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. 


 

Magnus Gardham the gift that keeps on giving

Sometimes satire isn't enough to combat the utterly hatstand utterances from our Unionist press. Sometimes it's not worth the effort or bloodpressure risk to point out each shit encrusted utterance, sometimes you just have to print out their epistles word for word and allow others to savour each dazzling gem of absurdity. 

Ladies and Gentlemen for your delectation I present. 

Magnus Gardham and the Last Propaganda Crusade 

More media support for Salmond

By Magnus Gardham

THE SNP election campaign looks set for a boost from Express Newspapers.

They have long flirted with Alex Salmond in their Scottish editions.

Initially that was the result of owner Richard Desmond's deep antipathy towards Gordon Brown; he thought supporting Salmond was a great wheeze in terms of winding up the former PM.

Now, though, it seems it's down to good old-fashioned wonga.

I'm told SNP donor Brian Souter has bought a huge number of papers to hand out free on his buses in the run-up to polling.

They'll include an SNP pull-out.

In the meantime, political hacks at the paper know what's expected of them...

Labour would never have received much sympathy from the normally Tory-supporting Express but the news is still a blow for Iain Gray, who has hardly any supportive voices in the media.

All this follows our revelations about News International coming under David Cameron's orders to campaign for an SNP victory.

The Sun's verdict today on the SNP's somewhat lacklustre manifesto is: "Eckstra special."

But more worrying for Labour will have been NI stablemate The Times' splash yesterday: "Double hit for Labour as policies are mocked."

It amounted to this: a disgruntled follow-up to the Record's exclusive on Iain Gray's call to end corroboration in rape cases combined with some rather manufactured hostile reaction to Labour's plans for more teachers.

But it shows which way the wind is blowing.

Here's the link to the article and the comments section. Which is priceless.

Magnus Gardham for being the English equivalent of Bill O'Reilly I salute you.

Ed's big adventure to Scotlandshire

Double click on photo for full on Wallace-tastic joy

Hold steady now, the moment has arrived, Ed Miliband is venturing North and coming to very near the top of Scotland, where he'll meet his bestest Scottish chum Iain McGray. 

Ed: Just look straight ahead before he goes off on one.

Iain frightens Ed, because he always seems angry. Iain has been on holiday to lots of dangerous places, Ed likes that, he wants to go to Cambodistan and Rwangola. He doesn't like Chilli it's too burny burny.  Iain smells of cigarettes. Cigarettes are bad. But Ed's friends say that Iain is popular so they say that he has to meet Iain and go for a walk with him.

Where is Giggity's rosette?

There'll be opportunities to play in a helicopter and meet 'real people' you know sort of people with accents and fit like. His friends Danny and Jimmy played in a helicopter with him on a holiday to Afghanibob, where they played at being soldiers and the silly sausages put their rucksacks on back to front.

Come on chaps the Killing filelds are just over there.

When Ed last visited Scotland, Iain told him it would be fun if he tried on the divers outfit. it wasn't, the photographers laughed at Ed.

Ed diver: Thank Christ safe from his breath.

When Ed and Ian have stopped playing with helicopters they'll take the train to Dundee. Ed likes trains, but he doesn't like sitting beside smelly real people. But when people with cameras follow Ed all day, it's best to pretend that he likes the real people, that's why his friends run around and remove the 1st class headrest covers from his seat. Ed's friend, big Ed, didn't like it when they hid the 1st class covers under his seat. He threatened to twat little Ed next time they're alone. Ed had a bit of wee come on his pants.

Big Ed: Smile all you want, I'll fuckin' have you, you twat.

 Girls like Ed. Iain says he can fix him up with a real girl in Dundee.

Oh good no teeth.

Real Scots Read the Record

You still see them in Scottish towns on the back of cars that with a bit of luck might just make it through their next Mot, if the inspector isn't too handy poking about the undersills with his screwdriver. I'm referring of course to those emblematic window stickers that the Daily Record used to hand out to their readers, so that they might recognise each other, indulge in a quip about the football or what Angus Og had been up to that day. Their signifier was of course the legend, 'Real Scots Read The Record'. As marketing propaganda goes it's up there with the very best of them. You're not reading the Record ergo you're not a real Scot. No justification, no science to back this claim up, just that subtly racist suggestion, that you might live here, be born here, work, pay taxes and die here, but until you swallow the philosophy of the Daily Record, well you're really not quite one of us. 

I loved the Record when I was a nipper, we didn't get it in our house, but my gran did. Weekend visits to leafy Cambuslang were always lit up, by me, up at the crack of dawn and hurtling across the road to Sandy's precariously balanced newspaper shed. The building hung out over the railway embankment, if memory serves me correctly it shoogled quite dangerously whenever the lightweight eight year old me breenged into it. I suppose it was the smell of the ink, or even in some cases the warmth of the fresh print bundles that I liked. Sandy used to let me cut the twine that bound the copies together with his old tartan clad penknife. Today Labour would probably have him branded a knife carrying nonce and banged up the moment he pocketed his knife and went out on his rounds. By the time I ambled back across the road, gran would have the coal fire on, with a full Scottish sizzling away in the pan. After breakfast, she'd peel the paper apart and give me the section I wanted to read and send me off to my den at the bottom of the garden, the Anderson shelter that my grandad built when he was home on leave. 

I'd while away a couple of hours reading and trying to understand why Angus Og and Lachie Mor kept running away from big Mairileen. Other imponderables included the wrath displayed by the Reverend Peter McSonachan upon discovering Angus and Lachie had been on overnight adventures to the West Indies in the boat on the Sabbath, or Constable MacPhater and the Laird of Drambeg always being tricked out of a giant salmon or brace of grouse by Angus. It was a genuinely nice setting to some of my childhood. When we had holidays on Ard na Murchan, I'd spot the same characters, whilst stuck outside the Kilchoan Hotel in the car drinking bottles of lemonade and munching on packets of salt 'n 'shake - for hours on end.  

Of course, as I got older it began to dawn on me that the Angus Og cartoonist Ewan Bain was just about the only Scottish thing in the paper other than the football results. It was only in my late teens, when I started reading the Scots Independent and discovered his cartoons were there too, that I realised he'd been a subversive nationalist deep within the bowels of the unionist Daily Record. All those fly digs at Westminster and the Labour ministers, whilst the front page had been cheerleading away in a blaze of Hope and Glory.

All of which, if you'll excuse the trip down memory lane brings me back to today. This afternoon, I happened on a tweet by one Tom Watson, at first I pondered on why an American golfer was tweeting the rather dersiory 'Alex Salmond's cosy relationship with Rupert Murdoch and the Tories' further investigation took me to the following link . Yep a website ran by and devoted to UK Labour. The Tom Watson in question is an MP and was supposedly up to his sweaty armpits in the Damien McBride sleaze-a-thon. Here's a photo of the bonny Brownite.

The article is basically a spinning operation on behalf of the Daily Record, Alastair Campbell and the Labour Party. It quotes Daily Record political editor Magnus Gardham (is it just me or does he not sound like Mavis from Coronation Street?) and his fantasy politics that the Sun are pointing out the truth about Labour's disasterous campaign and reporting those various celebrity blandishments for the SNP as all part of a blood and spunk pact between Salmond and Murdoch...

The irony for me is the Daily Record complaining about the supposed political direction of a 'downmarket English tabloid', remember 'Real Scots Read the Record', when they are in fact owned by Trinity Mirror an err English company, headed by the voluptuous Sly Baillie and these other people.

Now Sly and company must sit back sometimes and wonder what's gone wrong with a title that's gone from having the worlds second highest saturation level in its own market to having a smaller readership than its downmarket English tabloid arriviste rival The Sun in just over 20 years. In that period the Daily Record plummeted from sales of circa 750,000 newspapers per day to the current level hovering just above the 300,000 mark. The Scottish edition of the Sun sits somewhere in the region of 370,000 - ouch. In fact as recently as 2007 Trinity Mirror was valued at £1.5 billion, by the end of 2008 it had plummeted to a market value of £250 million - double ouch. Rather ironically in 2005 Ipsos Mori did a poll on the political affiliations of daily newspaper readers, you'll never guess which UK paper's readership had the strongest affiliation with the Labour Party, yep, some 61% of Daily Record readers support the Labour Party. Oddly enough the same poll indicated that 22% of their readers supported the SNP...Quite a base level that with nearly a quarter of your readership supporting a party, your editorial is vehemently opposed to. Now I reckon in the intervening years, particularly when we've had four years of a moderately successful SNP Scottish Government, that 22% figure may have shifted somewhat. 

If I were a Trinity Mirror shareholder looking at the lovely and preposterously highly paid Sly, I'd be thinking some polling of the Daily Record and readers current political affiliations and some shifting of editorial stance might just be enough to up the dividends for that new holiday home on Barbados...One would hope that Sly would consider getting on the blower to new boy Eugene Duffy, the man in charge of the Nationals Division of Trinity Mirror including the Record and Sunday Mail... For blog followers, Eugene Duffy replaces Derek Stewart Brown, (my old Pcc Megrahi versus the lying Daily Record) nemesis who was previously managing editor of all the Scottish titles, but who has now been moved into the alluringly titled Head of Motors and Commercial Supplements - triple ouch.

Fade to Gray

This could not be more pertinent, and it was written by Midge Ure!

One man on a lonely platform

One Mags standing by his side

Two eyes twitching cold and silent

Shows fear as he turns to hide

Fade To Gray lyrics

Songwriters: Ure, Midge; Currie, Billy; Payne;

One man on a lonely platform

One case sitting by his side

Two eyes staring cold and silent

Shows fear as he turns to hide

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Un homme dans une gare desolee

Une valise a ses cotes

Deux yeux fixes et froids

Montre de la peur lorsqu'il

Se tourne pour se cacher

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Sent la pluie comme un ete ecossaise

Comme les notes d'une chanson lointaine

Sortant de derriere d'un poster esperant

Que la vie ne fut si longue

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Feel the rain like a Scottish summer

Hear the notes from a distant song

Stepping out from a back door Subway

Wishing life wouldn't be so dull

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Ah, we fade to gray

Deperir a gris

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Deperir a gris

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Ah, we fade to gray

Deperir a gris

Ah, we fade to gray, fade to gray

Ah, we fade to gray

I'm Scottish but I cannot help it.

Ed Miliband, the heir to the man with more teeth than sense, in a blinding masterstroke of political campaigning has sent furth an emissary from London to his Scottish branch membership. His mission, to show his poor unenlightened  Northern Jocks how to win an election. 

Ed and Iain, a touching relationship.

It is now a distant eight years ago since the Labour regional party last won a 'local' election at Holyrood. They then faced a weak SNP riven by internal rumblings after a particularly nasty leadership tussle between the gradualists and the fundamentalists. John Swinney emerged victorious, but was condemned as the Iain Gray of his day, aka a charisma free zone, with little or no public perception. 

The McConnell -Jim Wallace pact was at its most vulnerable, with gaffes being served up on a near daily basis by our then somewhat saner media. Simple things like private security firm Reliance forgetting to lock their prison van doors led to crims legging it to freedom, including a convicted killer. There was also McConnell’s much derided decision to attend a golfing dinner in St Andrews rather than the French D-Day commemorations, or the very public square go with Sir Sean Connery during the Tartan Day celebrations in New York, even the leaking to the Daily Record of sensitive commercial information regarding job cuts to ensure the future of Scottish Opera, were all open goals. Unfortunately substitute Swinney got the jitters and blasted the ball over the bar from the penalty spot. Nary a goal was scored at FMQ's. Polls at the time showed that support for independence was higher than support for the SNP. Campaigning under the rather milksoppish 'Release our Potential', the SNP came a cropper and Labour romped to victory on a record low 49.4% turnout. Politics in Scotland was at its lowest ebb and the electorate most disillusioned. Labour had won by default, not on their record.

So fast forward eight years and Ed and co have decided that as well as copying the widely agreed successful SNP government policies, what their membership really needs to firm up their core vote is the raising of the walking dead. Arise Maggie Thatcher, Queen of the Zombies.  This rekindling of Thatcher's ghost is according to those who spin for Labour, in our media. apparently sealing the deal with their core vote, which they place at an unqualified 30% of the electorate. 


Unfortunately when you govern a regional branch remotely, you have no real idea what's happening on the ground, particularly when you're dependent on one who walked the killing fields of Cambodia, when he was nbut a bairn. Ed and co have to realise that Scotland is not stuck in the 1980's, Kirstie Wark may be working the same look, but the rest of us have moved on. Civic Scotland for all its faults will not hark back to the Unenlightenment, where Labour in Scotland produced the feeble fifty, who sat by collecting their expenses, wages and pensions whilst working class Scots went hungry. They offered no support to miners, steelworkers, ship builders and presided over the emasculation of the Scottish workforce. They took their Union support and shafted the workers.

Thatcher's babies may be in charge in London but electing a nonentity like Iain Gray or his next-in-line arrogant tithead Andy Kerr to protect Scotland would be as effective as entering Jackie Baillie for the Commonwealth Games ladies marathon.  

Even the anti-SNP Scotland on Sunday have seen through their lies and roundly excoriated them for it in their leader. It's not often I agree with the Johnston Press but on this occasion my tweed cap is tipped in their direction. 

Funographic failings and Iain Gray.

It has to be said, there's been a seismic shift in attitude and latitude towards the Scottish branch of the Labour Party from the Scottish branch of The Sun tabloid. This past week or so we've seen The Sun indulge in Labour kipperings on everything from Jim Devine and the failings of Scottish Labour general Secretary Colin Smyth and soon to be, if rumours are too be believed, ex-MP Gordon Brown.

To the outing of Holywood stalwart Brian Cox as a closet Eck's Man

Which saw him reveal his true thoughts on Iain Gray and the dogs dinner that Labour in Scotland have become.

However, today, Andy Nicol the journalist responsible for most of these stories ( and a none too shoddy novelist) more or less hammered the Saltire to the Sun masthead when he mocked Iain Gray and the Labour Parties pathetic, written on the back of a fag packet manifesto.

 

It's a rare condition for SNP/Independence supporters to find themselves indulging in a spot of schadenfreude at the expense of the all mighty Labour Party, particularly when it comes in such a high circlation blatt as the Sun, circa 330,000 papers sold per day. Whilst support in the form of the old 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' school of thought is to be welcomed, it has to be with accepted with extreme caution and with it a reminder of these words.

"Vote SNP today and you put Scotland's head in the noose."

That front page was the most disgraceful bluntest propaganda by so-called journalists seen since Devolution. It was an offence against democracy for members of the Scottish press to crow bar their blatant and crude beliefs into an attempt to influence the Scottish public. 

Lest we forget, over one million people in Scotland, who buy the three best selling papers, the Record the Sun and the Daily Mail, were told that a vote for the SNP would cost tax payers £5000 per head, income tax would go up 3 pence, hundreds of thousands of jobs would be lost. All these lies were presented as actual fact, straight from Labour's election leaflets dreamed up by the likes of John McTernan and co. 

The SNP government won by the slimmest of margins in the face of relentless negativity from the Scottish media, wur ain couthy State Broadcaster, postal vote irregularities and of course electronic ballot counting, complete with extremely complex ballot papers, all administered by Westminster. In our favour then and now is the online presence and technology. Last time around the campaign was all about the SNP's then revolutionary electoral software 'Active8' which utterly trumped Labour's own electioneering babbage machine, which couldn't differentiate between tenements and houses...Online, there were a few blogs about, but mostly the disgruntled with access to a computer logged on to fulminate on the pages of the Scotsman and the Herald. My abiding memory of the 2007 election was updating the Hootsman forum as the results came in and announcing to those readers around the world that the SNP had done it. This time, we're completely blogged up. The excellent Newsnet goes from strength to strength and garners amazing numbers of readers that have trounced the online presence of both the Hootsman and the Herald, all without selling out to some shady corporation. They cater to pro-Independence supporters and present them with the news in a radically neutral style, albeit from an SNP supporting stance, hey if the Record can do it... Then there's Twitter.


Stepping into the world of the Twitteratti during this election run up has become fairly interesting. I'm on there under @MarkEMacLachlan alongside sundry others from the Scottish blogosphere. Interestingly the funniest and most compelling tweets come from the likes of non-bloggers like @grahame_case, @GML1320 , @CSbungo, @bcnsco , who also has an excellent Youtube page as does @baronsarwar , and his eponymously titled Youtube page.  

I've never met any of these folk in real life, at least I don't think I have, but there is no doubt in my mind that they are are mobilised and are handing Labour their collective arses on a plate. @ScottishLabour like much of their policies and attitudes are still stuck in the past and have not cottoned on to the fact that 140 characters is more suited to wit and whimsy than worthy leaden phraseology crimped from the diaries of Harold Wilson. 

This move away from Labour by the Sun is hopefully something we'll see in other areas of our media. Mayhaps Scotland will only be free when the last Labour councillor is choked to death with the pages of the Daily Record.


Addendum:

I've just heard on Twitter from several sources that Iain Gray was forced to abandon a photocall at Glasgow's Central Station this morning and flee in a taxi, after being confronted by anti-cut protestors...Couldnaemakeitup.


Here's the video of it after being re-imagined by the splendid Bcnsco

A wannabe pedant writes...

IT is easy to be derisory about politics in Scotland, and, as we're all aware, there is much to be derisory about.  Our regard for our politicians,  these keepers of the gate, continues to plummet, to such an extent that more often than not we'll hear that weary refrain “they’re all the same”. Sometimes it's difficult to argue against this jaded viewpoint, but politics is important because, excuse me while I go all Michael Jackson in a non-touchy manner here, we have to think of the children. 

Our quality of life and that of our children are of paramount importance and like it or not, that quality is dependent on politics. Being indifferent on matters of health, education, the planet, justice, equality, how we care for our older citizens and even the freezing of our council tax is determined by politics and those we choose to be politicians. Therefore, we expect those who would govern us to show care and precision when attempting to persuade us that our franchise is best served in their care.

All of which brings me to those in the Labour party who believe they have got what it takes to run Holyrood. These are not people without intelligence, they are of the professional classes, they've been successful in school, they've graduated from our universities and some have even gone on to teach our children. They know that presentation is important, they know that how politicians behave and present themselves to the public is part and parcel of the merry dance of electoral politics. Similarly the literature that they use to garner support has to be properly funded, utterly truthful, and accurate in every way. Let me repeat that, accurate in every way.

You have to ask as Blair trumpeted on about Education, Education, Education like a stuttering Kurtz, were any of the Labour party members, MSPs MEPs MPs or staff actually employed to proofread their campaign literature? The above doozy wherein they vow that 'Scottish Labour will abolish the failed Scottish Labour', is smack bang on p68 of their delightful manfesto. The online launch of the manifesto was delayed as their industrious gnomes went through it with online tippex whilst a stentorian dominie stood over their shoulders with a poised steel ruler. 

Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that the electorate turn their back on them for grammatical and spelling errors, I dare say the other parties will produce clangers, like the above manifesto and election leaflets from Flakirk (sic) have, and heaven forfend I'm apt to drop the odd clanger too. However, this flip floppy approach to free verse cannot go on. 


Back in the day when a young 40-a-day Iain Gray was limbering up as potential MSP, the late scholarly Donald Dewar would never have allowed such shoddy preparation for an election...

For those of you, who like me, refuse to buy The Sun.