It’s Tuesday, so there must be yet another disastrous screw up in the UK. This is the pre-Chilcot screw up. Today’s the day that the Tories get to shine, if you can polish a turd you’d get the Tory leadership contest. The two main contenders are Teresa May, who permanently bears the expression of a woman who starts each day with a bowl of crispy wasps with bile duct dressing for breakfast before saying a quick prayer to a shrine of Maggie Thatcher, and Andrea Leadsom, who’s what you’d get if you crossed a Pound Shop branch manager with Nigel Farage in drag and then put them in charge of a disability benefits assessment.
Michael Gove is clinging on to his faltering campaign, in the same way that a really obstinate snotter clings onto a nasal hair. No one wants to admit that they can still see him there. But then Michael’s campaign was never about getting Mikey boy into Number 10 to begin with, it was about making sure that Boris didn’t get their either, and ensuring that the wee Tory snotter couldn’t be ignored by whoever does make it into Number 10 – since they’ll only be there because Mikey put a banana under BoJo’s big clown shoes.
Equally the other two candidates’ canditatures were never about them having any realistic prospect of getting into Number 10. Both have now withdrawn from the race and backed the wasp eater. Stephen Crabb and Liam Fox may be arrogant, venal, and self-serving, but they’re not so stupid as to believe they ever had a realistic chance of getting the PM’s job.
Frying Pan Face Crabb stood in order to raise his profile, which hitherto was as flat as his nose. He’s got his eye on the leadership campaign after this one when once again he can delight us with his opinions that gay people can be cured – although clearly being a homophobic Tory bastert is a terminal disorder. And Liam Fox only stood in order to make a bid to get back into the cabinet after getting unceremoniously dumped during the Coalition after that embarrassing little episode with Adam Werritty. But the media haven’t bothered to mention all the many reasons why Liam Fox shouldn’t be allowed within a light year of power as they’ve been far too busy concentrating on the real scandals that rock the nation – like that time Jeremy Corbyn once went into a shop for some organic fairtrade teabags and got change for a tenner even though he’d only given the shopkeeper a fiver.
While the Tory party plays pretend politics with the career ambitions of chancers, millions of people are left with uncertain futures. The Tories want certainty for themselves and their party, the rest of the country can go hang. The wasp eater is quite happy to use hundreds of thousands of EU citizens resident in the UK as bargaining counters in negotiations that will only begin at some unspecified point in the future after the Tories have sorted themselves out and got some certainty for themselves.
There has never been a clearer instance of putting party before people, with the possible exception of the Parliamentary Labour party. At a time of national crisis, a time when the Tory party is leaderless, rudderless, and without a plan, Labour’s politicians have decided that this is the best time to mount a coup against the elected party leader and paralyse the official opposition. If Labour’s spineless plotters do ever get around to mounting a formal challenge to Corbyn, the vote will go to the members who may very well return Corbyn as leader. Labour is now at serious risk of fracturing into two, creating a divided opposition at a time when it was never more imperative that the people of England and Wales had a strong and united opposition to Tory rule. UKIP’s nastiness will worm its way into the political vacuum.
Nicola Sturgeon issued a statement condemning the way in which the lives and livelihoods of millions of EU citizens resident in the UK are being held hostage to the fortunes of negotiations which the Tories will get around to at some point in the future once they’ve sorted out their own internal party problems. Ordinary people should not be bargaining chips in a Tory poker game. It was to Nicola’s immense credit that she issued the statement, and it was to the immense shame of the UK that she had to issue it in the first place. But that’s the ugly and nasty place that post Brexit Britain has become.
Today also saw the news that hate crimes in London have risen by more than 50% since the referendum. Sky News reported that across England and Wales, hate crimes have risen five fold since the EU referendum. Fascists, bigots, racists and xenophobes too the result as vindication of their hateful views. The responsibility for the assaults and attacks rests not only with the primitives who carried them out, but also with a Conservative party which sparked off the referendum as a means of settling internal party differences, and a Leave campaign which used fear of immigration as a whip.
Only in Scotland do the police report no rise in hate crimes as a result of the EU referendum. It’s not fashionable, it’s not accepted in many quarters to say that Scots are better than British nationalists. But we are, and our response to Brexit proves it. The people of Scotland are morally and ethically superior to the Tories. That’s faint praise though. We are also better than a Parliamentary Labour party which uses a national crisis to wring its hands and wield the knife against their own leader. We are better than the selfish rats of Westminster fighting in a sack in order to claim the right to govern us. In a time of national crisis, Scotland rose to the occasion, while Westminster’s so called leaders hid or fought in the gutter.
Even before the Chilcot report is published, with its likely message of the venality of UK politicians, it’s never been clearer that Scotland needs to escape from this dysfunctional mess.
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Wee Ginger Dug 
You’d need a heart of stone Paul.
The government and media narrative of othering for advantage, coupled with the journalism of envy and celebrity, has become a runaway train. Who knew that if you pandered to the worst of human nature you create a society divided?
Naked fear and hatred expressed along lines of wealth, race and religion. All it took to let the genie out of the bottle was one of the most poisonous political campaigns in the UKs electoral history. Those thoughtless, selfish bastards gave the green light to the worst elements of their support and today? Today is another day in Better Togetherland.
I don’t think I have the vocabulary to describe the utter contempt I hold these parties in. The Conservatives for risking the livelihoods and futures of their electorate, putting resident EU and overseas nationals under great stress and fear of harm, or Labour’s reckless, utterly self serving fuckwittery and leaving the UK without an official opposition.
For what both of these parties have done to the electorate and the UKs already less than shiny reputation, history won’t be kind. Not sure anything else I could write would form anything better than saying fuck … a lot!
I think your vocabulary is more than adequate, always look forward to your comments and take on issues. One of the dugs best pieces for me among many brilliant articles, the last paragraph in particular, not just the people of Scotland, but Jock Tamsons bairns the world over, are better than these sociopathic lunatics.
[…] Wee Ginger Dug If it’s Tuesday it must be another disaster […]
Macart, “thoughtless, selfish bastards” & “utterly self serving fuckwittery” – I think you’ve certainly got the vocabulary for these pariahs, but I agree that their selfish, venal antics strain anyone’s store of words to adequately express contempt for them. As to saying “fuck” a lot, keep right on directing it at them and adding “off” at the end. I sent Independence Day greetings to American friends yesterday: they replied that they had a feeling ours wasn’t too far in the future. Amen to that – it’s our only hope for escaping the poisonous failed state U.K. (Greater Engerland).
Macart – totally agree
Paul – well said. Love you. On to Independence!
As olive branches go May’s threat to Scotland to remove British citizenship from indy Scots is a cracker. ls she really that unaware. WTF does she think we are fighting for? l mean seriously does she still think being “proud to be British?” is something to aspire to? l don’t want to be British and can’t wait to make it official by throwing my passport on the bonfire.
Aye, as threats go, she really didn’t appear to have thought that through. How and ever I don’t really think it was aimed at folk like us. I suspect it was more of a motivator aimed at the likes of WATP types and certain older demographics. Though thankfully that particular coinage appears to be becoming debased even amongst those.
When your argument is basically condensed to threat? You’ve lost the argument.
May starts her defence of the union from the premise of threat. A premise flawed on two counts.
1. The UK state doesn’t own the meaning of the word Britain or British
2. Even if it did? It was a shoddy and debased coin before June 23rd. With the actions of the Westminster parties and certain of the demographics they let loose on the wider population after that date? Its not something you’d want to keep anymore.
I used to be comfortable describing myself as Scottish, British and European. Today, I’d be delighted to be recognised as Scottish and European. May’s threat seems no threat to me these days and if she wants a hard border between Scotland and England? I have no problem with that either. Today I would be happy whether there was one or not. If England wants to isolate itself from the world, long term friends and family. That is the choice of their government and their electorate, not ours.
Our government has made no such threats and hopefully never will. Their hand has always been open and offered.
May belongs in the “Dual Kingdom of England & Wales”, as it was recently described in the European Parliament.
Slightly off-topic: I had an interesting dilemma on Monday:
I was going to the hospital for something, and they asked me to fill in one of those “for our equalities statistics” questionnaires, and it asked for my ethnic origin.
I felt really torn, as I was born just north of London, but have lived in Fife since I was five (somehow I still have the accent from down there). I *wanted* to tick Scottish, but since they didn’t say what the question was going to be used for, I couldn’t justify to myself that I could. I ended up ticking British, and feeling really bad about myself that I did that.
I really wish they’d say *why* they were asking these things, it would make giving them the answer that will make their stats come out right so much easier.
Don’t feel bad Illy, its going to be a hard question for many to answer. Most especially now.
How and ever, I’m with Alex Salmond on this one. If you are a Scottish resident and citizen and you’re on the electoral roll YOU are a Scot. Being a Scot is as much a state of mind as it is an accident of birth. You don’t get to choose the latter, but you do get to choose the former.
If you choose to live and contribute in Scotland? If you support the idea of Scotland as independent nation state, then you are a Scot.
http://www.scotreferendum.com/questions/what-different-routes-to-citizenship-will-exist-under-the-scottish-governments-proposals-and-who-will-qualify-for-these/
This may help.
That was my thought, but they were specifically asking about ethnic *origin* which is what got me knotted up.
Goodness knows what possible use they could have for that info when asked that way though. I get the reason for asking in a general sense, because collating and mapping trends in which ethnic groups are getting more/less treatment and what treatment they’re getting could potentially show something useful, but it felt more like it was trying to use one question that sort of correlates to a whole range of different things to confirm that it correlates with a whole bunch of different things.
Curious wording without doubt. The more obvious and usual wording being country or nationality.
So, May is threatening to remove “British” citizenship from us. Bring it on woman, do it now and make my day/year/century. All my life I have never considered that I am “British”. I am Scottish, and will remain so till the day I die.
As for Crabb “curing” anything, does he have a cure for crabbs?
Just one question remaining: which ones of the white settlers will get a Scottish passport?
Any of us that ask for one! Many thanks Nicola for making us all welcome.
http://www.scotreferendum.com/questions/what-different-routes-to-citizenship-will-exist-under-the-scottish-governments-proposals-and-who-will-qualify-for-these/
🙂
A week is certainly a long time in politics. The Scottish National Party had argued that its Commons leader enjoyed the support of more MPs than Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
There are currently 54 SNP MPs but only 40 of Labour’s 229 MPs expressed support for Mr Corbyn on Tuesday.
Speaker John Bercow said he had sought expert advice.
He said Labour “currently constitutes” the official opposition and its leader is recognised by the Speaker “for statutory and parliamentary purposes” as the leader of the opposition.
i wonder what the full text of the considered advice was to the Speaker.. could it have been … yes the SNP can indeed muster 56 MPs and fill all shadow posts and evidence shows them to be competent and consistently present in the Chamber…. but wait, you can’t rule in their favour anyway… because in being an official opposition they would have to represent the concerns of the electorate of England.. and of course we now live under EVEL and we cannot have Scottish MPs raising and voting on ‘English’ matters or being treated as equals under the Union can we.
No need to fuss then. We can all sleep safe in our beds knowing ‘the leader of the opposition’ is looking after all our needs ‘for statutory and parliamentary purposes.’ ……..deliver us from EVEL.
“Labour is now at serious risk of fracturing into two…”
I think that is to be welcomed, encouraged even, so there remains a part which could be a progressive partner to the SNP.
Definitely no future for labour as currently constituted, so the sooner the inevitable split happens the better.
It will not just be EU citizens who end up being used as bargaining chips. Once negotiations finally begin, Scotland will be used both as a threat and a bargaining chip by both sides.
Professor Adam WATP Tomkins, whose second employer, the Law Faculty of the University of Glasgow seem perfectly content to let him hold down a part time second job which is clearly political, declared on BBC Scotland’s debate t’other night that he is backing Gove as the most ‘liberal’ candidate, which seems at odds with that grand old cigar smoking ruddy cheeked tousled haired suede shoes devotee Grandee Ken Clark, who observed over a Sky Green Room post prandial with Malcolm ( £10 Grand a Day and I’m yours) Rifkind that if Gove won, he’d start a war with three countries at the same time.
It may appear that I am conducting a one man witchhunt against the good Professor. You may say that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
The BBC Scotland lot fill our airwaves with the Corbyn saga and the Blue Tory bunfight; yet we only have one of each, Red, Blue, and Yellow Tory WM MPs. We have preserved them in aspic and they sit on our nation’s fireplace just to remind us of how stupid we have been in the past.
Does anybody Up Here really care what’s going on in the Westminster Bubble?
We are being dragged out of Europe against our will. Many of our citizens are being forced into Victorian levels of penury and poverty by government diktat.
Whitehall Civil Servants are trundiling along with the Red Blue Yellow Tory Austerity cuts.
Labour in any shape or form will not form a government for at least two decades Down There.
We must look towards the mainland of our continent, Europe, for support and escape from the Holy London Empire’s Caligula madness.
Vote Yes for Scotland and the EU.
Not only B.B.C Scotland, Jack. I had the misfortune to see the beginning of the 6pm S.T.V News yesterday, and at least the first five minutes was taken up by the bun fights at Westminster.
We have voted for Scotland and the EU. Westminster doesn’t seem to get it!
Reblogged this on Jim's space.
the public today are about to be royally shafted and treated like fools by the establishment upon the the release of the fiction named the Chilcot inquiry that took seven years and is longer than the Bible even after all the carnage we have MC Ternan on the BBC defending Tony , why were you tossed out of Australia again john ? that f/n liar and the rest of tony’s gang should be on trial today , will it ever happen ? how easily we dismiss these white wash inquires well maybe this time we won’t accept this pish and every option is used to convict these criminals
It is Wednesday and another crisis, though the msm treat it so so!
Property funds refusing to pay out money to investors and it is treated so so. Loss of UK triple AAA rating, it us so so! Pound slumps below 1, 30 to the dollar, it is so so.
Bank safety net liquidity to be reduced to lend more to keep consumption going, not investment, treated so so!
Crisis, what crisis and all we do is to increase debt!!!
A Cabinet in paralysis and the contender for the Tory crown wants Trident renewal settled! Priorities eh.
No activation of Article 50, as they have no clue how to go forward and so more uncertainty continues.
The gung hob Ukippers and the generation still thinking of our “finest” hour think we hold all the aces in our soon to be started negotiations with Brussels,nor not so soon, are living in a fantasy world. ( We have no gunboats)!
And some talk of waiting two years before invoking Article 50! I thought Leave could not leave the EU quick enough!?
Westminster, having scunnered our former friends in the EU , think they will be accommodating and bend over backwards. As Angela Merkel stated, when you leave, you leave. Well the Anglo- Welsh kingdom voted to leave, so let them go! They can wallow in bunting-bedecked, windsorian street parties with banners proclaiming “poor, but loyal”, as they did in the 30’s! Ruritania indeed. Sadly,there are some north of the Tweed still living in such a state of imperial atrophy that they fail to see the chaos slowly creeping across HMG in London.
If Continental EU nationals lose status here in due course, how is HMG in London going to react if they do not leave? Collar the lot? Turn the Isle of Man into a holding camp?
The Engxiters and Welshxiters have unleashed dark forces.
An observation. All those EU citizens residing in Scotland whom the First Minister is referring to as welcome in Scotland includes those nationalities whose passport will, within the next two years, have the EU citizenship element removed ie the English, the Welsh, and the Northern Irish.
Using the recent EU referendum voting patterns as a base reference point it is reasonable to say that outside of Scotland roughly a quarter (who did not bother to vote) don’t really care one way or the other; A majority in two of the other three of those constituent parts of the UK State don’t want that citizenship; but a sizable minority plus a majority in the third constituent part are not exactly happy about the prospect.
Many are waking up to the realisation of what neandarathral and philistine attitudes lurks amongst them. The latter within the body politic and the Westminster political and media bubble and the former amongst those who are their neighbours.
Traditional Professions are now going through what blue coller workers were going through during the 1980’s. The medical profession has just rejected a further offer in a long running contract dispute for Junior doctors. As an aside, the crux of what Hunt is doing here is one I am familiar with having being involved in an an industrial dispute over twenty years ago where the same framework was being imposed. In this regard the Junior Doctors are correct in their stance on the issue as what is being attempted is a cost cutting exercise which will try to spread an already thin resource over a longer period.
According to one of the interviewees on Channel 4 news last night 20% of of doctors in the NHS are EU nationals. Meanwhile the teaching profession has just commenced industrial action over what is essentially the same kind of issue involving real cuts in education provision where class sizes are rising, the academy schools programme has undercut national wage bargaining and teaching is being de-professionalised.
The point being that it is not only businesses which are expressing concerns about life in Little Britain. The First Minister has laid out in general terms the mature approach of the majority in Scotland at both Government/political level and civic society level. In the coming days, weeks, and months, that approach needs to be fleshed out in more detail. Whatever the devolved powers permit, that approach needs to make clear that the welcome mat extends to those EU citizens who are to lose that Citizenship in England Wales and NI.
It needs to say to that constituency in those areas of the disintegrating UK that are looking for a lifeboat; or who are wanting to be treated like professionals, or who want nothing to do with what is now clearly the dominant cultural mores of simplistic little England xenophobia, small mindedness; and rejection of rationality in favour of ignorance, preferring instead the example set by the civic society nationalism in Scotland; that a forward, outward looking, progressive society which welcomes everyone of similar diverse approach exists and that they are welcome to contribute to such a society.
This needs to be echoed by not only the politicians but also the whole of that civic society. Such an approach would help cement that good example within these islands; help the development of a sustainable economy in Scotland; and demonstrate which of the two conflicting cultures which now exist has a future and which is doomed to choke and expire into igmony on its own petty minded bile.
Now the virus of the glorious past is infecting Mark Price, UK Trade and Investment minister, formerly of Waitrose.
He is waxing eloquently about Brexit being an opportunity to create a ” Second Elizabethan Golden Age” !!
Trouble is that Elizabeth I was queen of England and not Britain!!
I suppose it makes a change from “our finest hour” WWII.
What planet is he on?