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?  

Only a game...

Just when it looked safe to start supporting Scotland again after our glorious and in no way painful victory over Liechtenstein propelled us to the top of our Euro 2012 qualifying group ahead of world champions Spain, it would take something monumentally stupid to deflect the Tartan army's attention off the field and on to a subject which serves to, ahem, rend apart the social cohesion that binds these British Isles...  

Yep you guessed it those benighted souls at UEFA have only gone ahead and given their blessings to GB and Northern Ireland fielding a Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. Now please correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this put to bed, when the presidents of the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish football associations, despite Gordon Brown's wishes, signed a letter declining the invitation back in January 2009, in which they declared they did not want to participate nor wish to be rail-roaded into taking part. UEFA as ever willing to listen to their members have simply gone ahead and ignored them.

An English FA insider said, "UEFA have made the decision that the Olympic team will be Under-23 and there will be no over-age players. Ideally we would like Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to participate and there will be talks and an open invitation. It would be lovely for us all to get together and unite.
 

“However we fully appreciate the fears that exist about the seeding process, about the International Board, about the other nations’ participation in the major tournaments. FIFA and UEFA have given assurances they won’t be affected, but we suspect that that won’t be good enough.

“We have never had an Olympic team, but we will do now, even if it has to be England alone.”

Isn't that just dandy? According to Harry Harris of the Express, all that remains is to give the job to Roy Hodgson and young Steve Bruce (49) as a trial to succeed the current England manager...

Now I would imagine that should an influential Scottish football supporter take the lead on this and tell UEFA where they can stick their ball, that person might find his popularity rising among fitba fans and voters.

Warning possible seething sweary words ahead.

With BBC Scotland and just about every other Scottish media outlet more or less anointing Iain Gray as First Minister designate, following Alec Salmond's decision to drop the proposed Independence referendum from the forthcoming Parliamentary session. There seems to be a resigned inevitability that the SNP have no chance of forming the next Scottish government and that supporters of Independence had better just accept that the Tartan Overlord seems to favour a gradual, gradual approach to Independence and soon Labour will be back in charge leading us all to a socialist-lite Utopia.


There are a number of factors that have brought about this triumphalist way of thinking in our Unionist opponents. Long before May 2007, Labour and their Unionist sidekicks have used the 'when did you last beat your wife?' school of debate. Over the decades they've consistently spread the belief that the Scottish National Party are a mean spirited, Anglo-phobic minority party only interested in being insular and celebrating the more sinister side of patriotism. Naturally this is intended to, deter the electorate from voting for them, offend SNP supporters and minimise their argument, it does. We're constantly on the back foot, striving to be positive in the face of relentless negativity and having to tread warily in everything we say and do lest we be accused of fascism, racism or jingoism. Pointing out perceived historical injustices is branded the politics of whining. Trying to engage political opponents in debate, soon sees them resort to the usual repetitive dross, which equates to that of a scolded child, sticking their fingers in their ears and bawling 'I can't hear you'. 'We couldn't cope outside the Union', 'we're subsidy junkies', 'Scots will leave in their droves past the guard towers on the border', 'we're all face painted Mel Gibson acolytes' and so on. 

Personally, I've had enough of it, if ever there was a time for Salmond and his team to point out the normalcy and prospects of an Independent Scotland, and keep ramming it down the throats of the electorate and the opposition, then this is it. The wealthy New Labourite, Alastair Campbell once said, 'it's only when you're sick of saying the same thing over and over again, that people begin to hear you.' There's truth in that. The perfect example of this is David Maddox of the Scotsman's favourite phrase 'SNP Accused of', whenever this occurs, our government kicks into default position and politely and patiently tries to explain the rights of whatever malfeasance we've been accused of, we humbly offer our explanations and hope the feigned indignation will dribble away. It's become the mantra set by a narrow clique of happy clappy advisers. We need to speak, clearer, louder and more often again and again and again, till the hard of thinking start to listen. We need other voices to articulate what's going on, rather than the usual suspects. We need to demonstrate that the faith we put in the SNP  as a party of all the talents, is not wasted and left to fester.

I don't have all the answers on how we persuade our fellow voters that backing the biggest Independence party isn't the death defying risk our opponents say it is, but, as a keen history buff I do recognise the links of blame that will surface between now and next May.   

The following story in the Evening News gives the perfect insight to the tactics opponents of Independence will use. Prospective Labour Councillor Bill Cook, believes the path to defeating the SNP is the 'Megrahi effect'. We released him, we did it for BP oil, on Westminster orders, we've embarrassed the nation, the USA hates us, our name is muck, we pander to terrorists, in short we're utterly useless and sanity will only be restored when Richard Baker goes to Libya, grabs Megrahi by the scruff of his neck and throws him back into his Greenock cell to die of his pretendy cancer.

The 'Megrahi effect' will be dribbled out day-after-day until the poor bastard dies, and other than 'compassion' and 'higher authority' our Scottish Government have run out of excuses. The startling lack of clarity in defending the release or even proffering a nod to the possibility that Megrahi might possibly be a victim of injustice is left ignored and unsaid. Everyone and his dog knows that the pressure on the Scottish Justice System (not for the first time) by Westminster and Washington to achieve a conviction on either of the two Lockerbie accused was immense. It didn't matter which one, as long as the West had a hate figure to blame for the destruction, we could all go back to sleeping soundly in our beds.

The stakes have increased with the senators who are vainly attempting to conflate Megrahi's release with BP winning licenses to drill for oil in Libya. All the while ignoring the fact that US oil giant Occidental have an operation in Libya twenty times the size that of BP's, all the while ignoring that fact that non US citizen employees of Occidental were moved to the Libyan Oil agency when the UN sanctions kicked in, and conveniently moved back to Occidental when they were lifted. The shell companies that Occidental set up in Switzerland surprisingly continued operating in Libya during the sanction years are, guess what, back in Occidental hands. Some might say that the USA oil grab never really ceased during the sanction years. All the while trading in black oil with the man their government are convinced ordered the murder of everyone on board Pan Am 103.

Earlier today BP released the findings of their inquiry into the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. No doubt these excuses will be rubbished, the senators will continue to use BP, Megrahi and the Scottish government as a blunt tool with which to bludgeon their way to re-election at the US mid-term elections. All of this duplicity, hypocrisy and underhand dealing serves to remind me of another event that happened in Scotland a mere five months before Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie. 

Piper Alpha.




Piper Alpha was owned by Occidental, the fourth largest Oil company in the world. I remember their repugnant 92 year old American chairman, Armand Hammer flying into Aberdeen offering $1.7 million to a relief fund and flying out the next day with his hands firmly in his pockets, never to return. A close friend of Thatcher and Prince Charles, Piper Alpha was a godsend to his debt stretched company. His insurance claim almost bankrupted Lloyds of London. The Cullen Inquiry laid the blame fairly and squarely on Occidental and a culture of corner cutting and profit protection. 167 men died 200 kilometres from shore because Occidental were too cheap to maintain safety regulations. The first explosion would have burned out and lives saved, had Occidental not continued feeding oil from the Tartan and Claymore platforms, managers were denied permission to cut the pumps, they could see Piper Alpha in flames, but still they continued pumping until the fatal second explosion, because to have shut it off would have meant several days work to restore operations and cost Occidental a fortune. 

As ever our Scottish media thirled to Westminster and America did little in the way of condemning Occidental or America, nobody called for sanctions against the USA, none of the Occidental executives were ever brought to justice or prosecuted for the 106 health and safety offences they breached. In short we grieved our dead and put our faith in the Scottish Justice system, which wholeheartedly failed us, yet again. 

To conclude, and I apologise for the length of this post, but not the utter pissed off-ness I hope you detect in my writing. The 'Megrahi effect' is in the process of claiming another victim, a man that Scotland should regard more wisely. Professor Robert Black posted on his Lockerbie Case blog that an American film-maker had approached him asking for permission to do an interview and give him an opportunity to give his reasons as to why he believes Megrahi to be innocent. As Prof Black's post reveals this was at first a convivial interview for the first hour wherein he answered questions succinctly and patiently, only to see the knife twist and all the vehemence of the vested interests come to the fore, with a camera man chasing Prof Black screaming 'How can you sleep at night?' As he correctly surmises, guess which part of his interview this American film-maker will use? 

The 'Megrahi Effect', how do we counter it, when our own government doesn't appear to have the balls to consider that something might be wrong with the Scottish Justice system? 

The Pontiff and a Parliament of Whores...

Suggestions by some scurrilous types that the Papal cavalcade when it traverses Edinburgh en route to meet Queen Brenda Windsor, Prime Minister Lord Snooty and our very own Tartan Overlord at Holyrood palace, will have to drive through the area of Edinburgh known as the Pubic Triangle, are surely at the whim of a good driver and a decent twat-nav. If the entourage manages to avoid the torrid display of strip joints, 'saunas' and Costas, there's bound to be the odd discrete red lit window on the Royal Mile that'll give the occasional Bishop or Right Reverend a lascivious come hither wink. Possibly there may even be a discount at some of the capitals many pole dancing clubs, for men with a small angry devil under their cassocks.

All of which serves to remind me of a recent trip to the Bodensee or Lake Constanz as we call it in English, wherein I saw the above beautiful lady, Imperia. If you've never heard of her allow me to enlighten you. In 1993 the good burghers of Konstanz (I know these crazy foreigners and their different names for their own towns) decided to commemorate the papal Council of Konstanz back in the 15th century by commissioning renowned sculptor Peter Lenk to create an outstanding art form to overlook the town and the Bodensee. 

The Council served to unite the Papacy behind one of three rival Popes and Pope Martin V was duly elected. Apart from starting the Hussite wars and banning Jews from selling Christian slaves (all other religions were ok) Martin V created a bit of a stir when the Council visited Konstanz between 1414 and 1418. During the interminably dull periods of ecumenical debate, he had a few opponents offed, notably Jan Hus, the radical free thinker and philosopher who was burned at the stake for daring to question the legitimacy of his Papacy.

He settled what remained of the Western Schism and stomped on any remaining rights of Paganism. The arrival of the Papal circus was a great boost to the local economy, having the entire hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church decant to Konstanz was the equivalent of hosting the Olympic Games, the World Cup and a Beatles reunion every day for four years. Konstanz was already an imperial city subject only to the Holy Roman Empereor, a neat ecclesiastical loophole allowed clergy to live affluent tax free lives, it was estimated that up to one quarter of the population claimed clerical dispensation. Add to this mix of lavish wealth, randy apostolic brethren a pornucopia of prostitutes, pimps, potentates and pederasts and Konstanz resembled a scene of unrivalled Bacchanalian orgies.

La Belle Madame of them all was Imperia, who had men wilting at her very touch. Herr Lenk, knowing that Emperor Sigismund had personally thanked the city of Konstanz, in writing, for providing 1,500 prostitutes for the period of the Council's stay, decided to take Imperia as his muse. Inspired by Honoré Balzac's novel, 'La Belle Imperia', he devised this homage to the greatest hooker of them all.

Imperia stands ten metres high on a rotating plinth, weighing in at a svelte 18 tonnes, in each hand she holds an effigy of Pope Martin V and Emperor Sigismund, both are naked except for their Crowns. 

   
She was assembled in place overnight, under cover in great secrecy. When she was unveiled the next day there was universal outcry from the good burghers, they had at least expected something a tad more restrained, devout and sacred, not some giant tart, with her boobs hanging out, holding up two naked old buffers. The Bishop of Freiburg almost fainted and had his advisor's send a strongly worded letter of condemnation. Demands were made to pull it down, plots of subterfuge from fundamentalist Christian groups threatened to blow her up and sink her in the Bodensee. The plinth is cited in the harbour which is owned by German Rail company Deutche Bundesbahn, who in turn told the critics to travel and copulate. To this day she is the foremost tourist attraction on the Bodensee and Konstanz, I'm reliably informed still has more than its fair share of cathouses. 

I'm not suggesting that Pope Benny avail himself of the plethora of pleasure palaces that infest our fair city, when he visits next week, just that the whole event isn't choked up with hypocrisy, that a Papal letter regarding the child abuse scandals is issued and that an explanation is given as to why Mass is being charged for and the Pope is allowed to wave at the people of Scotland and drive by the Scottish Parliament, but is not allowed to enter...Do I detect the cold dead hand of former Secretary for the State of Scotland, Jim Murphy MP?

Scotland's future: Three scenarios.

Hugely impressive video of the choices facing Scotland in the run up to next years Holyrood election. Watch the video, if you think it manages to successfully summarise our options, then pass it on.



Scotland 2030 from 00:/ on Vimeo.

Freedom of Speech...between 9am and 5 pm...strictly

Rather enamoured to see that the Herald, have finally opened up their comments section on a trial run. The page for registration is here.

Hopefully, it remains open and is moderated in a sensible fashion unlike its previous version where opponents of Independence were allowed to smear, fear and disavow without recourse. Its closure was firmly blamed on the hitherto unnamed 'cybernats', without any analysis or fact. A few commentators with a pro-Union agenda ground it into the dirt. Here's hoping it works better this time and fulfils the promise of free speech .

The news that yet another oil field has been discovered in the North Sea, hopefully puts an end to the nonsense that the oil has peaked.


I truly heart the description of the oil technologist on the BBC Scotland documentary 'Truth Lies Oil and Scotland' describing in great detail, how they now have the ability to push the equivalent of a damp piece of spaghetti up Walter Scott's nostril, down through his intestines, down the stairs of his monument, out onto princess street and weave their way through the traffic until finally hitting the jackpot at Leith!



This news coupled with the belief that Scotland's renewable sector is potentially large enough to power half of Germany, surely adds succour to the argument that now is the time to have a devolved, combined Oil and Renewable Energy Fund, with which to address the legacy of lost opportunities in Scotland. The Fund Manager industry in Edinburgh, untainted by the recession and Banks bailout, are the perfect people to run it, and hopefully like in Norway it could have a humanitarian aspect to it...

The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.

 As the Scottish media begin to get their collective knickers in a flap at the prospect of the thin blue line getting even thinner due to the impending apocalypse of Labour's recession that threatens to bring the country to its knees in a holocaust of untrammelled crime and pure mad mentalness, it might be an apposite time to ponder over the expected responses and blames that will emanate from certain quarters.

Without directly quoting  their brave local MP, the Dumfries and Galloway SubStandard manages to jump ahead of their bigtown counterparts and place the blame fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the local council and the Scottish Government. Chief reporter Craig Robertson, summarised the 'last minute item on the police committee agenda' as follows:  

138 support staff could lose their jobs. 

Officers would be taken off the front-line to cover backroom work. 

The structure of the force could be reduced from two divisions into one.

School liasion officers could be removed.


Drug and fraud squad officers could be cut.

Police stations might even be closed

The proposed cutbacks are as a result of the reduction in cash coming from the council and Scottish Government and are the clearest indication yet on how local policing will be affected.

Now Craig is a sweet young feller with a fascinating line in faux Liam Gallagher haircuts, flamboyant padded jackets and impartiality, particularly when it comes to SNP councillors sharing cars to meetings and claiming mileage for it, thus saving the tax payer two sets of mileage claims...However, in this case he manages to throw an awful lot of conjecture into a piece lacking detail, but jampacked with fear, naturally he doesn't mention that the original cut in funding is coming from...where? That's right the pocket money that the London parties dole out to the teenage parliament in Edinburgh.

The irony of course is that this last minute addition to the police committee meeting appears on the agenda at the behest of D&G's Chief plod Pat Shearer, who, when he's not thwarting crime as far afield as Annan and Stranraer, wears this splendid title; President of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, or ACPOS for short. Mr Shearer is no stranger when it comes to stirring the pot, particularly when it comes to protecting his members inflation proof pensions and deploying the begging bowl in a style worthy of Master O. Twist. He also presided over basic errors in arithmetic when his force accountant managed to count their pension contributions twice and added up his forces budget wrong. Pity he released these figures to the local media which resulted in near apoplexy from our Unionist friends. Only when the error was discovered was it passed it off as 'an honest mistake', of course this wasn't given as much coverage in the esteemed Substandard.

So far, so D&G. We we are told cutbacks are inevitable, Les Gray (no relation I presume) of the Scottish Police Federation warns this morning that 'People will not be safe on the streets'. Unison leaders cannot rule out 'industrial action'. Which makes me wonder whether there's a natural justice in bringing retired miners out of their care homes to 'police' any police industrial action. What goes around...

The reality is, that cuts are going to have to be made, the Scottish Government will get both barrels of the sawn-off shotgun of blame for a mess they are simply trickling down from our Lords and masters in Westminster. Then again, with crime stats supposedly showing us that recorded crime is at a 30 year low (aye right), the plethora of CCTV cameras (nope I've rarely heard of one saving a life or catching a crim) and fancy new police websites (goooo D&G, second best polis website in the UK, how many hits?) perhaps there are certain areas where the Police service might trim the fat, like every other organisation in the land. I'm not suggesting doughnuts should be cut, but some plod and their police dugs, could do with losing a smidge weight.