is without doubt hampered for the rest of his life. In a world where everything is taken on face value, would you give him a job? Welcome him into your family? Let him get romantic with your daughter? His life is blighted.

 (C) David Gillanders.

The last time Labour had an anti-knife campaign in 2006, they did it by way of an amnesty, which successfuly took nearly 13,000 knives, machetes, swords, bayonets, flick knives and old ‘cut throat' razors off the streets. When the five week long amnesty ended - half of these were from Strathclyde alone! I think it was a good campaign and one that should be repeated again, as there was reportedly an element of dumping the dull blades and buying new sharp ones online... If you remember the Scottish Parliament also voted to give the Lord Advocate new procedures with which to clamp down on those who persisted in carrying blades which increased penalties and powers of arrest for these offences.

 

Since then Kenny MacAskill has introduced the No knives, Better Lives campaign, which has encouraged the participation and involvement of young people in deciding the campaigns direction. Using mobile phone technology in Inverclyde to beam bluetooth anti-knife messages onto young kids mobile phones when they are near hotspots and locations previously associated with knife crimes, is having a positive effect with a reported 35% drop in knife carrying.

The fact remains that violence is a huge problem in Scotland, and for all of Labour's tough guy posturing about manadatory locking up, but only at the Sherriffs discretion, there's a long way to go!

So in conclusion, it's an ill thought out policy that they seem incapable of explaining. It seems to be solely rooted in playing up to the fears of victims and their families, it's adopting a confrontational approach which has been shown to be bloody useless. It's been graphically and patiently explained by Isabel Fraser on Newsnicht to dullard Richard Baker that his sums of claiming that knife crime costs £500 million, simply don't add up.

Naturally the key root to all this is the access to cheap booze, and we all know where Labour in Scotland, the friend of the supermarket stand on that.

I started this post with a suggestion that Iain Gray and his leaderships propensity for open goal gaffes is being laughed at both North and South of the border. Grass root councillors, MSP's and MP's are now briefing against him. Post May 5th, the opposition front bench will be shuffled one can only hope that Labours next leader in the Scottish Parliament doesn't behave like a monkey in a knife fight...

I'm not Spartacus, I'm Newsnet Scotland.

 

Everyday in these new online lives we encounter technical glitches. Pages vanish, connections fail, bandwith stretches and servers fail. Occasionally something more dramatic happens and our complacency is kicked in the nads when we discover a favourite site has been attacked. Predominately these are carried out by hacktivists like the labyrinthine 'Anonymous' raising our awareness of the corporate soul sucking behemoths that we've signed up to and whose bland teat we greedily drink from. 

'Anonymous' are legend, their attacks on the government websites in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Iranian election , Zimbabwe, the hate filled Westboro Baptist church, Scientology the wonderful 'Operation Titstorm' on the Australian governments attempt at filtering content and the ongoing Operations Payback, Avenge Assenge and Bradical (the illegal detention of the alleged Wikileaks source Bradley Manning) are all excellent examples of usually young intelligent people defending democracy.

What we saw yesterday in the attack on Newsnet was not a bunch of bored kids playing at high jinks and messing with an evil big megacorp. As Newsnet say, all indications are that this was a concerted Denial of Service (DOS) attack. The sort of thing we tend to find totalitarian regimes like China doing in an attempt to shut down dissenting voices. China, for example where artist Ai Weiwei is currently imprisoned for the great crime of tweeting on his Twitter account: "I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!"

What we need to ask now is who organised this attack, which vested interest, commercial or political would decide to attack a site which is dedicated to the abiding principles of Democracy? You can knock out the eponymous 'Anonymous', they attacked Fine Gaels site and left their logo and this message "Nothing is safe, you put your faith in this political party and they take no measures to protect you. They offer you free speech yet they censor your voice. WAKE UP!"

Newsnet have put their faith in the SNP, the only credible voice on the Scottish media landscape to do so. Obviously I discount the Supersoaraway's endorsement of the SNP today, that decision has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with business. Will they put a noose around Labour's neck on May 5th?

Newsnet back the SNP because they believe in Independence. Because they've witnessed a concerted negative attack from the moment in 2006 when the first polls suggested the SNP's positive message was winning over the electorate. They need and deserve our support. 

The news of this attack, needs to be shouted from the rooftops. Whilst your talking to those who would vote Tory, remind them failing to vote SNP in their regional vote makes Iain Gray First Minister and above all else tell them about this attack on Scottish democracy, because sure as shit, their daily newspaper or state broadcaster wont.

Magnus Gardham, "Everything is just fine."

Every time we switch on our TVs, our radios, open a paper or  go online, there they are - the words of the dreaded 'Government spokesman' with his sanitised, freshly spun take on whatever story might have a deletrious effect on the continuing dominance of their ruling party employers. 

Currently we've got Musa Ibrahim, the rapidly balding hipster with a soul patch and German missus, who's been bigging it up for Gaddafi and his posse, under the guise of Minister for Information.

Before that we had the legendary Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf or as we knew him 'Comical Ali with his splendid catch phrase "everything is just fine". In his favour he said they didn't have WMD's. Score one to  Mr al-Sahhaf.

 Only Italy under Berlusconi attempted to redress this woeful gender imbalance and introduced bonny lass and topless model Marfa Carfagna.

 Here she is in her younger days as a spokeswoman for Tropicana sun tan oil or window blinds or jewelry, maybe.

In the UK, under Labour we had such odious bastards as Alistair Campbell 

and John McTernan

Now what do these people all have in common? Yep, that's right they're all journalists, oh except for Miss Carfagna, she's got a law degree.


The thing is these guys are all rank amateurs, that is compared to the genius that is the mighty Magnus Gardham. 

Campbell may have sexed up a document that led to the deaths of countless victims. McTernan has been accused of twisting the words of official minutes into a cock and bull story about the SNP willing to dump Megrahi to avoid paying crims compensation for swilling out jobby pails whilst residing in the pokey. Ibrahim probably has a gun at his families head to keep him spouting the increasingly ludicrous utterances from the glorious brother. Comical Ali we know faced a likely garroting from Saddam's henchmen. Miss Carfagna, well she''s gone on to become a Minister for Equal Opportunities, runs her own blog and after recent revelations is rapidly becoming known as Italy's version of errr 'Deep Throat', I refer of course to the name given to Watergate whistleblower William Mark Felt and not the early 70's porntastic skin flick... ahem, all of which pales into incalculable insignificance with Magnus Gardham's attempt to portray Iain Gray and the poor Labour Party in Scotland as having 'hardly any supportive voices in the media.'


Ok, he's not quite had a power shower in innocent victims blood, or gargled manjuice to make his way to the desk of Daily Record Political Editor, at least I don't think he has,  but  even Bill O'Reilly, the voice of Fair and Balanced Fox News, couldn't begin to spin this crock of shit as the truth without sprouting an apple on the end of his nose.

Magnus in his one man campaign to redress the imbalance back to a world of unchecked favourable reporting of Scottish Labour's glorious attributes, or fluffing as I believe they call it in Miss Carfagna's former industry, is to be credited for his derring do and strict adehrence to the world of Labour fantasy politics. With a bit of imagination one can almost visualise him swinging from building to building through the night skies in Jackie Baillie's spiderman suit, smiting nationalists with the mighty web sling of Labour truth!

  
Today's classic piece of spin is an amazing story constructed from the Scotland on Sunday poll that blithely ignores the results which put the SNP ahead of Labour in Scotland in both constituency and regional voting intentions and instead focuses on some classic scaremongering,  where he quotes that Titan of Scottish legal affairs, Richard Baker in his assertion that Salmond and the SNP are soft on crime. 

Today's article asks the reader to believe that Scotland's criminals are so pleased with the SNP manifesto and their plans to replace sentences of less than six months with community punishements as recommended by former LABOUR first minister Henry McLeish, that they've got out the bunting, booked a band and are about commence with a bout of synchronised cheering...open your window, you'll hear them all rattling their tin cups against their window bars or perhaps see them climbing onto their prison roofs with banners proclaiming Salmond to be the one true saviour for getting them out of the pokey a wee bit earlier and making them clear snow or pick up other peoples rubbish...

I'll confess, Magnus has become my dirty little secret. I can't wait for each new day to bring forth his amazing reinterpretation of the news and views. For skewering reality, he's at the top of the tree, all other pro-Unionist reporters could take lessons in turning the unpalatable reality of a confident, strong well supported SNP into the magical realism of Labour press release mentalism.  Go spidey go.