Has anyone seen Kezia? She’s as elusive as Johann Lamont was when she was branch office manager of Labour in Scotland. Kezia is as elusive as Jim Murphy was ubiquitous. Every day Jim stood on an Irn Bru crate before the fawning ranks of the Scottish press to announce policies on things like the exploration of Mars and how alien life forms seeking to parasitise humanity would be totally different from a Labour MP’s expense claims. Jim’s policies may well have been as fictitious as the existence of the Scottish Labour party, but the one thing you couldn’t accuse him of was being shy of proferring an opinion – even if that opinion was invariably that the SNP was terribly, terribly bad, and that in Jim’s view Jim was the best thing to happen to Scotland since the country emerged from underneath the melting glaciers at the end of the Ice Age and people started to complain about the rain.
Kezia doesn’t do opinions, plural. If you trawl through all of Kezia’s public pronouncements you’ll find that she’s only got a single opinion on everything. That opinion is that the SNP is terribly, terribly bad. She’s quite keen to offer that opinion, but not to offer any others because other opinions might involve some joined up thinking, and joined up thinking is hard. Far easier just to blame the SNP.
Labour is currently looking to blame the SNP for the closure of the Forth Road Bridge, even though it was the Labour party that voted against building a second road crossing and then spent all its time criticising the Scottish government for the decision to use Chinese steel in the new bridge even though it was the actions of successive UK governments – including Labour ones – which ensured that there’s no Scottish steel industry capable of supplying the kind of steel required for a new bridge. The UK media is now investigating whether it was the decision of the SNP to vote against war in Syria that caused the unleashing of the Kraken to attack the bridge. The closure of the bridge sparked off hundreds of jokes on Twitter from Edinburghers about how Fife was now shut of from civilisation with no escape from Gordie Broon. It is however terribly unseemly of the capital’s residents to gloat as it should be pointed out that Amazon’s warehouse is on the Fife side. So Seasons Greetings Edinburgh online shoppers, your Christmas is in Kirkcaldy.
Anyone who lives in Scotland and has ever turned on the BBC knows by now that absolutely everything is the fault of the SNP, including the extinction on the dinosaurs whose footprints were recently discovered on Skye. Although to be fair the SNP are responsible for the extinction of Labour dinosaurs, although despite the SNP asteroid which wiped Labour from the electoral map in May, Labour’s dinosaurs seem to be as unkilloffable as an annoying character in a leading BBC sci fi programme and continue to stalk our TV screens. It’s said that after the body expires it takes the brain a few seconds to realise that it’s dead. It’s been several months since the Labour party in Scotland was decapitated, yet its mouth still won’t stop moving, proving that both the Labour party and the Scottish media are exceedingly slow on the uptake and have less intelligence than a corpse.
While we are all fully versed by now in the myriad ways in which the SNP is exceedingly bad, what we don’t know is what Labour’s policy is on just about any topic you care to mention that doesn’t involve blaming the SNP. Does anyone know what the policy of the Labour party in Scotland is about going to war in Syria? Since even the Daily Mail struggles to lay the blame at the door of Nicola Sturgeon, Kezia hasn’t said, and no one in the normally eager Scottish media has bothered to ask her. They’ve been far too busy hounding Natalie McGarry, because probable accountancy errors in the accounts of a non-profit organisation are far far more important than finding out whether the second largest political party in Scotland has a view on whether or not Scotland should be going to war.
We’re not supposed to question our political masters’ decision to take us to war. This is because it’s the act of a statesperson to take the decision to risk civilian deaths and to destroy a foreign country for no other reason than a tokenistic exercise in making the UK look good in the eyes of its allies, whereas it’s bullying and disrespectful of ordinary punters to demand that the same legislators explain and justify their actions.
Meanwhile the Herald newspaper crowed that “Scottish fighter jets” were to be involved in airstrikes on Syrian targets. And there was us thinking that Scotland didn’t vote to become independent last year so there’s no such thing as a Scottish fighter jet, just RAF fighter jets. If they were Scottish fighter jets then it would be Scotland’s elected representatives who decided whether or not they’d be involved in airstrikes. But 57 of Scotland’s MPs voted against taking action in Syria. The misuse of language is a pathetic attempt by Unionists to make out that Scotland is punching above its weight and is involved in world affairs only thanks to our subordination to Westminster.
If they’re really Scottish fighter jets then Trident missiles on the Clyde must also be Scottish nukes – so why can we not get rid of them? Because the truth is, as any child could tell a Unionist journalist, that Scotland has no control at all. Scotland doesn’t decide whether this country goes to war or not, Scotland doesn’t decide whether to have nukes or not. Scotland does as its told, and no amount of media spin is going to put a positive gloss on that sorry state of affairs.
Holding the Labour party to account falls through the cracks in the Unionist case for the Union. They’re the last Unionist party with any support in Scotland, and that support is more corroded and cracked than the pillars on the Forth Road Bridge. Unlike the Forth Bridge, there’s no amount of duct tape that can repair Labour’s fortunes, although if we could tape it over their mouths when they launch into another bleat of SNPbaaaad then the world would be a happier place. All that’s left for Labour and the Union is to slowly fall into the sea of Scottish indifference, and be washed away on the tide of public opinion, taking the Union with them. It’s getting closer every day.
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[…] Has anyone seen Kezia? […]
Kezia did, of course give an interview to the Guardian, a very full and fulsome one too. The lucky journalist to scoop this Pullitzer Prize foundation essay was
Bomber Harris, late of Westminster, Glasgow Labour and Labour hame.
Ah, Hon BtP
That explains the slavering tenor of that piece of hagiography which sounded like a mating call at the height of a lustful courtship.
However, has La Dug spurned the said Romance poet and fled over the flawed Brit Brig over the Firth to the manse of one of her other mentors (?) (Geordie must be wailing into his dram, too, @this doe-eyed minx of the FM’s QT who does a fair impression of steering a bubble car on Youtube with JaBa poking her back).
Classic Mills & Boon swoon stuff.
Now Cammers digs Chinese dosh, does she luv Chinese steel?
Fifi La Bon-Bon might if the price was right:)
Yea and don’t forget FFsake was and maybe still is on the Intelligence Committee (honestly!) and I often wondered if they had a wee proto anti SNP propaganda group working away sliding him lines which the Dug (aka as Fifi La Bon-Bon) was punting on blogs?
Ask Tris, she can’t even get her Ffrench right. Bonbon is masculine; I’ll leave it at that.
I have always said that you have no right to complain about the way things are if you have no alternative to offer.
(Not) Labour are stuck in a monotonous loop of SNP Bad.
So problems arise at a new mega hospital when four old hospitals are squeezed into one new build. But it’s all the fault of the SNP – not the highly paid executive and senior management at NHS Greater Glasgow.
Our Eleanor says that there is no money to staff a geriatric unit because of the £850 million spent on the new build – despite knowing that you cannot transfer money out of the capital build budget to pay for other things (but, hey, why be honest when there’s a chance of doing an SNP Bad story?).
Then some cracks appear on an old bridge currently carrying many times more vehicles than was intended. But it’s all the fault of the SNP (the ones building a replacement bridge when nobody else wanted to) – not the independent company which manages the bridge and is in charge of maintenance.
In order to vote for a political party you have to have something to vote for. But here in Scotland with (Not) Labour we have no idea what that “something” is. And at the same time they are incapable of giving credit to anyone of a different persuasion.
They have become an irrelevance – legends in their own lunch breaks. All they can offer is SNP Bad but almost no one in Scotland is buying it.
First-rate analysis, SA!
“I have always said that you have no right to complain about the way things are if you have no alternative to offer.”
I hate to say this, but no, you don’t.
It’s perfectly possible to realise that something is wrong, without being able to suggest anything better.
The most explicit example of why not I could come up with is: “You don’t have to be a mechanic to realise that the engine’s fallen out of your car”
Or there’s all the unsolved maths problems out there.
Of course, Labour have been doing politics/government wrong for decades now, but that’s a separate issue.
My thought is generally: “If you’re not trying to make your country into a utopia, then you’re doing government/politics wrong”
I agree with you in part. But we’re talking about politicians seeking high office. It’s all right for an average punter to complain that’s fine and dandy. But if a politician actually wants to have people put their trust in them to fix that problem and your entire party apparatus, including your policy wonks and policy units don’t know how to do it – then frankly that party is in no fit state to be in charge.
oh, I agree with you completely on politicians, because their standing for election is them saying “pay me to fix the problems”
By doing that, they’re claiming to be the mechanic able to put the engine back in the car, but all too often, they end up telling you that walking’s good for you, so they’re doing you a favour by not fixing your car, when you need to get across the back ends of the highlands in 2 hours.
Like I said, if they’re not trying to turn their country into a utopia, they’ve got their priorities wrong.
In Steve’s piece, it is obvious that he is referring to politicians as complainants. Therefore, I would suggest that he is quite correct in his assertions.
Well yes, however there was nobody forcing the SNP to effectively privatise the Bridge in the first place, so it really was a puzzling move,
Not one of their best policy decisions and I say that as an SNP supporter.
Paul, your point about Scottish fighters and Trident was reposted on Twitter with an acknowledgement on separate following tweet as original was on 140 Chars limit. Wee change of spelling shoehorned the sentence just in.
Being a pedant, I must point out that the Amazon warehouse is in Dunfermline, not Kirkcaldy.
Left or Right?
Fife has aye been Left.
Reblogged this on pictishbeastie.
[…] Source: Has anyone seen Kezia? […]
I can only tell you what real people are saying, or not saying, on the doorsteps. And since the media “storm” broke over both Michelle and Natalie, not a word.
Contrast that with todays canvass, when there was almost unanimous disgust at the H.O.C decision to allow air strikes in Syria. These were opinions freely given, and were not elicited by the canvasser.
This in itself is strange, you don’t usually get people commenting on specific details,and I believe it shows the depth of anger shown by, once again, real people, who are recognising more and more the utter contempt that we, the Scottish people, are held in by Westminster.
Of course, the campainging we are engaged in at the moment is to make sure as many S.N.P, M.S.Ps as possible are returned the Holyrood next May, but surely with the continued sidelining of our elected representatives at Westminster begining to be noticed, and by association, the people of Scotland it must have a knock-on effect.
While I always advocate caution in the calling of another referendum, it may be that the arrogance of the ruling party at Westminster, and their unionist acolytes, could speed that day. If todays doorstep opinions are anything to go by, then more and more people are no longer fooled by the utter pap fed to them by the M.S.M on a daily basis.
Long may this continue, and I live to welcome an independent Scotland, not for me, but for my great-grandchildren.
Excellent intel from the door-steps, Alex, which defies Brit media spin.
However, one issue: Am 60 and am damned if I am dying without a Scottish passport.
I’d rather join Auld Nick in the raging fires of Hell than line up to Peter at the Gates of Paradise bearing a Brit one.
Double plus good.
Be careful what you wish for daibhidhdeux – think of who could be joining you in that raging fire, together with their Brit passports.
I wish you many more years on this Earth and I wish both you and I receive our Scottish passports very soon.
Every one a winner Paul. 🙂
I reckon there’s several things in motion at the moment.
Firstly getting the bridge bollox out of the way. Y’know that SNP ‘vanity project’, the new Forth crossing? Could it be a far sighted Scottish government foresaw the need for a new and fit for purpose crossing? That they were well aware the old road bridge was never intended to bear the stresses of modern traffic? That perhaps the ‘vanity project’ was maybe not such a bad idea and waste of public monies? Shame the old bridge is now showing its age, but to say the SG wasn’t on the ball over the need for improved infrastructure is a bit childish, not to mention moronic from the bah humbuggers.
Next up, young Ms Dugdale. A walking gaff ridden omnishambles that has been swiftly moved into the background allowing the media to do its job IMO. Its probably the worst disguised strategy in political history, but I reckon its no secret that the media attack dogs have been let loose and have gone to war themselves… against the SNP. They’re apparently following the Piers Morgan form book of nothing is out of the range of a thousand mil lens. Every MP, every MSP is under forensic investigation in the hopes that skeletons are found. The result of this naked attack? The media are becoming more detested and shunned by the day. We know what they are doing. We know why they are doing it and it sure ain’t anything to do with looking out for the public welfare.
They aren’t our media. They aren’t our guardians. They aren’t our friends.
They do what they do purely out of self interest and willful spite. That’s the only reason the media and the dead tree press do anything really… money and advantage. Look at our politics, our society, I mean seriously??? Watchdogs, fourth estate? They’re having a fucking laugh. They’re entirely complicit in creating the world we see around us. Joined at the hip to both government at the highest levels and the corporate world. They’ve been creating news and directing public opinion at the behest of their chain tuggers since Methuselah was a boy. They’re as much in need of a pull through as our politics and I believe they fear they’re next for public attention as soon as we sort our governance out… and they may be right. 🙂
Batten down the hatches, its going to be a long winter.
Still, some spring cleaning in May to look forward to.
Absolutely correct Macart. The MSM are indeed complicit in creating the world we see. As I said only yesterday, I recommend a read of Owen Jones’ “The Establishment: And how they get away with it”, which will open people’s eyes to what is going on. There is an army of complicit fraudsters creating the mist which prevents many from seeing properly. The MSM has one if the biggest roles and does not care a jot for ordinary citizens.
Excuse typo please – should be “one of the biggest roles”.
“The result of this naked attack? The media are becoming more detested and shunned by the day. We know what they are doing. We know why they are doing it and it sure ain’t anything to do with looking out for the public welfare.”
Yes they are becoming more detested by the day, let’s hope they keep it up.
The more mince printed, the more apparent it becomes to all, that it is obviously mince.
We sort out our government, then we sort out our media IMO Thepnr.
An independent watchdog with teeth that can and will be a place where people can turn to for redress against the media is a must.
After the past few years especially, I view ‘journalists’ as a species and journalism as a profession somewhere below salmonella on the evolutionary scale and only slightly above the placement of establishment politicians. What they’ve done and are continuing to do is unforgivable.
I raised the purpose of the M.S.M a couple of months ago mac, from the point of view as to why they seem, in Scotland at any rate, absolutely determined to dig their own graves.
We all know they are pawns of the establishment, so have the owners of these lying rags been given assurances, and financial incentives, to keep churning out their propaganda, which, from my experience talking to people, less and less people are believing?
The attitude of the privately owned media, and they must know this, is at odds with the opinions of most Scots, so why do they persist in their efforts to try to make us believe something that is completely nonsense, and has been comprehensively debunked by this, and other like minded websites. Fair enough, not everyone is on the internet, but with all the other means at our disposal, we are gradually getting the truth out there, much to the chagrin I’m sure of our rapidly disappearing, both in sales, and influence, of the M.S.M.
The world is changing Alex and the ‘paper press’ is dying out anyway. Communication Technologies are such that the daily print press is becoming obsolete. The larger media groups are already diverting their resources to online digital and broadcast arenas. They are using their declining years in newsprint to attempt to influence those who are still wedded to picking up that hardcopy from long years of habit. In effect all they are doing is speeding up a process that should have taken another couple of decades, but was and is happening anyway and if it influences just one reader/voter, they’ll consider it job done.
I have not more than a few minutes ago finished reading National Left from Wales. It would appear they have similar problems with their media. Seems they can only find a Labour Party Spokes person to speak about any of the opposition’s policies. I said we had similar problems but ironically in Wales the Labour Party are in Government, here we have the SNP, but it seems only Labour are seen as the safe pair of hands for the Establishment in the colonies.
Aye spooky how that works. Mind you they’ve had a long time to get their feet in the door.
I’d say about now we could use some good news for a change.
The media and political establishment war against the SNP and the Scottish electorate has definitely kicked up a gear of late. Folk are nervous, high strung and on a hair trigger after months of relentless media pounding. Hell, we’ve even had commentators on indy sites/blogs taking a swing at folks of recent times, driving people away from places which should form essential reading.
Tory austerity policy, war, squeeze from desperate Labour and Liberal parties on and off line and their media outlets. Their intent is simple, wear folks down and beat them into submission. Sow argument and division. Break the will of your opponent through constant, unrelenting pressure.
We need a lift and soon I reckon.
Bang on the bribes they are all in it for!
Can’t wait for a thorough Spring gutting of our house post-Holyrood.
That would be the FORTH estate here in Scotland, with its rivets popping and its infrastructure cracking? Maybe it should also be closed for a month, with diversions well signposted to excellent diversionary routes to news and information like this blog.
Reblogged this on Bampots Utd.
Is it churlish to suggest that perhaps the fighter jets are being called Scottish so that, when the inevitable revenge terrorist attack comes, it will come in Edinburgh and not London?
Perhaps someone should tell the Herald that since our masters in Westminster have decimated Scottish industry there is even less Scottish in the Typhoon than our 8.4% share of the UK. Oh, and that, even under DevoMax, defence would still be a UK perogative
To obviate your feared response, we should leaflet Da’esh with the information that the UK Typhoons are made at the aptly named Warton Airfield in England.
Ah, you clocked that, too. A spot of deflection going on?
You noticed that too?
Now the *really* interesting thing will be who gets the public blame for that terrorist attack, when it comes: “evil brown people” or Westminster, for encouraging them to hit Scotland?
Och! leave the wee lassie alane wull ye? puir wee sowel has to find some way of breaking away from her mammy and daddy’s values to forge her own.
She jist husnae worked oot that she’s hitched her wagon to a train going nowhere ……she’ll learn.
Hell mend her I say…..
I suspect urgent huddlings between Labour branch office members to work out how to play it. They’re torn – should they back Benn and risk the palpable wrath of the Scottish electorate, or back Corbyn and risk the Scottish Blairites throwing tantrums. We know Kezia swings whichever way the Labour wind is blowing, but the others? I fear she will have quite a punch-up on her hands, figuratively speaking, and she’s not strong enough.
Oh to be a fly on the wall of a Labour MSP’s office now that the elections are almost upon us. *chortle*
As for the Scottish fighter jets, it’s just Westminster’s charming way of isolating us rather than referring to us as part of that big family. Same with Andy Murray. If he loses, he’s Scottish. If he wins, he’s British. We can therefore deduce the general feeling down south as being thus: “we might get some blowback on these sorties, but hey! Daesh! It wasn’t us! It was the Scots wot dunnit!” I guess we’re kind of used to being the scapegoat for whatever they feel like dumping on us.
Still, it’s not all gloom. The Forth Road Bridge memes currently spreading across Twitter and FB appear to characterise us as a tough, resourceful and indomitable bunch, able to weather any adversity with a wit as sharp as a freshly honed claymore. So there’s that.
Dugdale’s invisibility is a result of two things.
1. The collapse of the Tax Credits strategy. Out of the blue, unexpectedly, the Tories have ripped a plank, a big one, from the Slab attack strategy lined up for the Spring. The Dug does not know or has not figured out what to do next. Hence silence.
2. Syria and the issue of war embarrasses SLAB on several levels.
(a) It’s a reserved issue to Westminster and Hollyrood, in their view should not have a view on
it. But such a pathetic, limiting perspective maybe would have worked in a Scotland of 20/30
years ago but not in the politically energised country of today. SLAB are yet again because
of their mentality, out of touch with Scots, but they cannot help themselves because they are
so bound by the limits of their Unionist ideology.
(b) They can see how the War is more popular in England than here. SLAB can see too how a
baying imperialist Commons anxious to bomb Johnny foreigner is not the best image of
Unionism or of a Union State the membership of is their raison d’etre.
The decision for war exposes too Labour divisions, faction fighting and Corbyn’s impotence.
Taken together I would argue this goes a long way to explain radio silence from the Dug..
On the “Scottish” fighter jets and “Scottish” nukes:
That means that I was right about the nukes belonging to Scotland, when we go independent. So if they’re still there when it happens, we get them, and then we get to oversee decommissioning them.
Nice to know Westminster agrees with that, and I can see them moving them *really* *quickly* as soon as the next referendum gets scheduled.
Ha ha turned on the radio today and what did I hear? Gary Robertson trying to stick to Derek MacKay that the reason the Forth Road Bridge is closed is because the SNP abolished the tolls! If it wasn’t so predictable and sad it would be funny. More pathetic analysis from the mickey mouse team at Pacific Key. Jeez on Friday they were pondering how people with bicycles would manage to get on the train with all the extra passengers. It is Noddy news and belongs in Toy Town.
Agreed, Iain. The bbc in Scotland has given up trying to be impartial – if it ever was! I think more and more people are actually getting less and less angry about the bbc – they’re laughing at the bbc instead!
Hi Paul, haven’t commented for a while but the relentless bile about us is getting silly. The Mother of Parliaments doth protest too much, I fear. I only know this. My son and daughter are for Independence. So are all their pals. I mean all. As you say it is coming. We need you and WoS and all the rest to keep us sane.
So, everybody, be of good cheer. We will win.
Labour should just give up & start again. They are completely discredited. They’ve been putting up morons for elections ever since they started to weigh their votes. Now people have slowly come to realise just what an appalling bunch of inadequate’s they are. I voted labour right up ’til ’97 and I got quite emotional when Blair won. Since then though, I’ve been worn down by a party inhabited by the likes of Murphy, Curran, jeez even James Kelly (how did he get past the selectors?) God help us because now the bbc & daily record are the official opposition.
I think they should call the new bridge FORTUITOUS.
The new bridge should be called “The Saltire”.
If they call the new bridge The Saltire… Will it be extra gripping in below zero temperatures? And if it is, wouldn’t that be Fortuitous. Just asking.
They could quote some Labour MPS and call it “The SNP’s Folly”
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folly for why I find that amusing.