Here’s (a few seconds into the clip) George, Baron Foulkes Of Cumnock.
Born in 1942 in Oswestry in Shropshire and privately educated at The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hertfordshire, George was first elected by the public in 1979, serving for 26 years. During his time as an MP he was convicted of a drunken violent assault on a policeman and fined £1,050. In 2005 he was ennobled into the House Of Lords and will make laws for UK citizens until he dies, no matter what voters say.
You’d think he’d have learned better manners by now.
As we write there’s a protest going on outside the Scottish Parliament regarding the privatisation of ferry services to the Western Isles. It was formally announced almost three hours ago that there definitely wasn’t going to be any privatisation and that the service would remain in public hands, but the protest still went ahead.
The people conducting the protest, who’ve got the exact thing they wanted, are now doing their level best to lose it again. Welcome to Scottish politics.
Over the past few days, readers, we haven’t been able to avoid noticing a recurring theme among Unionist types on social media – namely that the Holyrood election results are proof that support for independence is declining.
But it’s not until you ask them to explain that it gets completely mental.
For much of its life, this site has been warning readers that, as their default position, they should always assume newspaper headlines are a lie until proven otherwise.
Today, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper admitted it in public.
You win a historic third election with a second massive landslide, getting more than twice as many seats as your nearest challenger – the first time such a thing has ever happened in a Holyrood election – on the back of what’s (self-evidently) by and large a very popular policy programme and record, and before you’ve even taken your seats in the chamber all the parties you just thrashed out of sight line up to explain how you’ve been doing everything wrong.
And as alliances go, they don’t get much less holy.
We’re supposed to be taking a few days off, but it’s been tipping it down outside for 36 solid hours, so when an alert reader emailed us a question relating to this article from Monday, we couldn’t help but go and research it just to pass some time.
They’d asked how many of the Tory MSPs elected last Thursday had been rejected by the voters of a constituency seat on the same day, and we were startled by the answer – of the 24 Conservative members of the Scottish Parliament elected on the list last week, every single one was also a failed constituency candidate.
In amongst a torrent of pretty mad analysis of the election result at the weekend, we noticed the most insane reason yet suggested for the loss of the SNP’s majority:
The co-founder of a much-lauded but little-read pro-independence website asserted that the SNP were cruising to victory until the Nats got the backing of the Scottish Sun and Nicola Sturgeon was pictured posing with the front cover endorsing her party.
The whole litany of gaping flaws in that argument is something the Yes movement has needed to talk about for some considerable time now. So let’s bite the bullet and do it.
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Why would any one argue that a law abiding mostly safe country should follow and back slide to other countries…” Jun 20, 17:35
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: ““Although where there is a will, there is a way” Naw. That’s gullibility reinforced by the lucky accident of having…” Jun 20, 17:11
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Breastplate, Aye At what point does a censorship country make a regime change to a dictatorship country. Although where there…” Jun 20, 16:15
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Somebody had better check the small print. It could well be that at ScotGov, a “disabled” person is somebody trapped…” Jun 20, 15:40
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Sure, Bip. If only we had more cheerleading for poot and more bigging up of the lassie torturing tunnel skulkers…” Jun 20, 15:36
agent x on Holiday Relief: ““THE Scottish Government has launched a “milestone” report which aims to put disabled people’s experiences and concerns at the centre…” Jun 20, 14:00
George Ferguson on Holiday Relief: “@Alf Baird 10:03am The purpose of being an Independent Candidate is surely that you don’t have a party or organisation…” Jun 20, 13:40
James on Holiday Relief: “Alongside a toon cooncil franchise and 24/7 interference by a foreign media system….” Jun 20, 13:38
Breastplate on Holiday Relief: “There’s a sign that hangs on the wall of the retirement home in The Simpsons. It says “Thank you for…” Jun 20, 13:13
lothianlad on Holiday Relief: “The 2014 referendunm was rigged.” Jun 20, 12:17
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “There were many reasons why the Scottish referendum did not work out for the scottish people in that year, some…” Jun 20, 11:54
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “I hope you can fit the story line together, it had to be done this way, because it kept getting…” Jun 20, 11:48
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Mr johnstone admmited that their friends had interfered in stuff they had no business being connected too back in 2014…” Jun 20, 11:42
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “However the intelligence committee did a investigation around these new ruskelene friends and found they were not so friendly because…” Jun 20, 11:38
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “Perhaps given the initial info some here may be encouraged to do some research on the group mentioned” Jun 20, 11:31
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “They were a contented and happily connected bunch of party goers at that table, many conversations and ideas were shared…” Jun 20, 11:27
Aidan on Holiday Relief: “I’m not sure what kind of reset you have in mind, but in general jobs in the UK’s professional services…” Jun 20, 11:23
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “There were many interesting people in the Westminter ruskelene forum such as mr rifkind, caroline nokes. Mr Straw, and other…” Jun 20, 11:18
James Cheyne on Holiday Relief: “I am going to have to make this comments in separate posts, and you are going to have to glue…” Jun 20, 11:01
Hatey McHateface on What We Don’t Know Now: “An excellent post. I would add that recent moves to make it easier to eliminate “unproductives” from society are, as…” Jun 20, 10:46
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Lots of sound ideas in Dan’s latest post. We should be using our local resources to make our own steel…” Jun 20, 10:35
robertkknight on Holiday Relief: “Another case of “I didn’t leave the SNP… the SNP left me!”” Jun 20, 10:17
Jontoscot21 on What We Don’t Know Now: “David I am with you. Alba were my last hope but they have proven useless. I find with the exception…” Jun 20, 10:07
Alf Baird on Holiday Relief: “Its taken him long enough (since 2015!) to figure out the SNP leadership has been co-opted by the colonial /…” Jun 20, 10:03
Dan on Holiday Relief: “@ Aidan Hmm, so you’re unable or unwilling to even consider looking at things through anything other than the current…” Jun 20, 09:34
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Cleanup on aisle 1. Now please! His mammie’s hame at 10.” Jun 20, 09:17
James on Holiday Relief: ““Lord! Such a tedious bore.” Aye, yir aw that. Prick.” Jun 20, 08:42
socratesmacsporran on Holiday Relief: “When Fergus Ewing is bailing out of the SNP, why, other than being brainwashed in the cult, is anyone else…” Jun 20, 08:23
George Ferguson on Holiday Relief: “Tenruh Fergus Ewing should become the 4th Independent elected to Holyrood since 1999. His is the sort of profile needed.…” Jun 20, 08:16
Hatey McHateface on Holiday Relief: “Here’s a quote from something I read this morning on the subject of assisted suicide: “some might argue that the…” Jun 20, 08:07
