Frank McAveety's Mouth

There's a very attractive girl in the second row, dark... and dusky. We'll maybe put a wee word out for her. She's very attractive looking, nice, very nice, very slim... The heat's getting to me... She looks kinda... she's got that Filipino look... You know... the kind you'd see in a Gauguin painting. There's a wee bit of culture.

And with those words, what was left of Frank McAveety's political career came crashing down around him. To be honest, I'm reluctant to join the line of people criticising him. Yes, it's pervy, yes, it's creepy, but the truth is that most of us have, at one time or another, perved on someone we spotted. However, we don't usually do it when a) we're Convener of the Public Petitions Committee and b) we're standing in front of an open mic.

As it happens, David Steel got caught out the same way back in 2003: when chairing the session to determine his replacement as Presiding Officer, Steel was faced with the sight of Rosie Kane and Carolyn Leckie approaching his desk to cast their votes, clad in their low-cut TK Maxx tops. Steel was heard to remark, "I tell you, the view's a lot better in this Parliament!"

But that was just a fly-away comment, and Steel was retiring anyway. McAveety is still an active politician and was overheard engaged in a borderline-stalky ramble. Nevertheless, this is what happens when we ask our politicians to be human: they get caught displaying a human weakness (in this case, the horn) and we condemn them. Then we get politicians who won't even go for a dump unless a focus group approves and we bemoan the lack of independent thought and the absence of real characters from the political scene. We can't have it both ways.

Mind you, this low-level fiasco is yet another hiccup on McAveety's CV. Having become Leader of Glasgow City Council, he then got elected to Holyrood in 1999, and was appointed Deputy Housing Minister. So far so good.

But then he miscalculated: at the time of Donald Dewar's death, in the ensuing Leadership contest between Henry McLeish and Jack McConnell, the McConnell-supporting McAveety changed horses mid-stream and backed McLeish. It was therefore no longer necessary for McLeish to keep him in the Ministerial team as a sop to his rival, and so McAveety was dismissed. Then, when McConnell entered Bute House a year later, and purged the Cabinet, McAveety was overlooked, until Richard Simpson's resignation in 2002, when he finally returned as a Deputy Health Minister. Back on track.

Indeed, promotion beckoned in 2003, when he was appointed Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport. But even then, there was a catch: yes, he was called a Minister, and yes he was given a seat at the Cabinet table, but he was considered a Deputy Minister, allowing opposition parties to ask whether he was a senior junior minister, or a junior senior minister.

Then came Piegate, when he failed to show up when expected in the Chamber, and later claimed that he'd been 'unavoidably detained at the Arts Council Book Awards' when in fact he'd been having his lunch at the time he was supposed to be answering a Parliamentary Question. This put him in the wilderness until 2007, when he re-appeared as a junior spokesman, for Sport. Though getting the Public Petitions Committee Convenership wasn't a bad gig at all.

Still, this sums up McAveety's post-Glasgow career: getting relatively minor posts and ending up losing them on the basis of a relatively minor error. His career as Deputy Housing Minister ended because he made a political miscalculation; his career as Sport Minister ended because he couldn't just grab a quick sandwich then have something more substantial later; and his career on the Labour opposition frontbench has gone up in smoke because for one minute, his mouth opted to speak on behalf of his cock rather than his brain.

But what does this mean for Labour? With less than 12 months until a Holyrood election, Labour need to look like a Government-in-waiting. This is far more important at Holyrood than at Westminster: yes, people were fed up with Labour in 2007, but what pushed the SNP over the line was that the party appeared to be a credible alternative government - they say that oppositions don't win elections, but governments lose them: there's something in that, but always remember that governments have to have someone to lose an election to, and this was definitely the case in 2007. Conversely, last month, people in Scotland were fed up with Labour, but they still didn't trust the Tories, and of course, a basic point of both Labour and Tory campaigns - that the SNP couldn't form the Westminster government - was basically correct. So credibility counts, and just when Iain Gray's team needs to look competent, business-like, even statesman-like, McAveety makes himself look like a complete and utter perv. Oh dear.

But with this problem, comes an opportunity: one of the big problems with the Labour frontbench is that where most parties try and advance quality, Labour at Holyrood has gone for quantity, to the extent that an SNP ministerial team of 16 is shadowed by a Labour frontbench of 24. Now, in 2007, the SNP really pushed Alex Salmond to the forefront - even putting his name on the ballot paper - but the other key figures got their moments: Nicola Sturgeon was prominent; John Swinney and Jim Mather did their business presentations; the SNP's final election broadcasts basically gave us a glimpse of the key members of the next government. We don't get the same sense from Iain Gray's unwieldy, amorphous blob of a Shadow Cabinet and that will damage Labour. It doesn't have to reflect Government portfolios - at this stage in the political cycle, better for everyone that it look like Iain Gray's vision of a prospective Labour Government than a mirror of the current SNP Government - but it has to look like the team that will come in if, somehow, Iain Gray ends up in Bute House. You can't do that with a frontbench consisting of so many people. So McAveety's departure gives Gray a chance to wield a bigger axe, and cut his Shadow Cabinet down to size... if he dares.

That said, I don't see him doing so, which will serve only to highlight Iain Gray's weaknesses as Labour Group Leader.

And frankly, those weaknesses - a reliance on far too many people, an unwillingness to respond to change, a failure to address a clear problem and worst of all, a complete failure to present an alternative Government so close to the next election - will prove far more costly than Frank McAveety's weakness for dusky-looking women.

In Which Alistair Carmichael undermines LibDem campaigns

In discussing the football at the tail end of the Politics Show today, LibDem Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Alistair Carmichael pointed out that pundits said that Ross County couldn't win yesterday so we shouldn't dismiss the Liberal Democrats.

The irony, it seems, was lost on him. I wonder if it was lost on their candidate in Aberdeen South:



Neither the Tories or the Nationalists can possibly win here. Voting for them now will only help Labour hold on in Aberdeen South. Only by voting for the Liberal Democrats can we stop Labour taking our area for granted.

What will it take for the LibDems to get that you can't keep doing this?! You can't keep dismissing the whole 'two-horse race' notion when you're not one of the horses nationally, only to beat that drum over and over again on the strength of a local result!

And of course, it's leaving a massive hostage to fortune: time and again we're told that only they can win in X. But what if they don't? Then, you haven't managed to eject a candidate you dislike, and you haven't voted for the party you actually agree with. Now, that really is a wasted vote.

Every party produces the bar charts, but most parties have beliefs that accompany them.

The lesson here is that if you don't use policies as the key to your campaign, the only horse metaphor worth using is the one involving the words 'flogging' and 'dead'...

In Which I Take No Pleasure In Being Right

This is what I said in November, when it was Open Season on SNP bloggers:

However, those sneering at the Cybernats, those calling this the SNP's Drapergate should realise that the loudest SNP voices in the blogosphere are a standing rebuttal to every allegation thrown at the SNP (well, I would say that, wouldn't I?) and that we are the first to wonder how to deal with those who (rightly) draw the criticism. And we should all realise that when the original Drapergate scandal hit, we all got tarnished. Every blogger, regardless of party. So if I were them, I wouldn't be dancing on the graves of these blogs or any other. Instead, I'd be standing beside them, in quiet reflection.

Why? Because we don't know which one of us could be next. Let's clean up our own houses first, before we slag off other people's.

Well, that's where Stuart MacLennan, now ex-Labour candidate for Moray comes in, and probably ex-researcher for Pauline McNeill (will Iain Gray expect her resignation as he did Mike Russell's for what Mark had written?) with a bewildering array of tweets, using assorted swearwords to describe David Cameron and Nick Clegg, but also party colleague Diane Abbott (he also talked of a 'good day to bury Stephen Byers'). He also referred to being 'stuck' in the constituency he was standing in, described people as 'chavs' (flying in the face of the class war strategy, perhaps?), referred to people who were basically his neighbours as 'Teuchters' and described the elderly as 'coffin dodgers'.

Now, I'll be honest, if politicians being called rude words is the worst thing that's ever happened to them then they've led sheltered lives. If it needs all this hysteria then frankly, our politicians do need to grow a thicker skin. You are public figures. You are not universally popular. Some people will use naughty words about you. Some will do so on the internet. Get over it.

But to slag off the elderly, and to slag off your neighbours, that's something else. And for a Parliamentary candidate to do it is beyond the pale.

As it happens, Stuart went to university around the time I did and had other foul mouthed pals (including one who was so foul-mouthed that he scarred a friend of mine for life). I also seem to recall him being in the Diagnostics Society. Now when I was at Uni, I was the Debates Convener who had to fend off accusations that the Debates Union was out of touch with... well, the rest of the universe. The Diagnostics Society, however, was in another dimension altogether. And I have to confess, my first encounter with MacLennan did not go well: he was backing a student election candidate who'd make the mistake of announcing in advance his plan to piss all over the election rules and regulations (then complained about being disqualified), a man was also the first student election candidate not to take his own nomination form around for support, having a lackey do it for him. MacLennan was the lackey in question and I, who was not well disposed to his chosen candidate anyway, sent him away with a flea in his ear. Other encounters, however, were affable enough, and I can only assume that he saw the internet in a way that so many people do, as a chance to unleash your inner tosspot.

Well, this is where it's got him.

And look at where it's got Labour: all that protesting about those nasty CyberNats, when they were harbouring their own vicious online attack dogs for far longer - and making them candidates! What will George Foulkes do now?

All that calling on Alex Salmond - who has repeatedly called on the SNP's online supporters to think about what they're posting - to crawl on his hands and knees across Scotland, begging forgiveness for what someone else with a bad mood and a laptop did when they combined the two, when Jim Murphy and Iain Gray instantly dismiss any calls for MacLennan's resignation - until they realise just what a row it's turned into!

All that demanding Mike Russell should be punished for something written by an employee who had a blog of his own - will Iain Gray punish Pauline McNeill in the way he expected the FM to punish the Education Secretary?

I take no pleasure in seeing the torpedoing of Stuart MacLennan's career. He was, at the end of it, a young, daft guy, doing a daft thing, and a wave of utterly idiotic comments have basically ruined his life. That's not something to gloat about.

And I take no pleasure in being right in my warnings that every party should be careful both in its own online dealings and how it deals with the mistakes of other parties.

Stuart thought he could carry on with his daft tweets indefinitely.

Labour thought they could carry on preaching about other people's shortcomings without any of their own coming to light. They saw the various 'CyberNats' as justification to brand the whole SNP as the nasty party - now they're tarred with their own brush. Nasty and hypocritical.

They were both proven wrong, so let me say this again, before anyone else is stupid enough to head for the pulpit about their party's online purity, or daft enough to mouth off when so many people have come a cropper for doing so:

Next time, it could be you.

Nag, nag, nag...

Nick Clegg, yesterday:

"This isn't the old politics of a two-horse race..."

The Scottish LibDem website:



In many parts of Scotland, the Liberal Democrats are the only alternative to Labour for the Westminster elections.

In these areas the Conservatives and the SNP are in a poor third or even fourth place and cannot win. Only the Liberal Democrats can deliver real change.

John Sleigh, LibDem Candidate for Aberdeen South, on a page entitled 'Two Horse Race':

Neither the Tories or the Nationalists can possibly win here. Voting for them now will only help Labour hold on in Aberdeen South. Only by voting for the Liberal Democrats can we stop Labour taking our area for granted.

Andrew Reeves, March 30th:

Finally the Conservatives in Aberdeen South have realised that the general election is a two horse race between the Labour MP and Liberal Democrat John Sleigh.

Andrew Reeves, April 3rd:

Well, David Cameron has admitted what we already know in Scotland, that the forthcoming general election is not a fight between Labour and the Conservatives, but in fact between the Liberal Democrats and Labour, who have the most Scottish MPs between them.

Andrew Reeves, today:

So, the battle on May 6th in East Lothian is between Fiona and Stuart Ritchie, the Liberal Democrat candidate as it is we who are in second place here.

So we have Nick Clegg announcing the end of a two-horse race, and Scottish LibDems, most notably Andrew Reeves, still peddling the two-horse race idea. Perhaps there is only a two-horse race when the LibDems are one of the horses.

But this is what we're used to from them - the same old hypocrisy from those charlatans of Scottish politics. The people who claim to be the only relevant challengers to Labour, despite having lost their deposits in the last three By-Elections.

The people who claim to be democrats, then refuse to support a referendum on Scotland's future, despite wanting one on, well, just about everything else.

The people who in 2005 claimed to be 'winning for students' while one of their candidates was calling for a limit on the number of student flats.

The people who claim to want transparent government, then reject an inquiry into the goings-on in Glasgow City Chambers.

The people who say they're against the Iraq War, then celebrate when the party who got us into it win By-Elections, just because they're not the SNP.

The people who say they're against ID cards, then celebrate when the party who wants to introduce them win By-Elections, just because they're not the SNP.

The people who say they're against detention without trial, then celebrate when the party who brought us 42-day detention win By-Elections, just because they're not the SNP.

The people who say they want fairer local government tax, then celebrate when the party who wants to keep the regressive Council Tax win By-Elections, just because they're not the SNP.

Well, they'd better hope that people don't realise that the LibDems are trying to con them. Far from representing a real, positive change, the LibDems are the party of chicanery, of deceit, of saying anything just so one day they can junk actual policies and just tell you to vote for them because the bar chart with the wonky scale says so.

Because when people do find out, and they inevitably will, then this is where the LibDem horse will end up:

Talking the Talk

For those of you who don't know, Cathy Peattie MSP (Lab, Falkirk East) has a WordPress site where she - or one of her staffers - copies all her press releases. Now, I'm not keen on this approach to bloggery: if you're going to have a blog, put some actual posts on it. If you just want somewhere to stick press releases, sort out a website.

Last week, she posted a copy of this release about a Post Office Diversification Fund:

Speaking in the Scottish Parliament, Falkirk East MSP Cathy Peattie has called for a Diversification Fund to be set up in Scotland to help post offices improve and diversify during the recession.

Such a fund has already been introduced by the Welsh Assembly and similar support could be provided to the post office network in Scotland.

“There are opportunities to develop such a fund in Scotland,” said Cathy.

“Post offices and sub-post offices are crucial to our communities. They provide support in the form of benefits and pensions. In many communities, they provide support for small businesses. In communities that do not have banks, people have the opportunity to use the post office instead...

“The proposed post bank would provide another reason for folk to use their post office and would deal with the issue of communities not having access to a bank. It is all very well suggesting that people get benefits and so on through their bank, but if they do not have access to a bank — if there is no bank in their community, perhaps no bank for miles — the idea of a post bank could make some difference. That could support credit unions within the post office’s radius, as credit unions also need access to banks.

“I hope that we can look forward to the possible development of a diversification fund similar to the one in Wales, which illustrates what we could do in Scotland. It does not involve a lot of money, but such a fund recognises the value of post offices in our communities and the importance of making them more sustainable.”

The Scottish Government is “keeping an eye” on the Welsh scheme, but their hand may be forced in budget negotiations, where the idea has backing from other parties, leading Minister Jim Mather in his reply to note that based on the support “from all parts of the chamber this evening, I am sure that that argument will now have extra weight behind it.”

Well, she was right, the Post Office Diversification Fund did find its way into the Budget last week.

So, having called for a fund, and with a fund being offered in the Budget, guess how she voted?

She voted against it.

Oh, dear...

It's Like She Never Existed

Richard Baker, on David Kerr's membership of Opus Dei:

“There has been a lot of coverage about Opus Dei . . . and I’m sure it will be a cause for people to have questions about Mr Kerr’s views.”

Now, it should be fairly obvious to most readers that I'm not exactly rushing to sign up to Opus Dei myself - and I don't suppose that they'll be crying into their pillows when they learn that. They're just not my type of group and I'm just not their type of member.

All the same, there are lots of organisations out there which don't get the same coverage Opus Dei does, and won't unless and until Dan Brown writes a book about them. The Speculative Society - whose members are said to have included Alec Douglas-Home, James Douglas-Hamilton, Lord Fraser, Nicholas Fairbairn (interesting that their party colleague Murdo Fraser should also rail against secretive societies: were they all poor representatives in his eyes, or are the Specs somehow less bad than Opus Dei?) - springs to mind.

But anyway, back to Labour and Opus Dei. It's a brave stance (and, incidentally, one that is not shared by the candidate, Willie Bain) that Richard Baker has taken against the group.

I mean, it's not like Labour have had any Opus Dei MPs, and certainly no members of the Cabinet from the group, is it?

Is it?

Ummm...

Oh, shiiiiiiiiiit...



Remember her, Dickie Boy? The name Ruth Kelly ring any bells for you? You know, Transport Secretary, and before that Communities Secretary? And Opus Dei member? Hey, if Opus Dei is as bad as Richard Baker thinks, then at least we didn't put any member of the group in charge of, you know, Government equality policy...

So, Dick, was she so insignificant that you've forgotten her, or are you just trying to force feed the voters yet another great big steaming bowl of hypocrisy?

What is it with LibDem Councillors and Planning Applications by Rich People?

As readers know, I'm blogging from the North of England, in a village on the outskirts of Chorley, a town so miserable I only go there when I'm heading to somewhere else. The closure of Woolworths hit the town hard, not because it was popular but because it was across the road from the bus station (sorry, ahem, "Interchange") and so represented the most direct route into the main shopping precinct.

Anyway, in the village where I live we have the misfortune of being represented by three LibDem Councillors who sink without trace for ten months of the year (and Heaven help you if you ask for their help on a local issue during those ten months, you get a string of abuse about how you wouldn't care if the problem were happening 100 yards down the road rather than any actual help) then pop up around March, when there's an election on. Right on schedule, one of them, Ken Ball, has emerged. I wouldn't mind, but there isn't even a Borough Council election this year. I can only assume that he is, once again, the local LibDem candidate for the County Council election.

Enter Trevor Hemmings, a local businessman, owner of one good racehorse and a load crap ones and twice owner of Pontin's. Yes, the holiday camps. The first time around, he advised telesales staff not to take bookings for the 'Dolphin' camp in Devon. 24 hours later, it burned down. Now, I am not alleging for one minute that Hemmings knew that this was going to happen, but I am flagging up the co-incidence and inviting readers to draw their own conclusions. If predicting the future were one of his gifts, he would have bought better horses.

Anyway. Hemmings is, among other things, a local developer and sees the opportunity to build a number of houses in one of the more rural parts of the village, by knocking down the Waggon and Horses pub on the corner of Coppull Moor Lane and Chapel Lane, then building on the site and the adjoining land. Here's where Ken comes in, speaking to the local press, informin us that "the pub has been vacant for some years now and has been looking untidy".

Now, the land around the pub is definitely in a bit of a state, but the supposed void status of the pub itself will doubtless come as news to the landlord. And the people who go in for Poker Night on a Thursday. I don't find myself at that end of the village very often, but a fortnight ago, it looked very much occupied and seemed to at least be trying to make a decent fist of things. Basically, Ken's told a whopper so as to endorse Sir Trevor's plans.

Compare and contrast with Aberdeenshire's Martin Ford, who was drummed out of the party after opposing plans for the Trump development on the Menie Estate, along with a number of Councillors whose only wrongdoing was to oppose how Ford had been treated.

And Ken doesn't have to fear that: there are only three LibDems on Chorley Borough Council and they all represent the Coppull ward. One of them is his wife Nora, for Pete's sake!

I wonder if he's seen what happens to LibDem Councillors who say no to rich people. I wonder if he thought he'd better toe the line. By making stuff up. In ways which can be refuted by a short walk around Coppull's Old Parish.

Seriously, though

From the Sunday Mail, on the 19th of October:

Scottish Labour leader Iain Gray... said: "These are serious times for serious people like Gordon Brown."

From the BBC, today:

PM Gordon Brown has criticised Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross for their "inappropriate and unacceptable behaviour" on Brand's radio show.

Wonderful, isn't it? We're looking at worldwide financial losses of £1.8trillion, 500,000 householders in the UK in negative equity with a further 700,000 at risk, the value of workers' pensions falling by a third, a UK economy that is now shrinking, and a likely 45,000 repossessions across the UK (so much for those vaunted safeguards Labour are bragging about!) and in the middle of all of that, the Prime Minister, that serious man for serious times, is pratting about passing judgement on two overpaid wankers who, for some inexplicable reason, were let loose in the vicinity of a microphone.

Be serious. Or don't be serious. But choose one, and stick to it. And if you're going to get your allies talking about how serious you are, don't waste time prattling on about Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

PS For the record, although Brand isn't my favourite, ahem, "entertainer", I do enjoy the weekly column in the Guardian sports section, penned by his ghost-writer.

It's easy to fall off a high horse

Some readers may be aware that I frequently lurk on the UK Polling Report Election Guide, that fine guide/discussion board run by Anthony Wells, with a page for every UK Parliamentary Constituency. While browsing the Truro & Falmouth page, I happened upon this comment by a self-designated "floating voter", in which he complains about Labour and the Tories' negativity, only to spend six of the eight paragraphs slagging off everyone but the LibDems, about whom he waxes lyrical in paragraph seven (paragraph eight was just a platitude, really).

Anthony himself makes the net contribution, in which he points out that our floating voter left his e-mail address (you have to in order to comment), whose domain name leads to LibDem MP Julia Goldsworthy's website.

Now, it could be a hoax address (I know a Labour supporter who used a scottishtories.org e-mail address, to highlight one of their less popular policies) but given the tenor of the post, I suspect not.

So one of two things must be happening: either some sections of the LibDem support are now too embarrassed to admit their affiliation, or the LibDems consider Truro & Falmouth to be vulnerable, and are resorting to subterfuge in order to put their campaign across.

Either way, it doesn't look good, does it?

Talking the Talk 2

David Cairns, after the Glasgow East By-Election result:

“People have given us a message. The issues have been overwhelmingly about the cost of living, about food prices, petrol prices, utility bills. People understand the global situation but they look to the Government to sort things out...But the message to the entire Government is that people want to know that we understand that they really are feeling the pinch. The entire Government has to reflect on that and bring forward policies that take on their concerns.”

Today's Scotsman:

"Labour proposes to focus on Mr Grant's record as council leader in Fife, a post he took on after the 2007 Scottish council elections."

So the lesson was to have answers for the problems that people are actually facing, Labour promised to learn the lesson and now in their next electoral test, they're intending to do the same thing that cost them first place in Crewe & Nantwich and in Glasgow East.

Someone once said that the first sign of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. After Glasgow, Labour even claimed to know why things went wrong, and put them right. And yet, once again, here we are.

Of course, the one of the first things that the SNP Government did was get rid of the Forth & Tay Bridge tolls - which were basically a tax wanting to get into or out of Fife. Then the first SNP Budget saw Council Tax frozen - which in a time of rising prices, helps to ease the burden on families who are finding it harder to pay the bills. Labour increased tax on the lowest wage earners so everyone else could benefit.

Labour are in Government. They're supposed to be able to do things to help, but instead they find ways of making life worse for people. Then they sit there and carp at the other parties like they're the ones in Opposition.

Well, because of that, they're in Opposition in Fife. And in Scotland. They seem destined for Opposition at Westminster. And still they're doing the same old thing.

It didn't work last May. It didn't work in Crewe. It didn't work in Glasgow.

It won't work in Glenrothes.

Talking the Talk

If Labour politicians find Thatcher's economic policies as abhorrent as they claim to find them, why have they not spent the last 11 years in Downing Street attempting to reverse them?

And why is Iain Gray - the loudest of the people screeching about Alex Salmond's interview where he suggested that Thatcher's economic policies were not quite as disastrous as her social policies - advocating a deal with the Tories over Council Tax, only for them to knock him back?

Oh, the likes of Gray talk the talk, but since 1997, they've failed spectacularly to walk the walk.

A little suggestion for the Labour Party

Now, I'm sure there are a number of people in the SNP who will have a fit at me for offering what I intend as constructive criticism to the Labour Party. But as I'm offering this a little bit too late for them, I'm going to offer a suggestion in the spirit of the new politics:

When you're being attacked by your opponent for resembling the Tories, when you're criticising your opponent for doing that, and when your response is to publish a leaflet detailing how nasty the Tories were, it's a really bad idea to produce a benefit policy that the Tories will not just support, but claim was theirs in the first place. It merely proves John Mason's point.

And when you're even going so far as to suggest that one By-Election gain by the SNP will mean that a 60-seat Labour majority suddenly ushers in a David Cameron Premiership, by complaining that a win for John Mason will "let the Tories in", it's maybe wise to destroy all copies of this picture first:



Just a thought.

Can we believe anything this woman says?

Much has already been made of Margaret Curran's attempt to pass a 67-year-old Labour activist off as a 93-year-old war veteran. Much has already been made of the MSP for Glasgow Baillieston's amnesia regarding where she lives.

But I want to take a look at this other gem:

"I voted in the Scottish Parliament for us to have a second resolution at the... em... United Nations, um, em, and that's what I'll be doing. Thank you."

Well, aside from the sheer absurdity of supporting a second UN resolution on possible action in Iraq five years after that action happened, is that actually true?

This is what Margaret Curran backed in January 2003:

That the Parliament endorses notes the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441 as unanimously adopted by the Security Council; agrees that the Government of Iraq must comply fully with all the provisions of that resolution and that, if it fails to do so, the Security Council should meet in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance; notes that a further material breach of Iraq's obligations under resolution 1441 will be reported to the Security Council for assessment; further notes that responsibility for policy on this matter lies with Her Majesty's Government, and also notes the current support given to the Middle East peace process by Her Majesty's Government, and extends its full support to our armed forces if, as a consequence of an Iraqi failure to comply, military action should prove necessary.

Two months later, she voted for this:

That the Parliament believes that the authority of the United Nations is crucial to resolving conflicts in the Middle East, that Saddam Hussein is a danger to the international community, the region and his own people and that Saddam Hussein should co-operate fully with the implementation of UN resolution 1441 and notes the objective of Her Majesty's Government to secure a further resolution in the UN Security Council before any military intervention, registers its concern that the report published by the International Development Committee of the House of Commons concludes that insufficient emphasis has been placed on the humanitarian implications of military action in Iraq and urges Her Majesty's Government, in co-operation with the United Nations, aid agencies and other governments, to address this as a matter of priority.

At no point did she ever vote in favour of a second resolution. She merely voted to note that there were attempts to get one. So, she's lied. Again.

Margaret Curran's campaign is so far based on two things: the first appears to be crime, which she is (mercifully) against, but is a devolved issue so something she could have dealt with having been an MSP for nine years and sitting round the Cabinet table for five of them - is she saying that it's only now become a problem, or does she have a reason why she needs to get elected to the wrong parliament to do anything about it?.

But the second pillar of her campaign is this: lies. Lie after lie afer lie, whether it's about the identity who she's photographed with, her voting record at Holyrood, or even where she lives.

At this rate, if she gets to the Commons, her nose will reach all the way to the Lords.

The Tories are Coming, awooooogah!

Flicking through the early edition of today's Record (soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent - buy yours today!), I discovered the headline on the Leader column:

Hdhdhddd dhdhdhdhd

Now, this could be a template, or it could be someone falling asleep at their keyboard. But I think it's something more sinister. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of key Labour backers' cybernetic implants being activated at HQ, turning anyone with a valid Labour membership card into members of the Labour Drone Army. I say this as some of the lines being uttered carry an air of programmability on the part of the speakers, as anyone thinking about them for a minute would realise the flaws in them.

So Margaret Curran says:

I'm in politics to stand up for the East End of Glasgow.

Well, she's been Baillieston MSP since 1999, and been an Executive Minister for a fair part of the time she's been at Holyrood. But with such an abysmal life expectancy in the area, and so many people without qualifications, she hasn't really been standing up for them all that well. And her actions as a Minister don't seem to have benfitted Glasgow East all that much. Or at all, for that matter. And the only reason she's standing up for them is because Gordon Brown begged her to stand, on the grounds that three other people weren't available. Oh, and wasn't she in the running for the Govan constituency in the run-up to the 1997 election? Is Govan in the East End? No. So Curran has provided us with more bullshit which can be countered just by looking at the figures showing the difficulties people in Glasgow East face. And the fact that if she'd had her way, she'd be saying "All I want is to stand up for Govan" now.

Then this from the Record:

In a By-Election that is crucial to Gordon Brown's future as Prime Minister, let's never forget that the alternative is David Cameron and the Tories.

Firstly, no one can deny that Tory policies did shaft Glasgow in the 1980s, but Labour have not managed to repair the damage and make things better. Can they really get any worse under a Tory Government?

Secondly, this By-Election won't put the Tories in power. It might end Brown's premiership but his replacement will be another Labour man. Trying to beat Glasgow with the Tory stick is trying to take the voters for fools.

Thirdly, Labour preach about how horrendous the Tories are, but when the likely situation arises where the UK ends up with a Tory Government based on the fact that England has voted Tory even though Scotland has voted agianst them by four to one, Labour's dogmatic obsession with the Union means that they're actually happy to see Scotland stuck with a Tory government it doesn't want than seeing more progressive forces taking an independent Scotland forward.

So when the next Tory Government comes along, expect Labour to be telling you why it's OK to be ruled by them - despite their policies being apparently so abhorrent at election time - rather than have an independent Scottish government doing the things that Labour claim to want to see happen.

But for now, Labour will play the "aren't the Tories nasty?" card, and to do so at such an early stage smacks of panic.

More Dual Mandate Double Standards

While browsing the Official Report to assess how great my workload will be for the Whip tomorrow, I came across this gem of a Point of Order on Wednesday, at the tail end of Decision Time from Michael McMahon, the Labour Business Manager and MSP for Hamilton North and Bellshill:

Although we understand that members occasionally have business outside Parliament that requires them not to be here to take part in votes, the First Minister is not here today because he has chosen to take up his role as an MP at Westminster. I ask you to reflect on the fact that the First Minister, who should be accountable to this place, has chosen not to be here because he would prefer to take up another of his three jobs and go to Westminster rather than participate in the business that he was elected to be here for. That is an entirely different matter from a member being away from here on business that relates to the Scottish Parliament.

Now, as it happens, this is a very rare event, that the FM is at Westminster with his MP for Banff & Buchan hat on, rather than at Holyrood with his MSP for Gordon hat on. And yet here's the thing: there have been no public complaints to the Chamber from any MSP when Baron Foulkes of Cumnock has gone to vote or speak in the House of Lords rather than represent the Lothians.

So when Alex Salmond goes down to Westminster, to attend his other popular mandate, he's the Spawn of Satan. But when George Foulkes goes down to vote as a member of the un-elected House of Lords, nothing gets said.

Michael McMahon, MSP, Labour Chief Whip, and Hypocrite of the Week.

Professor Harvie has obviously never set foot in Chorley

Well, I'm mortified by Professor Harvie's comments, as are ministers. As, it seems, is Christopher Harvie.

He has learned something of a harsh lesson: politics and academia are not the same, and you can't just go mouthing off as he did, condemning Lockerbie, and suggesting that it capitalise on the disaster that bears the town's name. Having said that - and I've never been to Lockerbie so have only his experiences to go on - if the town has indeed become too anonymous, too much like every other, then it's a massive loss to contemporary society and certainly the town's name should have something else to go on, though making it a 'terror tourism' destination perhaps isn't the way forward. As Professor Harvie is an academic, surely he'd fancy the idea of a 'Lockerbie Scholarship' either in Middle Eastern Studies or to bring students from the Arab world over to Scotland. After all, the bombing of Pan Am 103 was a harsh lesson in what happens when the Middle East and the Western World clash. That makes it all the more pressing for the town's name to mark something that brings the two closer together.

Though a couple of other thoughts spring to mind:

1. We often bemoan the lack of "characters", the lack of "free-thinkers", the lack of people who can be relied upon to inject some sort of oddness into proceedings in Scottish politics. Here we have the archetypal gob-on-a-stick and all of a sudden we scream, "The man's a disgrace!" If this were Boris Johnson, people would just roll their eyes and say "That's Boris for you!", unles they were one of the people on the receiving end of the outburst. Do we want 'characters'? Do we want a Scottish BoJo? Here he is: we either put up with him or put up with our politics being bland. We can't have it both ways.

2. Have you noticed how whenever someone gets into trouble, people use their full title? the SNP's Regional MSP for Mid Scotland & Fife is now being universally referred to as "Professor Harvie".The then MSP for Glasgow Cathcart who proposed a ban on fox hunting was "Mike Watson". The man who set fire to a pair of curtains at the Prestonfield Hotel while drunk was "Lord Watson of Invergowrie". Why this zeal to associate full titles with wrongdoing?

3. Seriously. However bad Lockerbie is, or Carlisle, it can't be as bad as Chorley. Chorley is a mingpit. How would the Professor react if he saw a ten-year-old leaning on a bike smoking a cigarette? If I were to take him on a tour of "Lancashire's Market Town" (Ha!), we'd find out.

Let he who is without sin...

Interesting, isn't it, how senior Labour apparatchik John McTernan criticised Scotland for being narrow, and for racism and "Presbyterianism", in a six-year-old e-mail to Karen Gillon?

Last time I checked, Presbyterianism was a denomination of the Christian faith, and the Church of Scotland - whose members account for 42% of Scotland's population according to the last census - is a Presbyterian Church.

I don't wish to get into the 'talking Scotland down' debate - Scotland is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, (no country can ever be perfect) and bigotry of all forms, including racism, is a problem.

But to dismiss an important part of Scotland's religious (and so cultural) life as a problem holding Scotland back is one of the most appalling examples of sectarian bigotry I can think of from someone who has played such a key role in public life. The irony is that his own narrow views prove his point: he reveals his own prejudices in his patronising rant. He displays aspects of the problems he identifies with Scotland - except the Presbyterianism, of course - in that message.

I'm not a Christian myself, and I'll be happy to attack any Christian leaders who spout utter rubbish (that would be quite a few of them), but to attack an entire Church?

No, this cannot stand. McTernan is wrong: he is just as narrow-minded as the rest, and a hypocrite to boot. Why is it OK to dismiss the religious views of more than 42% of the population - the Kirk is not the only Presbyterian game in town - and at the same time attack the rest of the country for bigotry?

One more point: has anyone else seen this row in this light? And if not, why not?

A Brief Sense of Humour Bypass

A number of bloggers - Mr. Eugenides, the ever-readable Reactionary Snob, Holyrood Watcher, everyone's favourite Tartan Hero Grant, and Clairwil over at TerryWatch - have read Terry's latest outburst, which managed to get him in the papers. The consensus appears to be for bloggers to be paralysed with laughter.

I'm afraid to be the one to break the consensus, but I'm feeling po-faced tonight, so here goes.

Firstly, Terry claims, and asserts that most other people accept, that he was joking. I don't dispute that: it probably was a joke. But jokes aren't necessarily funny. And jokes can be sexist. Take the late Bernard Manning: he was a comedian, but he was also a bigoted Neanderthal. And if this is Kelly's idea of humour, then it shows him to be the vicious little bastard that we all knew him to be anyway.

Secondly, I've always said that his claim to oppose all forms of discrimination - and he names sexism specifically (though not homophobia, but that might simply be because it doesn't end in 'ism') - is complete and utter shite. The only time he can bring himself to attack homophobia is when he's accusing Brian Adam of it, and he appears to find sexist humour appropriate. Neither of those is opposing discrimination. The first is the attempted exploitation of the LGBT Community for party politics, and the second is actual support and encouragement of sexism. Lawyers, can I sue him for false advertising?

I feel vindicated this week. But I'm not laughing.

And I bet the women of his ward (to say nothing of LGBT residents, and maybe even members of ethnic minorities in the area) aren't laughing either. They're stuck with the knuckle-dragging bastard representing them (when he can be bothered to show up for Council meetings, that is) until the next election, after all.

The Politicians' Syllogism

"Hacker's intention to make this announcement even when he was well aware of the risk involved was a result of what is known to the logicians in the Civil Service as the Politicians' Syllogism:

"Step One: We must do something.
"Step Two: This is something
"Step Three: Therefore we must do this.

(Source: Lynn, J. and Jay, A. in Yes, Prime Minister: The Diaries of the Right Hon. James Hacker, Volume II, BBC Books, 1987, London.)

Tavish Scott is criticising the SNP Government for a lack of action, on the grounds that very little legislation has been passed since May. Indeed, LibDem and Labour supporters of devolution have always pointed to the number of laws passed by the Scottish Parliament as an example of its sucess. Scott has clearly forgotten, or perhaps never learned, that the quality of legislation ought to be a stronger factor in determining success than the quantity.

And had there been less consultation and more legislation, then you can bet your house that Scott would have been the first to cry foul, accusing the SNP of ignoring the views of ordinary Scots and riding roughshod over democracy. Plus which, while very little legislation has been brought to the Parliamentary table, any proposals are at the mercy of a potentially hostile Parliamentary chamber - the Government only has 47 MSPs to the Opposition's 81, remember - so care has to be taken in the drafting to make sure that supporters will come. And there's been the spending review to think about, and following that, the Budget. Once that's out of the way, we may see more Bills coming to the Chamber.

Oh, and Tavish Scott forgets that Members can propose Bills as well. If he's intent on seeing legislation brought forward, why doesn't he take the initiative?

In any case, action is not limited to legislation. Alex Salmond's first act as FM was to re-organise Ministerial departments. Nicola Sturgeon's first act as Health Secretary was to reverse the closure of key A&E departments at Monklands and Ayr. Both of those were done without legislation being passed.

Oh, and here's a thought: if Tavish Scott wants there to be far more legislation, will he vote in favour of every Government Bill to make sure that it happens? He can't vote against laws and then complain when they aren't passed, after all.

There, but for the Grace of Blogs, go I

Wendy Alexander isn't having much luck with her spin doctors: her soon-to-be employee, Gavin Yates, ran a blog which was openly critical of her and Labour post-May, and quite supportive of the SNP Government.

Funnily enough, now that he's been taken on by her, the blog seems to have disappeared completely. But it's been uncovered by the Sunday Herald.

GY's reaction to the questions now facing him are interesting. Not good interesting, more 'may you live in interesting times' interesting.

"My comments have been taken out of context. I wrote them as a journalist in July and they do not reflect my own views."

Eh? Firstly, given the excerpts quoted in the article, it's clear that these were opinion columns rather than actual reporting. Opinion columns give the writer a good deal more latitude to put his or her own views in. If they don't, if they reflect the views of the people who have paid for the column, then frankly, there is absolutely no value in the piece being written, and Yates has effectively shown himself to be a drone, programmable by whoever gets their chequebook out. If he returns to opinion writing, can we ever take him seriously ever again? And indeed, this programmability may be useful for a PR man, representing the view of his clients - now Wendy Alexander, of course. But the problem is that he will now be advocating how wonderful she and Labour are, just a few months after detailing how rubbish she and Labour were. And this will come back to haunt him whenever he speaks: "Even Wendy's spin doctor thinks she's too abrasive," the other parties will cry. "Even Wendy's spin doctor thinks Labour ministers were impotent in office! Labour's PR man thinks the SNP are doing well! The man behind Labour's message thinks they can't land a blow on the SNP!" See? I can write the lines myself.

But aside from the credibility problem, there's a wider point about bloggery: bloggers have a good deal more freedom to write what they want online. They are not (normally) being paid to write an article, especially not a post with such-and-such a line. They are, therefore, entirely free to express their own opinions. Therefore, Yates has either missed the primary point of this new medium, or he's making an awful attempt to weasel out of this tight spot, and is now lying. In short, either Labour's spin doctor no longer gets the media, or he can't spin his way out of his own PR problem. Neither of those things should inspire confidence in him.

And the first rule of PR is that when you become the story, it's time to go. Brian Lironi, and his relations with Wendy Alexander, became the story, and went. Matthew Marr was about to become the story, and went. Gavin Yates has become the story even before getting to his desk! He might want to think about rescinding his acceptance of the job, or Labour might want to think about rescinding their offer.