Real Help for Business - My Arse!

Page 28 some phone numbers to be told they can send you too a feng shui workshop and networking event.
Page 29
"Freeing up bank lending: action behind the scenes
The Government is working with UK banks and the European Investment Bank to maintain existing lending and make more available to small and medium-sized firms.
The Working Capital Scheme will secure up to £20 billion of working capital credit lines for ordinary risk companies with a turnover of up to £500 million a year, so ensuring that they are safe from reduction or withdrawal. It will also free up capital which the banks must use for new business lending that would otherwise not be available.
With the European Investment Bank, the Government has helped UK banks to negotiate credit lines of more than £4 billion in order to provide loans to small and medium-sized businesses – £1 billion of which have already been made available by banks.
Both the schemes above are for banks, not individual businesses, to apply to. They aim to make more credit available, which businesses can then benefit from. "


So in other words sod all for businesses, and plenty for banks to refil their bare treasuries.

Real help my Arse as Jim Royle would say.

Evil , Duplicitous Bastards

On the day that David Cameron announces the death of his beloved son Ivan. Peter Mandelson is using the event as cover to bring forward the much hated postal privatisation bill , allready beset by cynical leaks this week.

At the very time Gordon "I saved the world" Brown is giving his "SINCERE" words, his henchman is using tragic circumstance too steamroller legislation through on the sly.


USING AN EVENT LIKE THIS. SHAMEFUL.

TRADE UNION AND LABOUR SUPPORTERS GO TO A MIRROR AND LOOK. WHAT ARE YOU REALLY ABOUT WHEN YOU TOLERATE THIS?



ENOUGH! MANDELSON AND CAMPBELL MUST GO NOW!

OUR CONDOLENCES TOO THE CAMERON FAMILY

"Ivan Cameron has died
Extremely sad news has just reached us.
David Cameron's son, Ivan, died earlier today.
The BBC has more.
Needless to say, we send our deepest condolences to David, Samantha and the Cameron family.
Jonathan Isaby Ivan Cameron has died
Extremely sad news has just reached us.
David Cameron's son, Ivan, died earlier today.

The BBC has more.
Needless to say, we send our deepest condolences to David, Samantha and the Cameron family.
Jonathan Isaby "


A painful loss for you and your family and our heart felt sorrow.

Rest in peace little one, your gentle example to the world was a beacon.


the People of Scotland.

Could this explain the Scottish press' editorial obeyance to New Labour mantras?

Could this little snippet of how the Labour party , using government resources, keep Scotlands chattering classes sweet and onside?


Courtesy Guido Fawkes:


Scottish Dead Tree Scribblers Flee the Press
Guido doesn't usually do local, particularly not local Scotland. However this is a bit too fun to ignore. Some thoughtless council official has made the mistake of putting this minute on the North Lanarkshire council website and it has put into the public domain the entire short list of applicants for the job as their Head of Spin.
Looks like there is a rush to get out out of the Dead Tree Press and into the safe harbour of the public sector with easy hours and gold plated pensions to accompany the job security.






"J. Allardyce" must be Jason Allardyce, associate editor of the Sunday Times Scotland.
"A.F. Carlin" could be Tony Carlin, Group Content Editor of Herald newspapers
"J.B. Currie" could be Brian Currie, former Evening Times’ political editor and now group political editor of Herald newspapers
"S. Dalgety" is probably Susan Dalgety, former Labour councillor and now of Holyrood Communications PR firm
"T.J.J. Little" must be Tom Little, Scotland on Sunday columnist
"S. Penman" is almost certainly Stephen Penman, currently Deputy Editor, Sunday Herald
"K.C. Symon" sounds like Ken Symon, currently with public affairs company McGarvie Morrison MediaOne surprise, "J.P. Murdoch" - surely things can't be that bad....

Broken Britain - A revolt against the political classes

We live in a broken democracy. No doubt about it. Westminster and the devolved parliaments are split along lines of self-interest, party interest and member’s interests. No longer are they fit too govern, not one party is able to show the people of the UK that they are responsible and worthy.

They rely on the voter being cyclical in nature, biding their time whilst waiting for power and in the meantime have a very rewarding time. Different parties, same people. No longer “one of us” as they like to proclaim when they want your vote, but a self styled and self name creature all of it’s own called the “political class” , a ruling elite, separate from the plebs. There have been no bigger backers of this movement of separation than Brown Cameron and Clegg and their respective rich and Nuevo riche’ party members. Now in places of power and wishing to make a “purse out a sows ear” by grandstanding as a new and separate class.


The country is in the worst economic mess imaginable and no sign or confidence from the people of the UK that any of the above people or parties have the ability to lead us out of it or have simply given up trying or believing in their ability or resolve.

So what now? A fracture to parties such as the BNP? They are already trying to capitalise on the nations disaffections. Just as in the 1970’s their violence escalated into rampant knuckle dragging thuggery .

People need to protest or march on parliaments and tell the LOT of them that they are no longer fit for purpose, and we want new members of parliament. No longer will we accept the 20+ years ingrained slops such as Marshall, foulkse, Howe, Clark, etc. Who daily treat running the country as a big game of bluster and bluff. We need serious people for serious times and the current parties sadly just don’t have the people, intelligence or fortitude. Neither do their humbly compliant ranks of supporters. Look at the Labour party? A party once proud party and powerful voice for the working man or woman, comprised of passionate Working Class people, neutered, silenced and taken over by people who sought the separate class status above. Essentially Tories full of wind and pish and seeking a vehicle knowing full well the real Tory party was going to be in for a service for a while.

Protest, disrupt, clean out and start again. Take back your respective voice.

Begin the revolt against the political classes.

Science chief at odds with SNP nuclear policy - In Hootsmons reality....

An Article by

Science chief at odds with SNP nuclear policy - or why Scotsman journos should drop taking the acid...

Look at this article first, then look at the TV interview with chief Scientific Adviser Glover here that they allegedly(and very loosely) ripped half the article from.

Published Date: 23 February 2009
By Jenny Haworth

http://news.scotsman.com/politics/Science-chief-at-odds-with.5004998.jp
SCOTLAND'S chief scientific adviser yesterday voiced her support for nuclear power, a position that left her at odds with the Scottish Government.
Professor Anne Glover said nuclear should be "considered as (part of] a mix of production of energy". Her views appeared to clash with those of the SNP government, which has ruled out new nuclear plants in Scotland.And just hours later she appeared to change her position, saying it was a decision for governments, not scientists.Prof Glover made the pro-nuclear comments in an interview broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland yesterday morning.When asked whether she had told the SNP government she believed nuclear should be part of the mix, she replied: "I don't think we have had that discussion."She went on to describe nuclear as "fabulous in terms of energy generation", but added that a "huge amount of carbon" was emitted during the construction and decommission of the waste, meaning the life span of the plant was important.She said it was therefore "exciting" that a way had been found in Japan to extend the life span of nuclear power stations.First Minister Alex Salmond is planning to rely on a mix of renewables and "clean" fossil fuel power stations fitted with technology to capture and store carbon emissions.However, Prof Glover warned that there were "a lot of technological problems to be addressed" when it came to carbon capture and storage technology. Just a few hours later, when asked on the Politics Show whether Scotland should use nuclear power in future, she replied: "I think that's an issue that's not for a scientist. That's an issue for government to decide."In contrast to her enthusiasm for nuclear power hours earlier, when asked in the afternoon interview about the future of nuclear in Scotland, she seemed to avoid discussing the issue directly. Instead, she said we must use less energy, and then spoke in support of developing renewable energy technology in Scotland.A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government would not comment on whether Prof Glover had been advised between interviews not to speak out in favour of nuclear.The spokeswoman said: "The view of the Scottish Government and Scottish people on new nuclear energy is absolutely clear. We are focusing on developing Scotland's real strengths in harnessing our vast, clean, green and renewable energy potential. Renewable technologies including wind, water, biomass, wave and tidal, backed up by clean thermal baseload, can meet our energy needs many times over."Prof Glover's comments followed criticism of Alex Salmond's stance on nuclear from both Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy and Mike O'Brien, energy minister, earlier this month.Prof Glover also warned yesterday she did not think we were taking climate change seriously enough."We are talking about the future of our whole planet," she said. "There really isn't uncertainty about this. The uncertainty is around how fast it's warming. It's not whether it's warming or not. There isn't any uncertainty about us causing the change."She added that we must all change the way we live. She argued that short haul flights should be banned, and said the business community should instead use video-conferencing for meeting

MY QUESTION IS THIS. DESPITE BEING LAZY(sitting at home writing down some of an interview with another) DO SCOTSMAN JOURNALISTS HAVE A CLUE OF THE TERMS "JOURNALISM", "REPORTING" and "THE TRUTH"

The article above, makes the above journalist about as usueful to the journalistic community as tits on a bull.

A call too protest - by Mandy barricades

Gob on their goujons
In these times of terror laws and increasing surveillance, the one party rule over trade unions and Student unions. The wind has been plucked out of the disaffected citizens soul. No longer can we assemble without being asked addresses, searched without reason and told to move on.

How do we fight back against the so-called political classes, as average people? Without spending weeks down the nick. How do you fight back anonymously? Yeah for the time being you can blog, but Blears and co want that shut down. How can you really fight back with the equivalent of a punch in the mouth?

One solution I have is to grog in a traitor’s tea. Whenever a politician buys foodstuffs in a takeaway, restaurant or supermarket. The disaffected could easily man handle their melons so too speak. What’s wrong with giving a tummy upset to someone who is essentially a shit bag anyway?

Someone who would happily send a teenager to a false war or let a pensioner freeze.

There was an essay year ago called digital cash. A way of arranging assassination dead pools by way of digital transfers of cash and the Internet. It had all the politicos shitting themselves.

This idea could be the real life public punch in the mouth.

Catering staff every where could be grogging in journo's sarnies, Mps' chiabattas or putting sand in mandelson's Vaseline.

Tesco's delivery drivers and order pickers could be polluting their pun nets and man handling their bananas (mandelson’s deliverer is excused this task.)

I here recently that rates of stomach bugs, skitters and sore throats have ravaged through Scotsman, North British Labour MSP's and senior civil servants from the 1970's

Wendy Alexander was heard to exclaim "have cracked the pan! and my arse is a ring of fire , so it is ....."Why not eh?this article is intended for educational purposes only.

Amemded for a dundonian houswifey.

Shock horror stats.

Kezia Dugdale has today faced a humiliating return to blogging by only securing 7 measly followers to her blog. Those followers include the notorious Scotland haters AM2 and SM753, or "rimmer" as he likes to call himself. As Am2's cyber groupie, that is an apt name come too think of it.

She is only holding level with self confessed and miscelaneous ranting loon and ordinary bloke, Juan Kerr. Even he is holding level with his blog of self confessed rantings!



This must be a blow for aspiring toom tabards everywhere. All those years selling out the people around for the chance of following your path to westminster, holyrood or the Lords and the power and rewards it brings. Towing the party line and hiding in selection meetings student rallies and working in placed jobs.

Even this week Kezia's hard efforts have included reccying halls for the Portobello selection meeting. I would have thought the Labour party these days did not require such venues,asI thought they usually decided in London?

All that hard work for a sham show.

New Labour , Smoke and mirrors.

Congratulations on the tash, Photo shop is marvelous on facial hair.

UPDATE 23-02-09: Labour central office have had a whipround, and feeling a little embarrassed their revolving candidate is looking so feeble on the blogging arena. Glad my Dugdale Disasters Emergency Appeal came in helpful.

You too can have 5 extra bloggers reading your right wing, in socialist clothing pish..... :-) , THE JUANKERR WAY!

£2000000000000 Economic Hurricane

Or is it a twat with an economic shotgun?


A little something too cheer you up given the mess the countries in.

Should tessa Jowell be tried for money laundering?

Source :Background: Tessa Jowell, David Mills and Silvio Berlusconi
"In David Hare's most recent play, Gethsemane, a foppish prime minister sits in the Downing Street den surrounded by toys and weight machines. The PM has just clambered off his drum kit to suggest to his home secretary that she might like to stem the tide of bad stories appearing in the news about her family by separating from her husband.

Of course, Hare says it's all fiction, but the play has sparked a parlour game of Spot the New Labour Minister. In this scene the inspiration for the troublesome character – whom Hare gives a "very daring portfolio" in former Soviet bloc countries – is probably David Mills, the husband of former culture secretary Tessa Jowell.

The PM tells the fictional minister that her career may not endure the sight of her husband "in the dock, in handcuffs, in countries where they don't speak the English language" and suggests "distance". AKA divorce.

In real life, Mills and Jowell announced they would separate on 4 March 2006. Seven days earlier it had been alleged that Mills had remortgaged one of the couple's family homes in 2000 and paid the bulk of the £408,000 loan off exceptionally quickly with money (£350,000) given as a gift. This money, it was alleged, had been paid for helping his client, the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

Jowell was implicated because she had signed the papers – reportedly distracted since the household chore was put under her nose during a busy Labour party conference – without seeking to understand why her husband wanted it or planned to repay it.

The ministerial code of conduct tasked her with avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest in her own life but also in that of her spouse. Instead Jowell became aware of the gift four years later. Mills argued different defences at different times but Jowell was savaged by standards watchdogs for not knowing that this money had at the very least come from her husband's Italian connections.

Remortgaging and hedge funds ... These mechanisms and devices are now the lingua franca of the economic downturn, but then the story was remarkable mostly for the size of the loan and the nature of the clients. Talk of £400,000 gifts and paperwork signed without questioning offended feminists and the frugal alike.

"As the feminist you are, are we to believe that you signed for a mortgage loan on your house for your husband, without knowing exactly how it was going to be paid back?" Woman's Hour presenter Jenni Murray asked Jowell.

Things were further inflamed when Tony Blair, acting on the advice of the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, kept Jowell in her job (she was also cleared by an investigation by the parliamentary standards watchdog, Sir Philip Mawer) before the couple, mindful that Mills was facing further allegations and criminal investigation in Italy, announced they would separate after 27 years together.

Jowell had, it seemed to one anonymous Labour MP briefing at the time, "laid down her husband for her cabinet job". On hearing these reports of her intended split, Jowell said she was "nearly sick".

On its own the Jowell affair was by no means deadly for the government – the earlier scandals of Mandelson et al putting Blair's whiter-than-white claim out of circulation many years earlier – and its impact is difficult to calibrate, since it came at the beginning of a month that would also see allegations of cash for peerages first made – an affair that would run for the next 18 months.

Sir Alistair Graham, the then-chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, argued that O'Donnell was not the right person to investigate Jowell's conduct and he called the regulations on investigating the conduct of ministers – the analysis of one member of the government by another – "pretty bankrupt".

Now Graham is equally withering: "I really can not see that has anything has changed."

Blair announced the creation of a new independent adviser to adjudicate on ministerial interests in 2006, around the time the Jowell affair began. Brown's governance of Britain white paper, launched shortly after he became prime minister in 2007, promised to extend the role. Mawer has held the job since the beginning of last year. But a recent parliamentary reply suggested the government was unsure about this role. At its extreme it might see an "independent" adviser demanding the sacking of a minister.

Conservative MP Hugo Swire, who shadowed Jowell at the time, said the ongoing Italian court case meant that the opposition found it difficult to attack Jowell for fear of sub judice.

A glance at polls from the time shows Blair's leadership to already be very unpopular. Some London Labour MPs mustered only a cautious defence of the well-liked Jowell since she was spearheading the party's London elections and they feared the effect her case might have.

Days before, the government had been defeated on religious hatred legislation; a few days earlier a safe Labour seat in Scotland was lost to the Lib Dems. The internecine fighting between Blair and Brown was at a fever pitch. Blair had a torrid time at that year's party conference.

For many street fighters, active in exposing the government's infringements in the dog days of the Blair era, Hare's play is therefore a mirror. One such peer who saw Hare's play was so struck by the writer's accuracy he made notes to himself in the dark of the auditorium on the only thing he could lay his hands on – a £5 note. The Mills-Jowell saga is like that too – money in the murk."


Craig Murray org
Tessa Jowell Should Be Charged With Money Laundering


"David Mills has been given a jail sentence in Italy for corruption, though sadly he will probably escape jail as the rich and well connected normally do.

Tessa Jowell actively participated in the laundering of the corrupt payments from Silvio Berlusconi, given to her husband David Mills in return for false testimony in court to cover up some of Berlusconi's endless crooked dealings. Tessa Jowell participated as a full partner in the three time remortgaging of her home, paying off the mortgage with cash and then remortgaging. She has stated that there was "Nothing unusual" in this.

Most people would think it was very unusual to be able to pay off a large mortgage with cash at all. To do it twice and remortgage again each time would strike most of us as very weird indeed.

Which illustrates the gap between the hierarchy of "New Labour" and the "Hard working families" who are Gordon Brown's favourite soundbite. This is illustrated by Mills' description of £500,000 as "not very much".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/feb/17/david-mills-berlusconi-trial-letter
This is of a piece with Jacqui Smith's ripping off the taxpayer of £150,000 by pretending her sister's home is her main residence, then wondering what the fuss is about. That would be ten year's salary for the British soldier killed today in Afghanistan.

Nobody who reads Mills' letter to his accountant (above link) can doubt that he is a crook. This particular Berlusconi deal was just one part of his bent practice, which included the financial arrangements for organised crime in Italy to sell on infected and condemned human blood from the USA into transfusion services in Europe. Tessa Jowell lived off these criminal earnings for decades and actively participated in laundering the cash.

Either Jowell did not notice she was living with a major criminal - in which case she is far too stupid to be a minister - or she was complicit - in which case she is far too corrupt to be a minister.

No ifs or buts are possible.

Only when Mills was exposed to the media did Jowell abandon her husband - sacrificing her marriage for her political career. If she had remained loyal to him it would have at least been some slight saving grace. In fact the woman is a total disgrace. "

This was clearly a move too distance Jowell from her husbands business dealings. If he had been found not guilty expect a self congratulating and unrepentant Jowell. All smoke and mirrors and highlights the New Labour movement as a vane and vacuous power grabbing enterise. un interested with its voters needs only the angrandisement of its top memebers, Just look at moonie and his years of close links to Brown , even too the point of giving up his seat so as Brown didn't loose his seat s an MP.

Does Labour Really Think John Prescott is the New Obama? - HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Does Labour Really Think John Prescott is the New Obama?
Catherine Bennett: The US president led a new generation into politics via the web. The government may have more trouble
Like US marketing experts, who have already distilled Barack Obama's formidably successful online campaign into a series of bullet-point hints for salesmen, our native politicians are convinced that the US president's campaigning techniques must be transferable. If a political nobody could sell like that, coming from nowhere, then why shouldn't viral technology work for other unpromising stuff? Carcinogenic baby food, for example? Or even the labor party?

"Obama's victory was not simply a victory for an extraordinary individual," says keen Obama student and government minister Douglas Alexander. "It was also a victory for a body of ideas and a new approach to political campaigning."

And let's not be picky: couldn't we lose the "body of ideas"? To judge by the contents of Labor List, one of several new labor-supporting blogs aspiring to fill the aching gap left by my.barackobama.com, a modern political blog can easily do without them. Absolutely, concedes Mr Alexander in his first Labor List contribution. Obama had his "convincing analysis" and "compelling rhetoric". And very nice too. "But," Alexander goes on, "his campaign team used his message to engage and excite online communities and used the web to bring politics to a new generation. This is the big challenge for progressives around the globe that Labor List.org is directly responding to."

Whatever you make of Labor List as a direct response to this "big challenge", there is something impressive about the website's almost insane determination to test Alexander's theory to destruction. It was not enough, for example, that Labor List should set out to demonstrate, in its homely way, that a well-run campaign can engage online communities without any fashionable, Obama-style brains or la-di-dah Obama-style blarney. It would not merely prove that an "extraordinary individual", in the Obama-slot, came as optional. The website went further. It would replace that extraordinary individual with Derek Draper.

Was this wise Even following his marriage to television's Kate Garraway, it is likely that Draper is best known to most people as the New labor trusty and lobbyist who told an undercover Observer reporter in 1998 that he could sell political access for cash. "There are 17 people who count [in this government]. And to say I am intimate with every one of them is the understatement of the century."

Accepting that Draper has since served time as a psychotherapist, and that even the most loathsome reformed offender is entitled to a second chance, some labor supporters are still asking if the party's showiest overture yet to the online community was the ideal platform for Draper's relaunch. Although a commitment to democratic engagement with the online public is now compulsory for any party official, Labor List's fondness for joyless affirmations of party solidarity, along with official reports on the modern equivalent of tractor production and Draper's corrections of perceived thought crimes, can easily make it appear, to visitors from the free world, to have less in common with Obama's style of civic engagement than with Vladimir Putin's.

Of course, Mr Draper could quite plausibly retort that he is a good deal more serious about public engagement, what with his incessant interjections, than fellow democrat Ed Miliband, whose ambitious but sad little social networking site Laborspace ("Be the change!") has just begun to quantify the yawning public indifference to Labour's experiments in collaborative politics.

"We know we achieve more together than we do alone," wheedles Mr Miliband, inviting visitors to invent new campaigns, as if we'd forgotten about the Big Conversation or Downing Street's numberless online petitions. At the time of writing, a campaign called "renationalise the railways" is top of the Labor space list, with 35 votes, followed by "save our bees" with 28.

Arguably, John Prescott shows a deeper understanding of the medium with his strictly Prescott vehicle, misleadingly entitled Gofourth (for a fourth labor term), in which he reinvents himself, in faux-Obama YouTube clips, as a modern political person, telling visitors that "the old days of controlling campaigning from the center" are over. Recruits are offered weekly, Obama-copycat emails in which his collaborator Alastair Campbell, tells you "a list of simple things you can do to help secure a labor fourth term?" Yes, that Alastair Campbell.

Unless Gofourth, as at first seems more likely, is a cruel parody of the Obama campaigners' more demagogic tendencies, in which the lithe, brilliant, thoughtful, articulate, uxorious, preternaturally dignified individual at the center of their massive online movement is replaced by a blustering, discredited exhumation from the British political past whose personal attributes are, in every case, the opposite.

Last week found Prescott complaining - "Cameron's plane daft" - that he'd had to attend a debate on Heathrow's third runway. It cannot have been intended, presumably, that even his most harmless post should read like an injunction to join the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, Plane Stupid, the schismatic Druids - anything but the party that once employed him as deputy prime minister.

Even without Alastair Campbell's assistance, a visiting idealist can see that the simplest thing John Prescott could do, to help secure a fourth term for labor, would be to disapparate, taking his fellow revenants with him. Naturally, we should miss Gofourth pieces such as last week's attack on former colleague Matthew Taylor, whom he described a "pointy head" and a "Mekon". But entertaining as it is, in pieces such as "What's Emotional Intelligence?", to see old two Shags deploying, online, the mental agility which made him such an ornament to political life, what happens when he has to debate trickier subjects, such as: "What's an illegal war?"

True, there's no guarantee Iraq will come up. Any more than Prescott's cowboy outfit, a gift from US billionaire and former Dome owner Philip Anschutz. One of the most important political lessons to be drawn from Obama's campaign is to never accept cowboy outfits from men called Philip. But so far, contributors to Labour's proliferating websites appear to have shown extraordinary tact where this kind of potentially embarrassing subject is concerned, avoiding everything from Labour's dishonesty about the war and the death of Dr Kelly to its responsibility for the deaths of 178 servicemen in Iraq, betrayal of civil liberties, missing EU referendum, non-regulation of the City, third runway and record debt.

When it comes to Gordon Brown, however, there may be justified suspicions of censorship. On each new, Obama-inspired labor website, there is a patch of nothing where a picture of the party leader should go. Up to a point, the reticence is understandable. How thrilled would you be to receive a personal email from Gordon? Or keen to join my.gordon brown.com? But a movement with no ideas and no leader? They must have skipped the last Obama lesson. People aren't as stupid as was hitherto believed. They'll notice.

article and comments here

Thanks too http://www.Buzzle.com
BUZZLE.COM

Gordon Brown 'could have saved HBOS without need for Lloyds merger' - But it doesn't help on disabling a nations ambition.

Pic Courtesy TractorStats - Keep the faith dude.
Gordon Brown could have saved HBOS without engineering the merger with Lloyds TSB that has brought the two banks to the brink of disaster, the Government's own financial watchdog has admitted.

By James Kirkup, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 10:20PM GMT 15 Feb 2009

Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, the chairman of the Financial Services Authority, suggested in an interview yesterday that HBOS could have been rescued with financial help from the Government, without the need for a takeover.

At the time of the merger - in which the Prime Minister personally intervened to ensure its passage - ministers repeatedly insisted that a union with Lloyds was the only way to save HBOS and the wider financial system from meltdown.

However, speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Lord Turner said: "There could have been a different way of directly supporting HBOS and keeping Lloyds separate."

Lord Turner also disclosed that the FSA and the Treasury had known HBOS was heading for the massive losses that have raised significant fears over the viability of the merged Lloyds Banking Group (LBG) since they were disclosed on Friday.

His remarks will increase the scrutiny on Mr Brown, who is facing mounting political pressure over his personal role in the crisis now gripping the British financial sector.

The newly formed LBG is 43 per cent owned by the taxpayer, and ministers are prepared take a majority shareholding in the bank if its situation continues to worsen when the stockmarket opens for business again today (MONDAY).

Investors in Lloyds TSB have already lost three-quarters of their money since the "shotgun wedding" of the two banks was announced.

On Friday, shares in the merged group fell by a third after it revealed that HBOS had lost more than £10 billion last year.

By contrast, the old Lloyds TSB business made a £1 billion profit.

Lord Turner said that the FSA's secret "stress testing" analysis of British banks had shown last October that HBOS would incur such large losses. "The losses which are being revealed this week are not huge surprises to the FSA," he said.

But the losses were a surprise to the City and have led to accusations from opposition parties and shareholders that Mr Brown has saddled the healthy Lloyds TSB with the loss-making HBOS to avoid a politically embarrassing bailout of the Edinburgh-based bank.

Mr Brown was took a personal role in the merger, assuring Sir Victor Blank, the Lloyds chairman, that competition rules would be set aside to allow the creation of the merged group, which has around 40 per cent of the retail banking market.

Kenneth Clarke, the Tory shadow business secretary, yesterday accused the Prime Minister of personally driving through an ill-advised merger.

He said: "It was Gordon Brown's idea so nobody dared say to Gordon, 'Should we go ahead with your bright idea of persuading Lloyds to take over HBOS, couldn't be challenged?' and so this giant was set up and unfortunately it turns out that HBOS was a disastrous poison pill inside the new giant superstructure."

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said that while he had supported it at the time, the merger is "now looking like a bad decision."

City investors are also furious. One leading shareholder said the merger is "increasingly looking like a disaster zone of a deal." The UK Shareholders Association called the merger "an absolute disgrace". The Tories last week accused Mr Brown of poor judgement for appointing Sir James Crosby, the former HBOS chief, to the FSA. Sir James quit last week amid allegations he had sacked an executive who tried to warn him over the risky lending policies that led to the near-collapse of HBOS last autumn.

A ComRes opinion poll yesterday put Labour 16 points behind the Tories, while a YouGov poll showed the Prime Minister's personal approval rating down 22 points since November - with only 31 per cent say he is doing a good job.

Government sources last night insisted that the merger had been necessary and in the interests of the financial system.

"The alternative would have been the collapse of HBOS meaning we would have had to intervene at much greater cost to the taxpayer," said a source.

Stephen Timms, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury rejected the Tory attacks on the merger as "complete opportunism", pointing out that Mr Cameron and Mr Clarke had voted in favour of waiving competition rules to allow the deal to proceed.

Mr Timms said: "HBOS was facing very difficult circumstances and if the merger hadn't taken place, then the situation would have been far worse."

Treasury sources insisted that all-out nationalisation of LBG is not on the agenda, but said that the Government is still willing to increase its stake in the bank.

Some of the State's holding in LBG is in the form of preference shares, special stock that pays a guaranteed return to the holder. Paying that "coupon" costs LBG around £500 million a year.

Ministers have offered to convert their preference shares into ordinary stock, ending the £500 million payment but increasing the State's holding in LBG to 50 per cent.

LBG chiefs have so far insisted they do not need to accept the deal, but Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said that the bank was heading for "accidental nationalisation."

He said: "The Group may well have to come back for more capital from the Government, more shareholding, which will take it over the 50 per cent threshold."

As every coomenter apart from the ingrained unionsits said. The Merger was merely to put HBOS outwith Scottish ownership thus disabling any future ambitions to go our own way.

BROWN, STAY IN ENGLAND ALONG WITH YOUR SELLOUT SCOTTISH MP's and take the useless tosh you have wasting air in the Scottish parliament please.

Article courtesy the Independent, they are ....ARE WE?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/4632804/Gordon-Brown-could-have-saved-HBOS-without-need-for-Lloyds-merger.html

The Hypocrisy and snide world of AM2 - A snide retreat

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5752826158262183491&postID=3240274878589417043&isPopup=true

- Full pathetic and snide retreat by AM2 for all too see, troll up troll up, watch an orangeman go red......


"Scottish Unionist said...

I have declined to publish two off-topic, abusive and/or potentially defamatory replies: from ‘Wardog’ and ‘Juan Kerr’.

Please note that this blog has a comments policy, the overriding purpose of which is to enable animated but civilised discussion of difficult and contentious issues.

February 14, 2009 7:06 AM"

Yeah says you AM2, people asking you too explain how you can call another rascist from a perspective of being a anti catholic and ti islamic bigot? Wuite happy to slander the people as abbussive yet not show any evidence.

It is ok, as you are too cowardly to give right of reply I will post on my own blog to highlight yet again your inability to be honest.

Your extremely sad and creepy


--------------

Scottish Unionist said...
Juan:

You accuse me of slander and want me to provide evidence that people are being abusive. OK then; I’ve let your post through. I think it’s evidence enough!

You’re calling me anti-Catholic, anti-Islamic, a bigot, cowardly, dishonest, sad and creepy. But such allegations are off-topic, defamatory and abusive – exactly the kind of thing the comments policy is intended to discourage.

I really can’t be bothered refuting your baseless nonsense, but for the record my wife and kids happen to be Catholic and my concerns about the possible motives of people such as Osama Saeed and Mohammed Sawalha in no way indicate any kind of anti-Islamic agenda. I am opposed to bigotry of every type and value honesty above everything. Your other allegations don’t even merit a reply.

Now, as I said to Wardog, please don’t waste your time posting here until you can find it in yourself to be civil. I’m not prepared to take the time on a daily basis tackling these malicious comments and accusations.


Juans reply too hiding behind comments policy(wit a dobber):


"So it is ok for you too slander with a broad brush , but when it comes too your own clear failings your a coward.

Who gives a toss about your comments policy, it is only there so as you can have excuse to duck people asking questions of you. Your as yellow as urine stained snow,Aye that about sums you up chump.

I take it the catholic wife is an addition to your "persona" , frigging freakshow!"

Secret plan to deprive independent Scotland of North Sea oil fields

Secret plan to deprive independent Scotland of North Sea oil fields

Documents detailing secret government plans in the 1970s to prevent Scotland laying claim to North Sea oil have been seen by The Times. They show the extraordinary lengths to which civil servants were prepared to go to head off devolution, which was seen then as inevitably leading to independence.

The proposals included suggesting to Labour ministers, for whom devolution was a manifesto commitment, that progress towards a referendum should be delayed, in the hope that enthusiasm north of the Border would wane.

Treasury officials also advised that the boundaries of Scotland's coastal waters should be redrawn and a new sector created to “neutralise” Scotland's claim to North Sea oil – a step that was taken.

One Treasury official even proposed that a local campaign for independence in Orkney and Shetland should be encouraged so that Scotland would be denied access to more than half the North Sea oil. The idea was that the islands would prefer to throw in their lot with London rather than Edinburgh.

Related Links
Oil industry 'needs tax breaks' to avert slump
Will auld acquaintance be forgot with Scots?
Among those advising Labour ministers was Sir David Walker, who is investigating the banking crisis for the present Government. As assistant secretary at the Treasury, he wrote in May 1975 that “progress toward devolution should be delayed for as long as possible consistently with honouring the government commitment to move down the devolution road and containing the SNP lobby in Parliament”.

Sir David's advice was heeded. It was another four years before the Scots were allowed to vote on whether or not they wanted an assembly in Edinburgh.

The documents – letters, memorandums and briefing papers from the Public Record Offices at Kew and in Edinburgh – show that some civil servants were alarmed by the threat that devolution posed to North Sea oil revenues, which were servicing Britain's external debt.

One paper, by Graham Kear, under-secretary at the Department of Energy, suggested that the Northern Isles might be hived off from Scotland. He wrote: “If Scotland and the Orkney and Shetland Islands are both regarded as states, separate from the rest of the United Kingdom, median lines can be drawn to divide the United Kingdom Continental Shelf between Orkney & Shetland/Scotland and between Scotland/England.”

One way of doing this, according to civil servants advising Anthony Crosland, the Environment Secretary, would be to realign the subsea border between Scotland and England, so that it ran northeast instead of east.

Mr Kear's doubts were shared by his political boss, Tony Benn, the Energy Secretary, who wrote to Ted Short, the deputy leader: “There is general agreement that energy policy – its formulation and execution – should be a function reserved to the UK Government.”

Mr Benn told The Times yesterday that he had favoured Scottish devolution. “I have always taken the view that power was too centralised,” he said. “I think you have to determine what it's appropriate to devolve. On the question of ownership of natural resources, that has to be seen as an integral part of the country.”

Article and comments here.
http://tinyurl.com/acnoat


Include into the mix that Scotlands media is all passed through and vetted in BBc Hootsland:And what do you have? Albania circa 1960!!!!!

The BBC has turned me on to Salmond
This Life star Daniela Nardini on why she backs Scots independence now
Actress Daniela Nardini

Actress Daniela Nardini
Anna Burnside

Daniela Nardini is an unlikely political animal. The actress who smoked, shagged and snorted her way through This Life in the 1990s is currently preoccupied with her toddler daughter Claudia’s cough and the need to find a good beauty therapist. Yet working on a BBC Scotland drama has made her see Alex Salmond in a whole new light.

“Everything has to go through the head office in London,” she says, regardless of who in the BBC’s canteen above the Clyde might be listening. “Why call it BBC Scotland? I don’t know how it’s changed over the past 10 years but I’m sure they used to have more clout; we could do our own stuff without it all having to be agreed upon.

“I was up for another part recently — it was more or less an offer — then apparently this person in London thought I wasn’t quite right for that role. So they are getting involved with casting. When we did This Life, it was all cast in a few days; you didn’t have to go through all the executives. It’s difficult as an actor — I’m sure it’s really difficult for producers. It does make me want an independent Scotland.”

Despite the southern meddling, Nardini is delighted with New Town, which the BBC is calling a “one-off drama”. Written and directed by Annie Griffin, the Scottish-based American who made the Channel 4 series The Book Group, it is set in Edinburgh’s most splendid Georgian streets and pokes an affectionate stick into their residents’ venal aspirations and granite-kitchened nests. Nardini plays estate agent Meredith McIlvanney, a viper in an LK Bennet tweed suit, as if she was born wearing pearl earrings.
Related Links

* Nardini: London hijacks our BBC

“She was fun to play,” says Nardini who, after a career built on raunch and nudity, is seen on screen, for the first time, wearing pyjamas and a dressing gown. She even, in one outdoor scene, sports a Queen Mother-style headscarf. “There is lots more scope for her,” she laughs. “I got to wear silky pyjamas. It’s so far away from me, to change into silk.”

Griffin and Nardini have worked together before, on the film Festival. The actress denies it but Griffin may have had Nardini in mind when she created Meredith: when she sits on her sofa, in her fancy jammies, tasting wine with the help of an educational CD, it could be the iconic Anna Forbes’s grown up, calmed down, scrubbed up big sister.

Nardini doesn’t see it like that. “There is often a strong, determined woman in Annie’s work, and she certainly got me on board early.” As soon as she saw the script, Nardini was ready to start. “I really like reading her work. She writes about things that seem so normal, then there is always a quirk.”

In fact New Town has many quirks. The bold Meredith has an assistant who Griffin described to Nardini as “a bit All About Eve: she’s watching me and copying me, then one day she’ll be behind my desk”. At the centre of the story are two male architects who wear matching cartoonish specs and have a sweet but cowed little son who refers to them collectively as “Papas”. One is played by Mark Gatiss, of League of Gentlemen fame. Omid Djalili, in a long grey wig, is surprisingly convincing as a thuggish property developer. Richard Holloway, the former Bishop of Edinburgh, appears as a blind version of himself.

This is all vintage Griffin, a fearless caster who put Elaine C Smith in an experimental theatre company in her first series, Coming Soon. “She’s a bit of a gem in Scotland,” says Nardini. “She’s got a very different voice. It’s right between drama and comedy; it’s quite surreal. I think Annie just sits in her room and thinks,” (she slips into Griffin’s US twang) “‘Oh, the minister, that would be quite interesting if I made him blind.’

“I’d work with Annie any day. I really get her, she really appeals to my warped sense of humour. I think this might even be more bonkers than The Book Group.”

As a one-off, New Town certainly leaves the audience ready for more. Everyone involved would like to see it develop into a series, while being careful not to call it a pilot. The BBC Scotland line is that it all depends how the first broadcast, on BBC4 on Saturday, goes. They would, of course, love to see it on BBC1 as well.

Filming a drama about the property market in April 2008, just before many Heriot Row bankers lost their jobs, was not, perhaps, the luckiest piece of timing. There is a hint in the show that all might not be completely rosy in the gardens of India Street but Nardini’s character insists, ever more frenetically, that there is no such thing as a slump. New Town is, she maintains through pursed lips, “futureproof”. It is highly-coloured and fantastical enough to escape being a period piece but, should it become a series, Nardini agrees that even Meredith might need to accept that there is a recession on.

Nardini has her fingers crossed: having moved back to Scotland, she has a vested interest in seeing more clever, original drama being made in Pacific Quay. “There isn’t an awful lot of stuff going on here,” she says mournfully. “There was a wealth of theatre going on when I was here 15 years ago but that seems to have slowed down. As for telly, I don’t know much about what’s going on.

“A lot of the work you get offered is quite ordinary, quite formulaic television. I’m at a difficult transitional stage. I’m not the hottie any more — that’s for when you are 25 up until your early 30s.”

Nardini will be 41 this year. “If you’re not quite mumsy, you’ve got to be repositioned a bit. That’s what’s happening to me and that’s fine because I’m repositioning myself, after having Claudia.”

So what would her newly repositioned dream job be? She grins. “More of this.”

The Curse of Jona Brown......

The 10 people most responsible for the recession - Jona comes ahead of Bush Shocker!

The global financial crisis has evolved into a worldwide recession of epic proportions. Analysts fear the sudden slump which has followed the credit crunch could even rival the Great Depression of the early 1930s and lead to global stagnation.

But who is responsible?

The bursting of the housing bubble and the collapse in confidence throughout financial markets was not caused by one individual or a single decision, so pointing the finger of blame is a near-impossible task. But Times Money has given it a shot anyway. Here are ten suggestions for the nine men and one woman responsible for the mess we're in. Once you have read our notes, vote in our poll and make your own suggestions in the comment box at the end of the piece.


1. Dick Fuld

Multi-billionaire and US squash all-star Dick Fuld, 62, was CEO of Lehman Brothers when it went bust in September last year. Dubbed the “scariest man on Wall Street”, Dick Fuld is blamed for a litany of mistakes that include leaving Lehman Brothers heavily exposed to toxic US sub-prime mortgage debt and other assets that collapsed in value in the wake of the credit crunch.

His secretive work ethic, which rewarded loyalty over all else, has been criticised for silencing potential whistleblowers. In its final months a series of interested buyers surfaced to save Lehmans, but Mr Fuld would not sell at the prices offered. Had he acted sooner, he would have been able to avoid bankruptcy. Institutional Investor magazine named Dick “America’s top chief executive” in 2006. The collapse of Lehmans triggered the second destructive phase in the credit crunch and laid the foundations for a full blown global recession.



2. Hank Paulson

If Dick Fuld is responsible for the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Henry Paulson, the former US Treasury Secretary, is the man who let it happen. Anatole Kaletsky, of The Times, says: “The global banking collapse could perhaps be described as a bullet in the head, since its proximate cause was a conscious decision by the US Treasury to jeopardise the stability of the world economy in pursuit of an essentially political objective - to show that the Bush Administration was willing to act ruthlessly against at least one big Wall Street investment bank. Until that point, savers and investors around the world had assumed that financial institutions such as Lehman were “too big to fail” and would always be supported by their governments. By shattering this belief Henry Paulson triggered a run on every important bank in the world and caused the sudden implosion of consumer and business confidence seen in the past two months.”

Hank didn’t just let Lehmans fail. He made a series of mistakes in the run up to the Lehmans collapse. He also proposed a £700 billion package to boost the US banking system. And how did Hank come up with a figure of £700 billion? “It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com, the US financial website. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”



3. Alan Greenspan

Alan Greenspan was feted for his management of the US economy while he stood in charge of the US Treasury, but has since been put under the spotlight. He was responsible for cutting interest rates to near zero in the US in the aftermath of September 11, flooding the world with cheap and easily available money. Did this pave the way for a “once-in-a-century credit tsunami"? In October last year he said: “I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interest of organisations, specifically banks and others, was such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders.”

Allan Meltzer is a professor of political economy at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, said: “Alan Greenspan was much too afraid of a slowdown or other recession…he allowed the credit to expand too rapidly."



4. John Tiner/Hector Sants

John Tiner was in charge of the Financial Services Authority, the watchdog that polices the UK ’s complex financial services industry until 2007, when it was taken over by Hector Sants. The FSA failed to keep a close eye on Northern Rock, the Newcastle-based ex-mutual which gorged on wholesale mortgage securitisation and came a cropper as a result. A key parliamentary committee has said that the FSA was guilty of a "systematic failure". Mr Sants accepted that the organisation under Mr Tiner failed to stress-test the business model of Northern Rock and spot signs that the bank was dangerously dependent on interbank funding to remain in business. "We should have been in more intense dialogue earlier", he has said.



5. Fred “the shred” Goodwin

The "world's worst banker" has brought the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Britain's second biggest bank, to its knees. Last week it announced humiliating losses of £28 billion, the biggest in British corporate history, and economists and analysts have concluded that it could soon be fully-nationalised. In mid-January, taxpayers saw their stake in the banking giant increase from 58 per cent to 70 per cent.

Sir Fred joined RBS in 2000 and promptly embarked on a spending spree, acquiring 26 banks in seven years for more than £35 billion. These included NatWest and stakes in America and the Bank of China. In 2006, its share price stood at £13. But at the close of trading on January 28, RBS shares were trading at a near-worthless 15.9p.

In 2000, after the takeover of NatWest, RBS’s board rewarded Sir with a £2.1 million annual salary, including a bonus of £814,000 for the takeover — more than any other UK bank chief received that year. It paled in comparison with his £2.86 million bonus in 2007. Three months ago, in October, Sir Fred left the bank under a dark cloud that has now mushroomed into a thunderstorm. On the day his departure was announced, Sir Fred said he was "sad", adding: "Nobody will ever tell you that they feel good the day they have to step down.” The Prince's Trust recently dumped Fred The Shred and the campaign to strip him of his knighthood is gathering pace.



6. Gordon Brown

Apparently Gordon Brown predicted the global financial crisis ten years ago, in a speech he made to Harvard students. Sadly he did little to prevent it. James Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer during “the longest period of growth” in the UK ’s history, but economists blame Mr Brown for encouraging soaring house price inflation and the spread of credit which fuelled the years of boom and led eventually to the current bust.

In a recent speech to the London School of Economics, George Osbourne, the Shadow Chancellor, said: "Our competitors used the fat years to prepare for the lean years. Britain did not. We are the least prepared country in the developed world to cope with the current financial turbulence. Our financial reputation has been badly damaged by the only run on a retail bank in the world. Our double deficits - external and fiscal - are worse than any other European economy. Taken together, they are worse than the United States." The blame "lies squarely and fairly with Gordon Brown", he concluded.

7. George Bush

The former President was in charge during the boom years when the seeds of the sub-prime implosion were sown, but has failed to take any responsibility for the financial disaster which occurred on his watch. In a speech last year he blamed the bankers in New York for the problems facing his country's economy. “Wall Street got drunk…The question is, how long will it [take to] sober up and not try to do all these fancy financial instruments?”



8. Kathleen Corbet

The credit rating agencies have been blamed for failing to ask tough questions about the collateralised debt products containing so many toxic sub-prime mortgages, which investors traded for millions of dollars during the booming housing years. The three biggest agencies have been accused of taking the word of investors and not properly assessing the risks involved in securitisation. Mrs Corbet was head of the biggest credit rating agency, Standard & Poors, before she quit amidst heavy criticism in 2007. Critics argue that S&P and its main rival Moody's, as well as other agencies, face an inherent conflict of interest, in that many of their clients issue securities that are rated by its analysts.




9. "Hank" Greenberg

Another Hank. This one was head of AIG, the insurance giant that had to be rescued in an £47 billion US government bailout just days after Lehman Brothers was allowed to go bust. Hank was in charge between 1967 until 2005, during which time the insurer got heavily involved in the murky world of credit default swaps. Mr Greenberg appealed to the US Government to save the company last September, saying: "It's a healthy company financially except for liquidity. No organisation around the world has the spread of risk that AIG does. It's a company that opens markets - letting it go down would be a dramatic mistake."



10. Angelo Mozilo

Mr Mozilo was head of the largest sub-prime mortgage lender in the US, Countrywide, until July 2008. Sub-prime lenders in the US have been accused of using misleading marketing to push unsuitable mortgages on sub-prime homeowners who could not afford to service the debt, the root cause of the credit crunch. During the housing boom, Mr Mozilo reportedly earned $470 million in salary and other income. Mr Mozilo has also been under the spotlight for a VIP programme in which politicians and senior officials in the Government were offered favourable mortgage deals. Earlier this month Bank of America agreed to buy Countrywide for about $4 billion (£2 billion). Meanwhile, Mozilo unloaded $141m in stock options before the company's share price collapsed.



http://timesbusiness.typepad.com/money_weblog/2009/01/the-ten-men-to-blame-for-the-credit-crunch.html

Am2 and his one sided wee world.......

Margo justifies anti-Englishness
Posted by Scottish Unionist at 4:09 PM. There are 0 comments.
Hat tip to O’Neill, without whom I might have missed this alarming remark by Margo MacDonald:

“Rude expressions of resentment against England or the English doesn't [sic] strike me as being anything other than the sometimes frustration, sometimes justified anger and sometimes envy felt by smaller countries towards a bigger neighbour. This phenomenon can be witnessed between Portugal and Spain, Norway and Sweden, Austria and Germany.”


"So, you despise catholics and followers of islam from your repeated writings of disdain for both. Why dont you do an essay on your onw prejudices ?

Have a nice day

will publish on my blog incase your too chicken to answer like your pal Kesia Dugdale."

Death of a party

It is sad sometimes when once proud and respectable institutions such as Woolworth’s, demise. A once familiar scene from your childhood. Hanging about outside wondering what marvels your mum would bring back from the Pick n’ Mix.She was there because it held all of life staples and necessities. Run in the traditional manner and listening to it's core customers.

Could the demise of Woolworth’s be a euphemism for the death of the Labour party and traditional trade unionism?

A once proud organisation trading on simple values of right verses wrong. Eventually having it’s hey day and getting lost in the process. Unable to stock the core items of truth, justice and fairness. As it would impact on their other, more profitable markets of dishonesty, double dealing and procuring wealth for themselves and those close by. So up to their collective necks and used the the lifestyle of being somebody, they turn into the antithesis of what they could have been?

To find out if this is true you need to go back and look at the past of some of the key players in the modern Labour party and trade unionism.

Gordon Brown, Son of a minister who was well connected in the echelons of the Labour party of Scotland.

Peter Mandelson, Ex Communist turned PR guru of the New Labour movement.

Charles Clarke, Ex Maoist revolutionary, whose claim to fame was during the power strikes he organised a campaign to waste electricity in public buildings! I bet the kids in the incubators were happy.

Having learned their craft in the gutter strife torn era of the 70’s they were not averse themselves to circumventing the odd law. Perhaps this explains their usage of terror legislation to counteract any protest movements? Knowing full well how mischievous they were themselves? Also history dictates protest precedes pole.

Lets go back too 1983. Mandelson, Brown and Blair. The bright young things. Educated, middleclass, hungry for power and any means to travel to it. Characters who are essentially without a party. Only interested in the allure of power and what it can achieve. They would be equally at home in the Tory party if their knowledge of historical political cycles had not dissuaded them.

They form an Alliance, knowing full well it’s who you know not what you know that counts. They each follow their individual remits. Mandelson to recruit bright young things and push for change from “jimmyism” , Tony to keep his nose clean as heir in waiting and Brown to do likewise. They were both his ponies and tickets. Mandelson knew he could not get there on personality or his sexuality so his only route was securing power and influence.

Lets speed up to 1994. The death of John Smith. A decent man and leader of the labour party. Found dead after suffering a heart attack whilst brushing teeth at circa 8 am. After having been visited by Mandelson 10 hour’s prior. The only Presbyterian obstacle too the plans of Mandelson, Brown and Blair. Then the sudden emergence of the relatively unknown Tony Blair as candidate for leader.

Had a once proud party been hijacked by forces behind the scenes? Willing to seize control by any means fair or foul? Who knows?

What is known is that a once proud party, founded on the principles of fairness, equality and solidarity for all. Has been taken over and turned into a far right wing machine(just look to its foundations to see the contrast) willing to remove peoples liberties, nose dive the economy, execute illegal wars and hold not one soul accountable. Utilising the Nazi technique of spin and misrepresentation as bernays prescribes. Preferring to enoble those who are complicit. Same goes for the trade union movement and it’s faux protest. Unfortunately all smoke and mirrors on their part, just the manual, finance and propaganda wing of the Labour party. Just biding their time for the trinkets from the people who promised their payback. “Toom Tabards” or empty suits as we Scots call them. Learning from their masters how too sound sympathetic and action the indefensible.

A party so in arrears on favours it is willing to bankrupt the country to hold onto it’s power. Just look at the jobs for the boy’s fiasco, which is the current IT projects bill. Starts at 2 billion and is currently running at 13 billion and rising. Or lets look at the commercial hiving of , of the foreign aid department, or the MOD and it’s contractor bills and privatisations. They’ve also been in power so long that their plans of being out the door before the bombshell of PFI has began to creep up on them.


What can the Tories offer England Scotland, wales or NI? Not much different unfortunately. The whole political machine and apathy of the voter stems from one thing mainly. Ingrained members, year after year promising the earth to secure their seats and doing nothing but nodding. So ingrained in westminster the opossite bench is not the enemy it is someone you faux jostle with and play squash with. Long forgetting the normal man in the street and the reason they are there. 30 years of bank bench living and expenses for flats they allready own(or left by mother....), members of their families paid for doing nothing and daughters property empires. Spending more time with accountants and expense lawyers or functions to secure directorships. No more should we accept this as a public.


The whole system needs a overhaul. 2 years only should any member serve and no usage of the time their to lobby or work for companies during or after. The term honourable Gentleman or Woman should be just that. There for the good of the people they serve not what they can gain and garner. Time to return it to a career of vocation not a career of politics. Time to ride out of town the ingrained MP's of all parties,mark the cards for the hangers on and grace and favour merchants and use our votes to return honour and dignity to the westminster system and all systems. Tick the box for no political levvy on your union dues or direct them to a party that supports a fairer level of play. Direct them too the SNP. And I can say that as a non member.

All parties need to change. People loyalty above party loyalty.

Scotland's first Muslim MSP dies - 12 February 1940 - 6 February 2009

"Scotland's first Muslim MSP dies

Bashir Ahmad took the oath in Urdu when he was elected in 2007
Scotland's first Muslim MSP Bashir Ahmad has died in Glasgow, aged 68.

First Minister Alex Salmond paid tribute saying he was the kindest most decent human being he had ever met.

After a successful business career, Mr Ahmad represented the SNP on Glasgow Council and the Scottish Parliament, where he took the oath in Urdu.

Born in India before partition, he had lived and worked in Glasgow for more than 35 years. He leaves a wife, five daughters and two sons.

Mr Salmond said: "Bashir made history by being the first Scots Asian MSP therefore giving the Scottish Parliament something indefinable.

"He made it representative of the whole country for the first time.

"He was the kindest most decent human being it has ever been my pleasure to meet. Bashir represented the best of Glasgow and the very best of Scotland

Nicola Sturgeon
Deputy First Minister

"And lastly, although he would have considered it to be first, he was the most patriotic of Scotsman.

"He was a credit to both his faith and to his country."

Deputy First Minister and fellow Glasgow MSP Nicola Sturgeon said: "Bashir Ahmad was an exceptional person, and I will miss him deeply.

"He made all of us immensely proud when he took his Holyrood seat wearing traditional Pakistani clothing, swearing in using both English and Urdu.

"Bashir represented the best of Glasgow and the very best of Scotland."

Steven Purcell, leader of Glasgow City Council said: "Both as a city councillor and an MSP, Bashir had no problem in working with colleagues across the parties in Glasgow's interest.

"He was a gentleman in all he did. I will miss him."

Scottish Conservative leader, Annabel Goldie added her own tribute: "Bashir Ahmed was a real gentleman, much liked and respected across the political spectrum.

"To be the first Asian Member of the Scottish Parliament was a real achievement, one of which he was rightly proud.

"Bashir will be sorely missed and we extend our deepest sympathies to his family and many friends."

Tavish Scott, leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats said: "I'm desperately sorry to hear of Bashir Ahmad's passing.

"He was a decent and honourable gentleman and a good man to speak to.

"Parliament will miss him, but our thoughts are with his family at this time."

Mr Ahmad was a list MSP, which means there will be no need for a by-election to replace him.
Bashir Ahmad leaves a wife, five daughters and two sons - Scottish Parliament pic

Active career

He came to Scotland aged 21 and worked as a bus conductor and bus driver before buying his own shop.

He subsequently owned shops, restaurants and a hotel before retiring from business.

He was elected five times as president of the Pakistan Welfare Association.

In 1995 he founded Scots Asians for Independence, and he had been a member of the SNP's national executive committee since 1998.

In 2003 he was elected as councillor for the Pollokshields East ward of Glasgow City Council.

He was elected as an SNP member of the Scottish Parliament for the Glasgow region and Scotland's first and only Asian MSP at the 2007 election.

He served on Cross Party Groups for Carers, Human Rights and Civil Liberties, Older People, Age and Ageing, Palestine and Tartan Day.

He was also a member of the Public Petitions Committee.

As well as his political interests Bashir was an active member of the Asian and Muslim communities in Glasgow attending a number of the committees of various mosques in the city. "

Rest in peace fellow traveller. Independence is gained through the work of giants beforehand.
Meek, humble and a gentleman. Winning by weight of argument not down beating others.

The unionists Version of Oliver

From the hootsmon courtesy of Wardog:
10. DODGER BROWN
I'll do anything
For UN-ION anything
For UN-ION means everything to me.

I'll go anywhere
For UN-ION, anywhere --
For UN-ION, ev'rywhere --
I'd go!

RUFUS T FIREFLY
Would you dither on 10p TAX?

DODGER BROWN
Anything!

RUFUS T FIREFLY
Would you paper over Policy CRACKS?

DODGER BROWN
Anything!

RUFUS T FIREFLY
Would you admit you've feart o the GNATS?

DODGER BROWN
Anything!

RUFUS T FIREFLY
Even support the Tory Council TAX?

DODGER BROWN
I'd risk EVERYTHING
For UN-ION -- EVERYTHING
Yes, I'd do anything...

RUFUS T FIREFLY
EVERYTHING?!

DODGER BROWN
Everything for UN-ION!!

RUFUS T FIREFLY
'Ere now, Smee, you just copy and sing along!
Dodger and I'll help you out with the words, alright?
So it's "I'll do anything"

Smee
I'll do anything

MAGGIE CURRAN
For UN-ION......

Smee
For UN-ION, ANYTHING

RUFUS T FIREFLY
For UN-ION means.....

Smee
For the UN-ION means EVERYTHING to me

RUFUS T FIREFLY
Ah, that's lovely.

Smee
I know that
I'd go anywhere
For UN-ION, anywhere --
For UN-ION, everywhere
I'd see

AM2
Are you Proud to be Blue?

Smee
Anything!

Sam
Are you really a racist like me too?

Smee
Anything!

Tinman
Could I be a unionist just like you?

Smee
Anything!

Salem
Tax-breaks for the Middle Classes, thankyou!

Smee
Anything!

I'd risk ev'rything
For UN-ION -- everything --
Yes, I'd do anything

RUFUS T FIREFLY
Anything?!

Smee
Anything for the UN-ION!!

DODGER BROWN
Dance! Wendy...... Dance!

RUFUS T FIREFLY
Oh, alright, Dodger. C'mon boys!
1-2-3... ANYTHING, I'D DO ANYTHING, ANYTHING for UN-ION

Fire-raiser Lord Watson told to do the honourable thing - Don't claim for lighters?

THE disgraced Labour politician Mike Watson yesterday faced calls to quit the House of Lords, as moves to expel convicted peers from parliament gathered pace.
The Liberal Democrats said Lord Watson, sentenced to 16 months in jail after he admitted wilful fire-raising at an Edinburgh hotel, should step aside with honour and no longer attend debates in the upper House.They plan to table amendments to imminent government proposals to tighten the rules on membership of the Lords in the wake of the "cash for amendments" scandal. Nine peers are now under suspicion, either for allegedly offering to change new laws in return for money, or in connection with jobs outside the Lords.David Heath, the Lib Dem MP who shadows the leader of the Commons, said he wanted a retrospective ban on convicted peers – such as Lord Watson, Jeffrey Archer and Conrad Black – retaining their seats.The call came as it emerged that Lord Watson, an independent Labour peer, had claimed thousands of pounds in allowances after being released early from prison.He was freed on 23 May, 2006, and attended the Lords on 102 days that financial year, claiming £37,538. Since 2001, he has claimed £128,589 – £385 a day for 334 days in the chamber.In a Commons debate about making parliament more accountable, Mr Heath said: "We have as members of the House of Lords a convicted perjurer, a convicted fraudster and a convicted fire-raiser. What a rum crew we have making laws for this country."Mr Heath told The Scotsman yesterday: "There is a counter-argument that you can't make these things retrospective. In my view, the idea that somebody has broken the law and been imprisoned, but would have taken a different course of action had they known they would be suspended, is a pretty specious argument."I know that there are some legal opinions that suggest you can't make it retrospective, but for the Commons, that is as it is at the moment. If you have been convicted, then you are not eligible to take your seat. If you had been convicted previously, you would be disqualified."Asked if Lord Watson should not be free to continue his political career after serving his sentence, Mr Heath said: "There is rehabilitation and there is putting someone into parliament. I think there is rather a leap between the two. We have very clear rules with regard to the House of Commons. There is no clear reason why they shouldn't apply to the Lords as well."Labour back-bencher Ian Davidson, the MP for Glasgow South West, declined to comment directly on Lord Watson's case but said he backed the automatic exclusion of peers with a criminal record – regardless of when their crime had been committed. Alistair Carmichael, MP, the Lib Dems' Scottish affairs spokesman, said Lord Watson would have been unable to retake his MSP seat at Holyrood as rules ban people sentenced to a year or more in prison. He went on: "He started turning up here (in Westminster] because he had nowhere else to go. The House of Lords is the last refuge of the wilful fire-raiser. It rather highlights the inadequacies of the present set-up."He added: "If he had to face the electorate to get into the House of Lords, he wouldn't be sitting where he is today."The Ministry of Justice said it had yet to decide on rules to suspend or expel peers guilty of misconduct. But a spokesman said the government was looking at whether convicted peers could be suspended retrospectively. £384 allowances per day for shamed peerLORD Watson of Invergowrie became a peer in 1997, after eight years as a Labour MP.His Lords attendance only really took off after his release from prison. Before then, he also served as an MSP, and at times a Scottish Executive minister, between 1999 and 2005.He attended the Lords 334 times from April 2001 to March 2008, claiming £128,589 in allowances – an average of £384 per attendance. No receipts are required for claims. Some 231 of those visits followed his release from jail. He has made 17 speeches since then and voted on 246 occasions – about average for peers.