The ultimate reason for voting SNP today...

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

Cheese has voted.

The next Scottish Government?

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

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

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


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


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

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

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


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

 

  

 

Desperate times call for desperate men.

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

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

FEAR OVER HOPE

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

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

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

Perfect....

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

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

I love the smell of fearmongering in the morning.

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

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

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

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

The party's over

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

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

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

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

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

The party is well and truly over.

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...