Scottish Political News

http://www.holyrood.com/nav/news/stories/story.asp?story=elec356

So finally the pursuit of Henry McLeish has been avenged. David McLetchie, never the most savvy of political leaders, has gone. To a very large extent this was entirely his own fault: His failure to either handle the situation correctly or precipitously led to his downfall. The innuendo inherent within the press corps' coverage of his numerous taxi trips, especially those to the home of a female "party worker" who didn't actually work for either him or his party was crudely obvious. His failure to recognise that Holyrood, to its credit, has some of the most transparent coverage of representatives' expenses didn't do him any favours either. Westminster, and it's opaque individuals' personal funding and expenditure it most certainly is not.

However, the fervour with which he was pursued is more than a little distasteful. The Herald and its Sunday sibling have been continually vociferous in their pusuit over a series of dodgy minor expenses' claims. Something I am sure no hack in Renfield Street has ever been guilt of. The Herald likes to think of itself as the voice of fair-minded Scotland, even more so since The Scotsman's fall into the clutches of brillo-haired, tangerine-tinted Scotophobic, stranger-to-hookers Andrew Neil.

And yet three times a week their economics correspondent Alf Young uses his columns to attack the SNP. Nothing wrong with that in itself of course, but the Executive parties, the Lib Dems and Labour are never - and I do mean never - on the receiving end of criticism, despite our diminishing corporate base, appalling business birth-rate and some of the most desperate levels of poverty, both fiscal and aspirational, to be found anywhere in the western world. The same Alf Young who in 1975 worked as the Scottish Labour Party's research officer. Who asked the then-UK Energy Minister Dickson Mabon to breach the ministerial code and use his supposedly apolitical civil servants to "prepare some return ammunition (on oil revenues), as it would be useful to me".

Astonishingly, this was detailed in The Herald on Friday. We've yet to hear Alf's side of the story. Or The Herald's reasons for continuing to believe he provides an open, honest and neutral opinion on economics, without recourse to sectarian party loyalties.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/49737.html

I expect that we will hear neither. The same cosy cabal are running Scotland for their own benefit, and running it into the ground. They not only take a grudge against those who speak out against them; they nurture it, bide their time, then put them in their place. David McLetchie: You've Been Caballed.

I'm sure that most of you are familiar with the tale of Sawney Bean: 16th Century patriach of an enormous, incestuous feral family of cannibals who terrorised "the Highlands", eating anyone who crossed their path. If you ever visit the Edinburgh Dungeons tourist attraction then a band of actors will happily regurgitate the story for the benefit of anyone who pays them six quid.

Far from being true of course, the legend of Sawney, like much of Scotland's mythical hinterland, was manufactured by sensationalists keen to exploit the more gullible of our southern neighbours' mistakenly held 19th century prejudices.

Still, that's all in the past now; none of us would be so silly enough to peddle myths and misinformation in order to portray the Scots as barely-civillised savages for a middle-class audience, especially not one of our own. Except...this appeared in the Guardian a couple of days ago.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1595905,00.html

It is riddled with inaccuracy and misinterpretation, and the Guardian has now published an apology in its print edition. Scotland is not now, never has been and never will be the murder capital of the world. There are approximately 100 murders per year in Scotland. To give some perspective, when I last visited St Petersburg (population 5 million) they had a murder rate of 34. Per day.

Now I really don't expect any better from The Guardian, smug, inaccurate bastion of cretino-leftism that it is, but couldn't they have picked someone more talented? More capable of separating fact from fiction? Hell, couldn't they have picked someone who actually lives here, and not some one-trick pony whose reputation has disproportionately benefitted from John Hodge's magnificent screenplay of Trainspotting which tricks everyone who has had the good fortune never to read an Irvine Welsh novel into believing he is infinitely better than he actually is?

God knows there are things wrong with Scotland - this blog and others like it are full of people howling with frustration at Holyrood and Westminster. We don't need to remould the myths of old for the benefit of the Ham & High mafia though. It's a pity Sawney Bean didn't have a taste for fat tax exiles.

On Tuesday night Professor Peter Brunt gave a lecture under the auspices of the Royal College Of Physicians of Edinburgh entitled “An enemy in their mouths” – a perspective on Scotland’s alcohol problem. That it was a very well presented lecture is no more than you would expect from someone with Professor before his name and CVO, OBE after it and we were treated to an erudite potted history of the use of alcohol from the time of the Egyptian pharaohs to the present. His eloquent prose was more than adequately supported by a liberal sprinkling of power point illustrations of paintings by Bruegel, Manet, et al and any number of Shakespearian quotes of which his title is one – but of course you knew that, this is The Scotsman after all. But there it ended I’m afraid. The graphs, many relating to the eighties, were produced to show an upward trend in both consumption, alcohol related illness and mortality and the conclusions were drawn that drink is too cheap, too readily available and too heavily advertised. Nothing new there then, and certainly little in the way of seeing a way ahead. Given that Professor Brunt was billed as ‘-- one of Scotland’s leading alcohol experts,’ one could have reasonably expected more emphasis on substance, if necessary at the expense of a few paintings and maybe a couple of sculptures here and there.

This morning I was amazed at the upsurge of comments to articles on this site, that is until I read them - 'Amazing new business opportunity' 'Need A Loan' We've got used to this in our mail boxes (both real and virtual) and now they're invading the blogosphere. Why don't you all just Fuck Off!

Oxymoron:- A Vettriano Original

When is plagiarism not plagiarism? When you're Jack Vetttriano it seems. It was revealed today in The Scotsman that the top Scottish 'artist' copied some of his famous paintings directly from a 'How to do it' painting manual. We're not talking style or nuance here we're talking copying that is so blatant he probably used tracing paper! If this was in the literary domain he would be black balled with no court of appeal, but we're in the 'art world' here and the fact that these 'colouring in' masterpieces have sold for upwards of 700,000 pounds probably says as much about the denizens of that airy-fairy world as it does about Vettrianno himself. Then there's his agent," Vettriano's skill lies in his ability to create narrative paintings with which the viwer becomes involved.He is a master of generating atmosphere in his paintings---------" blah de blah de blah.What a load of crap. If he were a genuine wide boy who had fooled those poncy 'collectors' with too much disposable income then I would be the first to applaud him but I'm afraid that's not the case. He is a man who got lucky and came to believe his own publicity. I always thought his work was like the product of some sort of sausage machine where the handle was turned and out popped another of the same but I thought that at least he was using his own recipe!

http://www.eitb24.com/noticia_en.php?id=94913

And thus it began. Catalonia is, apparently a nation; a belief now enacted by a majority in the Catalan parliament by a majority of 119-5. President of the Catalan parliament Ernest Banach said, "This charter is not against anyone, it's simply in favor of Catalonia. It doesn't aim to break anything. It's not a declaration of independence, by any means."

Amongst the desired results of this document are:

• Complete fiscal autonomy, including power over VAT levels.
• Direct representation for Catalonia at the EU.
• Catalan participation in international sporting events, such as the Olympics and World Cup.
• Educational promotion of the Catalan language for those living in the nation.

This is essentially independence, minus an army and a monarch. The Catalans already have control over many matters which over here are reserved, such as broadcasting and gambling.

Remember 1997? When Scottish Labour did their best to use Catalonia as a role model for devolved Scotland? So infatuated were they that they even gave over a £431m slice of Edinburgh to one of its favourite artisans. The infatuation was obviously skin-deep as the Catalan politicians who voted 119-5 in favour of this charter have only one simple motivation; to make Catalonia better. The Scottish Labour party have done everything in their power to ensure that the welfare of another country is their priority. Devolution's driving force was negative; to stop independence in its tracks. No wonder people here hold the Executive in such contempt.

Don't say I didn't warn you. 'Lucky Jack', Lorraine Davidson's hagiography of our saintly and misunderstood First Minister was given a helluva kicking by the Sunday Herald's book reviewer Alan Taylor. It's not available online, so please allow me to summarise:

On Davidson's writing style
"Page after page is pockmarked with cliches, non-sequiturs, repitition, nonsense and grammatical howlers...That such shoddy, immature and unrevelatory work can find a publisher makes one despair".

Davidson on Villagate
"Surely talented young people in Scotland like Jack and Kirsty will be deterred from going into public life if they feel they would live their life in a goldfish bowl".

How Jack copes
"When the going gets tough, McConnell takes to the golf course".

Dietary revelations
"Like most six year olds, Jack didn't like eating vegetables"

On Arran's tight-knit community
"Arran is a tight-knit community"

Filed under 'Too Much Information'
"On leaving teaching, he told astonished colleagues that he had had a vasectomy and had been cirumcised. The decision to have a vasectomy was Jack's". (Thank god for that. The prospect of someone going at the wee fella's uglies with a sharp implement without his consent is too much to bear).

Summary
"McConnell could not be luckier to have a biographer such as this. Whole chapters are devoted to Sir Sean, McConnell's no-show at a D-Day event and to an interview with his adopted daughter (My Dad The First Minister), none of which is worth the paper it is printed on...Various press pundits testify in a This Is Your Life fashion, again indicating the cosiness of the relationship between the two estates. Bizarrely, she conspires to bury the story of McConnell's affair with Maureen Smith, a former Labour press officer, which involved his wife, Bridget, in a humiliating press conference on the eve of his becoming First Minister. Nor, it seems, was any attempt made to contact Smith for her story. But that is nothing unusual where this lazy biography is concerned. Though McConnell did not grant Davidson an interview, she remains on message. 'I started this project as a sympathetic observer who has known Jack McConnell for the best part of a decade,' she writes, 'and that is what I have remained'. Her honesty warms the cockles of one's heart.

And not a mention of Lobbygate to be found. Or the murky world of Lanarkshire Labour's accounting practices, or the murkier members of their brigade of local benefactors. Or the role played by either McConnell himself or Tommy Graham MP (who he served as a researcher) in the suicide of the Paisley MP Gordon McMaster in 1997. And no mention of the 'McFondle' file either...If that lot had been covered it might even have been worth reading...