Nicola Sturgeon and Kezia Dugdale may have been making some points on Thursday during Furst Meenister’s Questions, but no one really noticed. You can always be certain about Kezia’s points, which are always SNP bad and delivered in a very whiny voice that is so high pitched that it would make mosquitos grate their teeth if they had any. It was something about education, which was entirely appropriate seeing as how a particular Labour MSP was behaving like he was a six year old in the school ground arguing over who’s turn it was to have a sook of the joob joobs. And amazingly, it wasn’t even James Kelly this time.
When Nicola Sturgeon was speaking about Labour’s shiny new tax policy and how it was basically a load of auld bollocks that would impose tax rises on low paid workers, Neil Findlay MSP called out “Liar!” The Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick asked whoever was responsible to fess up, but for possibly the first time in his political career Neil had discovered the benefits of staying schtum. He sat there and boldly said nothing at all, hoping to remain as anonymous as a spanner.
She ought to have told the entire Labour contingent that they’d sit there until someone confessed, while she told them that whoever was responsible was spoiling it for all the other boys and girls. It would only be fair, if you are going to treat the national parliament like it was a kids’ slanging match, you should be treated like a six year old and sent to bed without any pudding.
Naturally our state broadcaster managed to get through its entire episode of Reporting Where The Little Jockish People Are without mentioning the incident. Nothing that portrays the Labour party in a bad light is allowed to make it onto the main Scottish news in case it detracts from the important message that the SNP are really, really, bad. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Labour MSPs are allowed to act like six year olds in parliament and call out childish insults from the safety of a crowd. If he wanted to call out childish insults he should get himself a blog, or at least become a journalist who tweets under a pseudonym.
It was quite appropriate that all this happened on the day that scientists at Glasgow University announced that they’d been instrumental in the discovery of gravity waves emanating from the collision of two black holes in a far distant galaxy. Scientists have been searching for the elusive waves for decades. It took the light from the explosion 2.5 billion years to reach the Earth, which if nothing else is at least a shorter time frame than the wait for Kezia Dugdale to announce a coherent and properly costed tax policy. If only the scientists had thought to examine the Labour party in Scotland the gravity waves would have been discovered much sooner as the scientists would have got a close up view of an implosion of massively dense objects disappearing into nothingness amidst a poisonous radioactive haze on a weekly basis.
It’s all Labour knows how to do, when they’re not slinging abuse at the SNP they’re slinging abuse at one another. Just about the only people that Labour doesn’t sling abuse at are the Tories even though abusing Tories is the easiest thing in the world because they do so much that’s abusable. Even junior doctors who aren’t gynaecologists know a Hunt when they see one. Not that they get to see him very often, the English Health Secretary has refused all invitations to an interview with Channel 4 since he got his job and only finally consented to one when the presenters took to mentioning how long he’d been dodging an interview at the end of every segment about the English NHS crisis.
The Tories are destroying the NHS in England, they’re destroying the devolution process with a fiscal settlement that they’ve admitted will cost Scotland £3 billion, although they’ve made a revised offer and will now give Scotland a packet of stale hobnobs – but not the chocolate ones – and a pre-sooked joob joob. You’d think this would give a supposedly left wing Labour politician plenty to get his invective teeth into, but Neil would rather call out childish insults against the leader of the only party that actually provides a consistent opposition to the Tories.
Neil’s got previous for arse-wipery. Some months back he Tweeted something about SNP MP Pete Wishart, only Neil with his flair for the art of invective called him Wete Pishart. Oh how we all laughed. Neil had been up all night with a Scrabble set working that one out. You might imagine that a man whose name is an anagram of I’ll Die Fanny would think twice before going down the let’s rearrange the letters road, but Neil’s problem is that he suffers from a neurological condition that causes him to open his gob before stopping to wonder whether what he’s about to say is either witty, or accurate, or indeed whether it will make him sound like a complete and utter trump-nugget farting his way into political ridicule.
Neil’s now facing disciplinary action. Probably something like having to write out “I must not call Nicola Sturgeon a liar during FMQs” a thousand times. Or he could be kept in for detention after Parliament has finished for the day and have to write an essay about how it’s not big or clever to call people names in Parliament. Although if Labour was prevented from name calling they would be left without anything at all to say. Which wouldn’t be such a bad idea really.
Having been caught out, Neil eventually issued an apology for the unparliamentary language “attributed to me” and said he wanted to replace the word liar with dishonest. That’s the classy kind of apology we’ve come to know and love from Labour. He can’t even take responsibility for words that he used himself, he has to qualify them as words that other, and presumably evilly vile SNPish, people had attributed to him. It’s a mealy mouthed non-apology apology. A sincere apology from a Labour politician would be as amazing a discovery as a gravity wave. As things stand, Neil is as sincere in his apology as his party is sincere in their regret that they stood alongside the Tories in the referendum campaign. It’s that insincerity that is causing the voters to turn away from Neil’s party, and which means that many of his colleagues won’t be returning after May to hear him call out childish insults at FMQs.
After May, Labour in Scotland will be as difficult to detect as a gravity wave, imploded in a black hole of their own creation, lost in the cold and the darkness far far away.
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Excellent and so topical.
Ach…Classice even the Gynos see a Hunt when they see one !!!!
[…] Neil Findlay’s amazing gravity wave […]
Tip tip tip top stuff, wee dug. “see a Hunt when the see one” – brilliant. And anagrams of Neil Findlay. Really loved that blog. Thanks
Reblogged this on pictishbeastie.
[…] Source: Neil Findlay’s amazing gravity wave […]
I think it safe to say there is no Helping Scottish Labour now: They are utterly lost, having vanished of their collective arseholes. Scottish labour; or the FUD party, as I would like to call it now, should never be allowed to pass wind in Holyrood let alone pass policies.
Give Labour credit, they provide the ammunition for Paul to provide us with gems like this. Where would we be without them? Probably Independent.
Question of the Day, was why did Kezia not stand up, apologise for the statement and say she would make sure the person was identified and would own up, after she had spoken to them; that would have been leadership.
That requires an experience and maturity beyond her.
Favourite one liner of this one
“He sat there and boldly said nothing at all, hoping to remain as anonymous as a spanner.”
I think they were all a bit shocked and embarrassed, not by Findlay’s shouting of the word “Liar” but by his shouting of the phrase “Lying Whore”, which they were too busy trying to hide by saying “He said liar”. Needless to say, BBC Labourland dutifully edited the footage with a little sound gremlin to mask that on the recorded footage but those of us who watched it live heard the real utterance from the irrelevance.
Very well said Paul.
Mr Findlay went beyond the bounds today and the plain and simple fact is he couldn’t help himself. A victim of all consuming tribalism and hatred. The self same affliction which is sinking Labour without trace. On today’s display, it really is time to go now.
When all you have to offer a parliament is childish, hatred driven slander, then it’s time to close the book. Labour proved today, beyond any reasonable doubt, that they are not fit to represent either their constituents or the wider Scottish electorate as a government.
It should be an honour and a privilege to take your seat in that chamber and perhaps that is Labour’s problem. Perhaps they believe it is their right, their entitlement. Honestly? I don’t know, but I do know that today they brought shame upon their own benches and embarrassment for their constituents and our parliament.
May cannot come round quickly enough.
They think of Holyrood as their creation, entitlement and personal property. Jumped up 2nd tier Councillors.
Maybe that is what Labour wanted all along, shite cohort at Holyrood, under a permanent Lab/Lib rule to prove how incapable we were to govern ourselves. Tony Blair always considered it as Local Auithority
Their plan started to disintegrate in 2007 and is going greta guns in unravelling. Long may it continue until it and they die.
Got to say, they’ve earned every bit of what’s coming their way. Upon a time I would have argued the need for Labour in an independent Scotland. After their actions over the past two years and culminating in that…. display today?
I’ll not miss them.
Scotland could easily lose all three unionist parties and still have plenty to spare, with the potential for the creation of new parties, to create a healthy, intelligent and far more progressive democracy. What we’re seeing now in chamber? What we saw today?
Grim fella, just grim.
I learned a long time ago in business when a business was failing in a structural way and had got to a stage when a reanimation was impossible, start a parallel unconnected one with a different business model, invest there and then change horses.
I like to think it was the desperate outburst of a man who knew that come the day, he might very well no longer be an MSP. Scottish Labour has lost a popularity contest with the Scottish conservatives for chrissakes!. The Scottish Conservatives!…a party that 8 out of 10 Scots won’t vote for and regard as shit on the heel of their shoes. And people think the likes of Findlay identical to the tories but less competent.
This has been brought about by (as Derek Bateman said ) knuckle dragging levels of stupidity. But to be honest – they richly deserve this defeat – they really do.
To be sure, it takes a special kind of mindless stupidity to hate the way certain members of the Labour party and a certain demographic of their vote do. I’ll never understand it and the sooner we consign it to the electoral bin, the better.
Superb analysis of the present situation with the MSM and the Labour Party. What a fantastic put down of Findlay
Hope he has the sense to read what you have to say. But too late. They’re on their way out in May……and not before time. We need mature debate in Holyrood – something we’ve yet to see from NF and many of his colleagues.
Is it really too much to expect that those sent to our Parliament and paid handsomely, for what after all is a fairly cozy job which requires no qualifications, to at least act with some decorum?
There was more than one voice shouting liar including a female
Reblogged this on Bampots Utd.
Neil Findlay reminds me of a second rate wotzisname 😇, the ex Labour MP for Govan and James Kelly makes me think of someone lost in some empty infinite space.
He should have tried Gloria Steinem’s tactic in a recent American political stooshie with a ‘I’m sorry you misunderstood me’. That worked a treat for us.
Is it true he actually said “Lying Wh*re”?
If that was shouted in the general cacophony, it must have been mostly off mic. Certainly the word liar, shouted by more than one, but primarily the ill mannered Mr Findlay can be heard quite clearly.
If what you’re saying is true though and someone can prove that, a whole new and different shit storm would be headed Labour’s way. For their own sake, ‘liar’ had better be the worst that the mics picked up.
I wrote on the National that if he did say that, automatic removal from the party, deselection (obviously) from list, and loss of severance pay, SHOULD ensue he should be (forevermore) a pariah, no excuses, no forgiveness!
Completely agree John.
I’ll keep my powder dry till its actually proven though. The hard of thinking on the Labour benches have fanned enough flames of division and animosity in their mindless thrashing about. Enough that they’ve already blown any credibility with the electorate big time and yesterday’s performance has pretty much put paid to any pretence that they are a party worthy of government.
They’re looking for a street fight, a smear fest and we can’t fall for it. They live for such contests.
If indeed Mr Findlay or someone else on those benches said such a thing and its proven, then due procedure should be used and Labour called on it. More importantly, I think its up to the FM, as the directly injured party to decide what she feels is the right response.
IMV full penalty and sanctions for saying such a vile thing should be levelled at them as you describe, but folk should leave it there and focus on removing a party that condones such behaviour from office.
I’d rather not give these folk the satisfaction of the kind of contest they’re looking for.
Fantastic piece of writing Paul.
(Not) Labour have long since lost their right to even a quark of respect.
They no longer have any care for ordinary people, so enmeshed are they in their hatred of the party that the majority of Scots look set to vote for.
They are the black hole of Scottish politics from which not one single photon of enlightenment escapes.
They are about to experience the gravity of gravity and momentum. The event horizon of May awaits them and beyond it lies the oblivion they deserve and which is entirely self-generated.
To infinity – and don’t come back please.
Might I suggest another anagram that may fit just as well? In the style of an Italian dictator Findlay could be “Il Idle Fanny”.
Fannily Idle
Not an anagram, but surely ‘Nill Fidelity’ is worth a shout?
My understanding is that the word ‘liar’ is not allowed to be uttered in Westminster – the reason we had phrases like ‘stranger to the truth’. So why do Labour in Scotland think it appropriate to use it in Holyrood, especially when referring to our First Minister. In true Scots fashion we often on sites like this refer to her as Nicola, Wee Nicky, and to Alex Salmond as Eck. Those are terms of endearment and of showing they are no better than the rest of us in Scotland. A warning they should’t get too big for their boots But when it comes to more formal occasions and to the Scottish Parliament we will show them the respect they are due. Labour seems unable to do this. Not the calibre of people we want to run Scotland or to represent Scotland at any international event or level. Labour are sinking daily and surely it can’t too long before they bury themselves beneath their own bile and contempt.
“The respect they are due” or at the very least, the respect due to their office e.g. First Minster of Scotland, whoever happens to be the current holder.
Fly in denial
Fly in and lie
Finally dine
If I n deny all
If deny all in…..Parliament?
I finally end
…. after reading your put down of Findlay and (especially) Hunt, with respect to gynaecologists, I can think of no better quote than one of the immortal lines beloved by the late, great Dick Emery …. “oh!, you are awful ….. but I like you” !!!
Annon as a Spanner – Class!
Labour in Scotland are just cowards trying to behave like bullies and failing …
http://moflomojo.blogspot.com/2016/02/working-class-hero.html
“he should get himself a blog, or at least become a journalist who tweets under a pseudonym.”
Are we sure he doesn’t already?
For an individual to get better, they first of all have to be self-aware that something is wrong.
For any organisation to get better, they first of all have to be self-critical of that organisation and then be aware that something is wrong.
The scottish branch of stragglers are light years away even from the above realisation.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away … labour were actually a decent party with principles that represented decent folks … but that was 2.5 billion years ago before they encountered the black hole of greed, and entitlement and disappeared up their own a**ses!
I watched FMQ live yesterday. The Dugdale and Rennie show. Kezia was ‘doing a Ruthie’ by waving a thick document about, reportedly a list of the cuts that Perth and Kinross are being forced to make (that’s ‘efficiency savings’ in Red Blue and Yellow Tory-speak) because of SNP cuts. Not the Tories’ Cuts; it’s all that Bad SNP’s fault.
You may recall that as Murphy’s Deputy during the great Tea Trolley Disaster of May 2015 Kezia was backing the £30 billion in ‘austerity’ cuts voted through at WM by the Better Together Blue, Red, and Yellow Tories. Indeed I recall with relish Irn Bru Man being slapped down very publicly and humiliatingly by Chukka Umanna (remember him?) on that formidable Westminster Blob Andrew Neill’s show, refuting Murphy’s nonsense that Ed Miliband’s New Labour would not implement £12 billion in cuts, sorry efficieny savings to Welfare and Tax Credits and ‘non protected’ Government Departments and LA’s, just like the Blue Tories (that includes you too, Tank Wummin Davidson).
Oor Wullie was backing her. Lift the phone , Nicola, and it will all go away.
Oh dear, what a pusillanimous pair they are.
The nonsense that is the 1p tax and £100 rebate has been outed elsewhere on social media, despite the best efforts of the Unionist Establishment MSM’s to con the Scottish readership into thinking otherwise. How do these guys sleep o’ nights?
And how did the BBC State broadcaster report on the days events at Holyrood?
Brian Rainbow Braces Taylor topped and tailed the FMQ live programme, before we were whisked away to London and Andrew Neil’s tedious little Westminster Gossip Column of a show.
After welcoming viewers from Scotland and Neill thanking the Fife Police Band for the tie which they had sent him (whit?), straight into Junior Doctor’s Strike in England, Google’s tax bill, a report on Mao’s Little Red Book (who are Clydebank playing this Saturday?) and a wee promo for a Brexit Documentary…Oh, me misera…That’s your lot on BBC Kelvinside’s coverage on Holyrood politics on TV. Back to the Brainwashing SE for ‘real’ politics, Andrew Neill style.
You may recall that Trevor Baylis invented the ‘wind up’ radio, and it was used to great effect in Africa with sets issued to poor citizens to disseminate information on AIDS. Since BBC are denying us licence payers TV coverage of Scottish Politics ,which some of us find ,well, kinda important, and the 3 1/4 hours of hegemony that is BBC Breakfast with the 2 minute section for news ‘where you are’ every half hour, doesn’t quite cover what’s happening Up Here televisually, perhaps they could issue free wind up radios to the Poor Great Unwashed Lumpen Proletariat Up Here so that we can all tune into BBC Scotland Radio instead.
Worry not, through the wonders of the WWW, I tuned into BBC Radio on my old steam driven PC. BBC Kelvinside/Scotland….perhaps there would be more there…John Beattie and Glenn Campbell….3 minutes…’striking’ and ‘enlivened’ debate on tax hikes mutters Campbell, and Beattie mentions the ‘liar’ word, then back to the world of Morningside and Jordanhill.
Undaunted, I access Reporting Scotland. Gravitational Waves was the headliner, Women’s Prison to close, Live at Holyrood for Income Tax vote, 2/3 of primary pupils learning a foreign language, the rugby of course, and rum moving from Barbados to Banchory…oh, dear.
The ‘live’ relay from Holyrood was the ubiquitous Brian Taylor reading from a scrap of paper wrenched from a butcher’s order pad, telling us what we all knew..including Kezia and Wullie…that the Swinney budget had been passed.
Again we have the BBC imbalance…Dugdale and Rennie Better Together repeating the same old tub thumpery, while NS , heavily edited by BBC Labour is sandwiched in between. Job Done , BBC Kelvinside.
This morning I accessed Scotland 2016 from last night.
Gravitational Waves, Women’s Prison Closure, and oh yes, tagged on at the end, today at Holyrood.
Even more Better Together bias, with NS’ comprehensive replies to Dugdale, Rennie, and indeed to Davidson’s genuine concerns over delays to payments of Farm Subsidies and the IT failure of the payments system and to Murdo Fraser’s 49 seconds of hard graft on RBS’ concerns on increased business rates, and the FM’s response to both completely ignored.
Kezia’s the star of BBC Scotland….live with it.
The sooner that the electorate realise this the better. Oh dear.
I love the wee bit at the end where two commentators/journalists are invited to comment on the day’s stories. Almost exclusively Unionists, last night Katie Grant and somebody called ‘Loki’ (who mentioned WGD and WOS) had their say.
According to Grant Scotland is the ‘best place in the world to be middle class’ with the SNP in power. The lad Loki observed that Dugdale was ‘pretty competent’. He needs to get out more.
I hope the good professor who is monitoring the MSM for bias sat through yesterday’s manipulation and attempts by the BBC Establishment to distort the content of yesterday’s FMQ and debase the constitutional importance of our Parliament.
Roll on May
This’ll leave a mark – Ooft!
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/02/12/40-scottish-labour-mps-we_n_9216594.html?1455274241&
I think there are a fair few skid marks in the undergarments of the current Labour cohort.
Just wondering if they’re feeling the ‘better togetherness’ right about now?
together in the same claggy
For sure, but let’s consider the fallout for a second.
If this is the train of thought of a currently serving shadow cabinet minister, then you can bet your hoose, they’re not the only one. The PLP have basically cut Labour Scotland adrift and intend to concentrate on winning English votes in future ballots.
Damn, that’s cold.
After everything Labour in Scotland did to ensure a Westminster win during the referendum, up to and including, alienating their own electorate, trashing their own GE electoral chances in the process, their thanks is basically good riddance to bad rubbish.
From the article: ‘In-fighting over Labour’s failures at the last election has seen some argue that the party directed valuable resources in Scotland when it should have been defending seats like that of Ed Balls and others in England.
Some Labour MPs are pushing hard for a more distinctive English message for the party, with former Shadow Education Secretary recently calling for a referendum on an English Parliament, amid fears it will take years to recover in Scotland.’
Ridiculed and shunned on both sides of the border.
I hope they’re asking themselves ‘Was it worth it’ by this point.
The fundamentals of devolution means it is impossible to square the two circles of Scotland and England. Tories don’t give a monkey’s as they will never need Scottish MPs, just our wealth. They use Labour as a plaything.
People often accuse the Conservative Party of a lack of humanity but the real lack of humanity is in the Red Tory Scottish Branch. There has never before been a more venal, spiteful and hate filled group of people in Scotland (and that includes the Orange Order).
A vile misogynistic insult which is covered up by a female branch office caretaker shows the mindset of this desperate bunch.
SLAB : They stand hopelessly yet stubbornly facing the oncoming tide which will wash them to oblivion. What a bunch of cnuts!
“After May, Labour in Scotland will be as difficult to detect as a gravity wave, imploded in a black hole of their own creation, lost in the cold and the darkness far far away.”
Great ending, Paul, and a metaphor we can all fall in love with.
I hear that, when asked to detect a reason for the existence of Neil Findlay and Jackie Baillie, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory staff resigned en masse.
Astrophysics can be a bitch.
“After May, Labour in Scotland will be as difficult to detect as a gravity wave, imploded in a black hole of their own creation, lost in the cold and the darkness far far away.”
A great metaphor, Paul, and one we can all fall in love with.
I hear that, when asked to detect a reason for the existence of Neil Findlay and Jackie Baillie, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory staff reigned en masse.
Ain’t Astrophysics a bitch?
Go ask NF if he approved of the privatisation of hospital ancillary services with Gordon Brown’s PFI? Ask then why there is a concerted effort at his local PFI to bring such services within the NHS Scotland umbrella?
‘I’ll die fanny’ Hahahaha!!
Although, the BBC, daily record etc are off their game these days. I’ve been disappointed at their lack of screeching headlines such as ‘BAD BAD YESTAPO SEPARATIST BLOGGER MAKES DEATH THREAT AGAINST PROMINENT LABOUR SAINT!!!!’
That would have amused me to no end.