A brief disturbance
Posted on
February 20, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
We were going to bring you a report on the Scottish Conservatives conference in Edinburgh today (half the length of last year’s, and bereft of its glamorous sprinkling of Cabinet ministers), but we watched all of it and absolutely nothing happened.
They won the referendum and tax is bad. The end. See you next year!
I’m feeling slightly cheated now
I remember them cancelling the Young Scottish Conservatives Workshop last year because only half a dozen or a dozen hardy souls signed up for it. Good to see the intensity’s picking back up again.
I suspect the audience had more replacement joints than heads!
Ah The Night of the Living Dead party conference.
Well a packed audience for their keynote speaker and esteemed leader. The standing ovation was delivered with all the gaiety and zest of a care home karaoke.
Stu, you are a hero of the revolution. Above and beyond the call of duty. You shall be mentioned in dispatches.
Whit? Nothing happened? Blast! And here was me sat down with my popcorn and a wee drinkie all set for an enjoyable evening’s entertainment!
“but we watched all of it and absolutely nothing happened.”
It’s a dirty job but someone’s gotta do it.
Shit I missed it, what’s she singing there Stu?
The only argument at Milband’s and Murphy’s Tory Party you will get is over is about expenses.
Like an SNP branch meeting but less well attended
Conservative: Averse to change. Wankers.
First thing I thought of when I saw that image behind Ruth was the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD).
On reflection, I think I was right.
Spiteful, creepy politicians each and all.
Oh what a lovely bunch of baldy heids
Looks like an advertizement for the “Whac a Mole” Arcade game.
Strikes me that it is not a great idea at all to have a party conference in Scotland in February, during a cold winter month. I know their main UK one will probably be next month, but I cannot really see why they could not hold one in early April. Seems out of place having a party conference this month for some reason.
Her humour so sharp she had the audience pish themselves – through incontinence.
And to think they gave up an evening in front of the fire for that.
The standing ovation was delivered with all the gaiety and zest of a care home karaoke.
…which is where most of them thought they were
Looks like the “Purple Rinse and Incontinance Pants” salesman must’ve had a field day there. Young and vibrant aren’t exactly the first two words that come to mind looking at the audience.
Health and Safety will of restricted numbers in case of emergency evacuation.
Was the conference held at Jurassic Park.
FUD probably sneaked into the front row to get some election ideas.
Gary
Look at all those grey and balding heads. A sharp frost in March and wee Ruthie is left alone with Mundell – who by the way, produced the most amateurish flyer for his constituents last month, that I have ever seen.
What about the North Korea comment?
That is also a pathetic turn out of people.
Red tories got aroused by it all though, anyone but SNP for these old progressive and liberal frauds, So did BBC England, overly stimulated
link to archive.today
“And that’s why it will be us – the Conservative party – who will do the right thing, clear up this mess – and leave Scotland standing taller.”
Libby Carrell doesn’t say who we’re going to taller than but SLab, SlibDem and SCon disappearing from Westminster’s a good start.
If you are under 70 years old,
you can join the Young Conservatives!
Michty me, a big crowd,eh?
Wan scoosh o’ Full Marks would’ve done for the lot o’ them!
I hear it gets rid of parasites.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
A hundred aging Tories listen to the Tory leader who received the personal endorsement of 1845 aging voters in her constituency at the last election. She came in 4th place garnering some 7.5% of the votes cast*, or ~3% of the actual constituency electorate.
She receives a surprising amount of ink for someone with such a miniscule electoral mandate – one wonders how that could be.
RATE OF DECAY: Given its vintage, how long is the half-life of the remaining Tory membership in Scotland, anyway?
.
* link to en.wikipedia.org
Was it on the BBC?
@ Rev sorry you did,nt enjoy it, ah hud a great time watching it even hud ah Mivvi & Popcorn half wie through.
Any mention from Ruth Davidson of the sneak peeks she had at the referendum polling stats? Thought not. Thought there might have been an investigation into her ‘insider knowledge’…
When Ruth looked out over that audience,she must have wondered how many would be voting in the next referendum.Or general election for that matter.
I drove past the venue just after lunch and the two vans of riot polis parked up around the corner looked decidely bored.
Biggest party non-event this year so far?
Not even with the free blue rinse and fish teas ?
“i should have hired a smaller hall”
What has 200 legs and smells of pish?
The. Scottish Tory Party Confeence.
I hope they had good wheel chair access.
Looking at that picture I knew they would have done better holding their *ahem* conference in the phone box outside!
Recount
141 legs
Mealer: “When Ruth looked out over that audience,she must have wondered how many would be voting in the next referendum.Or general election for that matter.”
When she looked out over that audience she must have wondered how many would make it to the end of her speech.
Is that Norman Tebbit, in the bottom right hand corner? He’s a bit lost then, same as his party in Scotland.
I heard from a reliable source the audience were told to spread out to make it look as if the place was full, the first few rows could have held them all, the camera never panned up above a certain height.
Paula Rose says:
Was it on the BBC?
But of course it was.
BREAKING NEWS:
7th May 2015 has been designated Scotlands National delousing day.
Lets rid Scotland of all these LibLabCon parasites.
Join in the fun, folks, but make sure you’re registered to do so.
Protect Scotland’s interests – vote SNP.
Jf this is ALL they can muster, how come we were allegedly outnumbered on the 18th?
Fair postal voting…MA ERSE!
Luigi says:
20 February, 2015 at 7:44 pm
If you are under 70 years old,
you can join the Young Conservatives!
Sorry Luigi, no can do! I’m 67 and joined the SNP last month.
“See you next year”
Looking at the age profile there, that’s not a given, and shows the demographic timebomb awaiting the No voters.
Their next conference may be a 10-minute flashmob in Princes St Gardens
Come on everyone, how heartless it must be to have some passion for politics and have to deliver a speech to 100 zombies. Maybe I should admit to this, but I quite like Ruth. All she has to do to win my support (although not at the ballot box) is decide that Westminster Tory politics ain’t going to work in Scotland and develop some genuine policies for her own part of the UK.
Come on Ruthie, you can do it!
From that image you can almost hear the rattle of mint imperials against Prozac bottles.
Scottish Tories, an endangered species!
Apparently the theatre requires fumeagating to get rid of the smell of pish and formaldehyde.
I was held up by the PMs convoy racing out of Edinburgh as fast as possible at around 3.30pm.
Obviously, not wanting to hang about for the post conference party or to stay in Scotland for any longer than absolutely neccessary.
Looks like the post conf party would have been a riot – hence the police presence?!
is that not a picture of a coconut shy?
I quite like Ruthie too. She’s warm hearted and down to earth. I much appreciated her commonsense comment about the flags at half-mast for King Abdullah. You wouldn’t find Curran coming out with anything as independent minded as that! But she will nail her colours to the Union Jack, so that’s that.
– and nowt wrong with Prozac by the way. The dug swears by them.
– and Macart, you gave a wonderful Gettysburg address the other day that i enjoyed. It was a wonderful synopsis of our social betters.
Not a dry seat in the house.
In Scotland the Tories have been driven underground, do you honestly believe they wont make their presence felt, to undermine a real Scottish party.
Anybody notice Guy Fawkes lurking behind the left hand side of the big screen?
Wonder what he’s got in mind?
They did clamour for plan B, didn’t they?
O/t but why are coconuts shy? Hard as fek.
Scottish Conservatives – Securing Scotland’s Future.
As a feudal outpost in a reactionary warmongering country.
Photo of backs of heads. Suggests that some of the ‘people’ in the picture are actually taylor’s dummies placed there to make the event look more ‘crowded’ than it actually was.
FFS, was Ruth the warm up act for Tom O’Connor?
“Not a dry seat in the house”
Same here……I laughed ’till the tears streamed down my legs.
“They won the referendum and tax is bad. The end. See you next year!”.
That’s about it really, totally irrelevant bunch of no-hopers in Scotland. Haven’t watched the news but nae doot Cameron will get the headlines for his North Korea comment…
What a turnout at their conference eh?
Should have been a real party atmosphere. With such amild winter the death toll on Tory voters should have been lower than normal.
I like Ruthie too, I’d like her and her better together mates, to be voted out of existence.
When you think of the Hydro
The “Babe” looked like a nurse sorting out the weeks bingo
@ De Valera
Going by the picture, they don’t have much of a future to secure.
‘My dear friends, we may be few in number, but between us we have over six thousand years worth of campaigning experience.’
Keep the laughs coming folks, my jaws are in agony and the tears are streaming down my face.
___________________________
Meanwhile, on a more serious note, does anyone know what’s happening with the protests against the BBC scheduled for 15th March?
The facebook link seems to be dead!
Ta for watching for me! The weans being denied icecream to pay you next month.
When I looked at all those heads I thought..Fifty shades of gray right enough.
O/T:The letter was in fact highly critical of him – in fact I’ve never written anything which, taken in context, could be construed as even remotely supportive of him in terms of how effective he is. If he really wanted to use quotes from me about himself he could have used the following: “utter hypocrisy”, “Mr Reid is reluctant to let a bandwagon pass him without seizing the opportunity to jump upon it…….”, “he is not lacking in brass neck….” “Mr Reid’s memory is somewhat akin to that of a goldfish when it comes to recollecting uncomfortable truths, and he is clearly a man whom it is impossible to embarrass….” And last, and perhaps most prescient: “I never cease to be amazed at the effrontery of Mr Reid…”
link to caltonjock.com
Carry on Conservating!
No sign of Ming in there? He attends these things incognito (allegedly) because he likes the invigorating effects of being surrounded by (relatively) young totty.
‘I was dumbstruck by her radiant beauty. She even had three of her own teeth.’
Now if we can all sing “THERE WILL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND” we will get your carers to come and collect you and change your incontinence pads, and dispense your medication.
Ooh-er…could be exciting Vow-related news unfolding via WOS Twitter.
I thought I could hear a terrible whining noise. The hearing aids in the audience? No, Ruthie was speaking.
link to youtube.com
How to make a crowd look big
@ paul gerard
I’ve heard demands for prescriptions have gone up amongst Tories of all hues in the past four months.
Does anyone know if Ian Smart has apologised for his disgusting tweet last night?
(Mind you, he’s probably still too busy shouting down the big white telephone.)
@stoker
I will be there with my youngest boy – he is a BBC PQ demo stalwart.
So that will be three of us at least.
When is the ECD demo?
Is Ruthie saying, “two fat ladies, 88” “going to lose my seat in 20, 16” ?
Rumour has it that the Cons sent a bus around the old folks homes, offering a wee bus drive followed by a wee free cuppa tea and a scone. Sorry, need to find your own way back.
“Come along now, get on the bus for our free mystery tour!”
I’m looking at that picture, and remembering being at the Hydro, and the place bouncing to the Red Hot Chilli Pipers!
Half of they baldy heids have probably been glued to the empty seats for the cameras!
It’s alright laughing & mocking the Tories pathetic get together, but the sad/undemocratic point is they don’t need a conference, or a single seat, or a single supporter, or a single member, or a single vote in Scotland to have a mandate to govern and rule over Scotland & her people. Nor do Labour or any WM unionist party for that matter. Yet all UK unionist parties are allowed to take their place in OUR Scottish parliament with their unionist establishment agenda’s, roll on evel what’s good for the goose etc etc
STV 6 o’clock news had footage where the auditorium was packed, must’ve been a different auditorium.
Strange, we never see our local Tory cooncillors but on referendum day they were all over us like a rash, ripping down our YES posters and replacing them with No Thanxers, well noted by the locals…
Hoss,
Last time i seen anything about it (last week) there was supposed to be around 600 definitely going and around 200 don’t know yet and it was scheduled for Sunday 15th March at 2pm (i think).
The link to the facebook page has been dead for several days now.
Would like to get some clarification if it’s still going ahead.
Folk with no future who have fucked it up for those who have.
Pro Nuclear Brian Wilson in predictable anti SNP mode in Hootsman over Longannet
link to archive.today
On next.
link to youtube.com
It is a bit mean to make fun of the oldies at the conference especially reference to baldie heads being smuggled in. Shame on you all…
Possibly an idea Ruthie got from the wonderful film ‘Albert RN’.
I also hear the record has been found guilty of misleading some of the 55% and that Connie Francis is re-releasing her hit.
Who’s sorry vow!
Takes a lot of talent to produce such a lengthy and detailed account of a Scottish Conservative conference.
call me dave says:
“I also hear the record has been found guilty of misleading some of the 55% and that Connie Francis is re-releasing her hit.”
“Who’s sorry vow!”
__________________
LLF
Will be singing and humming that all night now. Brilliant.
Oh.
So the Tory conference in Scotland was a bit of a non-event? Who kew.
I thought the Tory conference was really great, really something, something important, because earlier today the BBC’s website told me so.
From what I can gather, Ruth Davidson wants to make the Scottish education system as bad as the English one. All One Nation, and all that.
That’s OK with the die-hard Scottish Tories, they send their kids (or grandkids) to private schools anyway so it’s nothing to do with them.
Ruth Davidson and others fail to mention that the Swedish “free-schools” -experiment that they’ve been so keen on for years, has been a total failure. Swedish state schools outpreform those “parent-led” “free-schools”.
Finland doesn’t have any private schools. Not one. Even the lah-di-dah Steiners or newly established “Christian” schools are funded by the state same as ordinary schools, and if they want extra, they, or rather the parents’ association, have to raise the money.
I’d estimate that 99.9% of kids in Finland go to the bog standrard state school, usually the nearest one. The rich kids, the poor kids. Great teachers – who’re paid well – and real community feel. We don’t call our teachers sir or ma’am or Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss Something, we call them by first names if we call them anything, and behind their backs by their nicknames. And the teachers usually know these – not always flattering – nicknames. The only worse thing is NOT having a nickname because it means the kids really don’t like you.
Oh, and did I mention that Finland keeps topping the PISA and our Ministry of Education is now quite used to delegations from other Western countries and sending them to ordinary Finnish schools to see how it’s done.
In the past few years east Asian school systems (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore etc.) have been edging ahead, especially in math – though we in Finland think it’s because private schools and lots of private tutoring is allowed. (Private tutoring is virtually unknown in Finland. Finnish pupils/students can barely be arsed to do their homework, so they’d not take well to parent-imposed slavery under some silly tutor. And the parents know this.)
Whatever. We here in Finland believe in educating our primary school teachers and our scecondary school subject teachers to Masters’ level and paying them the a fair wage (the same or more as newly minted laweyers).
It’s a completely different education mindset and culture and ideology to the UK (or rather, the English) one. We want everybody to be well-educated. The UK (or rather, England) don’t want everybody well-educated, just the tax-payer subsidised traditional “public schools” like Eton and Harrow or whatever to supply Oxbridge establishment young men (and it’s almost always men) to keep their idea of the Britsih emp… state going.
That’s the mindset, and Scotland and Scottish voters, with the tiny population (some of which are fully signed-up members of the UK/English establishment anyway), cannot hope to ever have any meaningful political power in this union. Even if the SNP win more seats than Labour, they’ll be sidelined in Westminster.
Maybe that will open even more eyes in Scotland.
Murray McCallum says:
Takes a lot of talent to produce such a lengthy and detailed account of a Scottish Conservative conference.
Just be thankful Murray that we have ALL the talent on OUR side.
The crowd look like extras from a zombie film. Mind you I’ve seen fitter looking zombies than that mob.
I apologise in advance for the following slightly O/T rant, but sometimes we all need to let off steam:
In the car on the way home I caught the tail end of David Cameron’s latest VoteSNPgetArmageddon mantra.
David Cameron, you are a shameless, pompous tw*t of the worst kind. I don’t even know where to start, it’s wrong on so many levels.
Somehow you think that it’s funny to imply that any party on the left of fascism must sympathise with a totalitarian dictatorship. In your simplistic, ignorant head, you obviously think North Korea is an example of left wing politics.
I’m sure the thousands of North Koreans in their living hell of a concentration camp will find your schoolboy jibe hilarious.
Your cheap, puerile point scoring by making fun of a government which is an affront to humanity is pathetic. You show your total disregard for people who are genuinely suffering in an existence we could never conceive of.
You are a head of state FFS, acting like a self-congratulating adolescent – ha ha, look at me, I’m so witty and clever. Where is your diplomacy, your tact, your intelligence, your principles? There is no answer to that.
…. and breathe
must have been the only time wee Ruth and DC had their audience pissing themselves, literaly
…absolutely nothing happened.
Zut alors!
Shall I wet mysel or is that too melodramatic?
Those five people at the back will be getting mega growlers for sitting right next to each other.
There was live politics yesterday? Sorry, the Cricket World Cup has started and the Black Caps severely humbled England and Super Rugby has started too. No contest (the politics, the sport was definitely contests).
Word on the street was those oldies thought they were going to see Shirley Temple,
Turns out they were right.
link to youtube.com
Gaun yersel Ruthy hen.
Dumb Unicorn
“…. and breathe”
Maybe you’d like to have word with my wife
she appears perfected the art of circular breathing.
link to en.wikipedia.org
to have, sigh.
Hoss Mackintosh says
“I was held up by the PMs convoy racing out of Edinburgh as fast as possible at around 3.30pm.
Obviously, not wanting to hang about for the post conference party or to stay in Scotland for any longer than absolutely necessary.”
No no no
it was because his (London) oxygen tanks were nearly empty,
He thinks if he breathes Scottish air his hair will turn ginger
and he’ll have an overwhelming need to eat haggis.
link to tinyurl.com
For gods sake do something about that facial hair lassie.
link to tinyurl.com
Mair like it,
still ye missed a bit under yer nose.
Surely they sould change their name to The Scottish Preservative and Unionist Party
I am still laughing and going back to read the rest of the banter. I caught Stu’s posting on twitter yesterday and he was funny, but I have one thing to say for many many of you Wingers, you are funnier still.
Any day now and you will be on the stage.
Thank goodness I am not of the blue rinse fraternity yet, I might have been offended.
Spare a thought for the guy who has to shovel up the wet sawdust from under the seats afterwords.
I see the tory conference is reduced to using the contents of only one old peoples home these days.
And why is it when I see Ruth Davidson walking, I think to myself there’s a lassie missing a pair of wellies.
@ john king
Thank you – all calm now
I suspect we’ll all need to practice keeping our cool over the next couple of months. Between Mr Cameron, Mr Murphy and the MSM, we already know we will be deluged with lies, truth-twisting and slander aimed at the SNP on a daily basis.
On a positive note, from what I’ve seen, the SNP continues to act with dignity and has so far refrained from retaliating with the same foul tactics. I expect they know that no matter how unfair it is, they can’t afford to put a toenail wrong – not that they would of course, they have the moral high ground and there’s no reason for them to give it up.
I’ve been genuinely impressed with Nicola Sturgeon’s public persona too (when she’s allowed to speak that is). She is that rare breed of politician who believes in what she says and has the intellect and knowledge to think on her feet. Very few people can do that convincingly and we’re lucky to have her on our side. Her analysis of the alternative to austerity was a revelation. Her solution is well thought out and well researched, unlike the lazy, simplistic approach which is such a feature of the other UK parties. If only everyone could see what we can see!
Compare and contrast, compare and contrast.
Look on the bright side – by the look of that audience there won’t be many of Tory Party supporters around in Scotland in the fairly near future.