An open goal
Posted on
January 10, 2015 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
It’s like they’re actually setting these up for us.
STV News today:
Do we need to even finish this for you, readers?
Keep ’em coming, lads.
Everything that they can, lie about, smear, obfuscate and rewrite.
They will, lie about, smear, obfuscate and rewrite.
Even though Murphy’s Law is actually a perfectly rational design warning, that’s hilarious.
Murphy’s Law?
Are they serious?
It’s a numbers game, it’s leveraging, it’s targeting finite resources.
Another crowd funder I suggest.
“The party is said to be launching “an unprecedented drive” to contact almost 200,000 voters it said voted for the party at the 2010 General Election but voted “Yes” in September.
Personalised letters are to be sent to those that the party has identified as “the most important voters in the UK”.”
EBC news
They’re deliberately taking the piss. It’s the only explanation.
I don’t like butter.
Stu, it’s Saturday. This is your fourth article. Not that I’m complaining mind, but sheesh….
It is nearly as amusing as “Murphy’s Nurses” that Mags Curran was trying to plant in the minds of the electorate on Radio Scotland’s Friday lunchtime debate programme.
As Sod of Sod’s Law said ‘Murphy is an optimist’.
Murphy’s Law not to be confused with Muphry’s Law and also not be confused with anything that is for the betterment of Scotland or the Scottish people! only to be confused with the advancement of neo-lib policies and the personal advancement of labour appartchicks #ScotlandsCleverestMan
Soon to be called ‘Murphy’s Lie’
@RandomSwitch, yes I’ve been saying that the recruiting of BT’s ‘Project Fear’ team, is a clear indication that they aim to scare or con the elderly into voting for Labour.
We need to get this out there:
‘Project Fear is back, targeting the same age group that they scared enough to win the referendum for them’
I know this is a minor point but how on earth do they know which 200,000 who voted Labour in 2010 voted Yes? They can sample and work out what the likely figure was but they can’t possibly target every individual…..unless secret ballots are not secret.
Labour in Scotland will tow the line of London Labour in pursuit of Middle England Tory voters.
An open goal, and I see a big score coming up. Every line of that Labour article presents a scoring opportunity.
According to Pravda GB, not only does something called the Scottish Labour Party exist, it also has a constitution:
“Voters who backed independence in September’s referendum can “find a home in a renewed” Scottish Labour Party, Jim Murphy has said.
He spoke as the party’s executive committee approved the wording of a new Clause Four in its constitution.”
Oh how I’ve been waiting for this one. Bring on Murphy’s law.
This is so seriously wrong!
Aye but unlike the Murphy’s we’re not bitter…
@HandandShrimp:
I’d say it was a fairly major point, actually. How can those 200k people be identified, in what were supposedly 2 secret ballots, to the extent Labour would know their addresses?
Its like a wind-up, so embarrassing, surely they aren’t THAT stupid, oh wait….
Hehehehe. Shit sandwich.
what a bunch of arseholes the Scottish Branch are?
Even poor old Stairheed Rammy will be sitting at home bumping her gums over this clown show.
John Murphy says…
Yes and No voters can find a home in a renewed Scottish Labour Party, leader Jim Murphy said today
Aye it will need to be a f*ckin care home John as we don’t really care for you or your dug or #ScotlandsCleverestMan
As Patrick says, it’s project fear continued. Now though, we know their tactics and are better informed, prepared and in the ascension.
Hysteron Proteron!
Always putting the cart before the horse. “That which normally comes last is put first”.
It’s our turn to come first.
Pie in the sky stuff this. They must think the more coverage they get good or bad the better for the gullible people who voted no will take there lies as gospel again.
PROJECT FEAR MARK II
Murphy, Westminster, London, reserved powers ….. For the GE, Labour will have absolutely NO policies whatsoever tailored specifically to Scotland. There can be no ‘Scotland’s needs first’ agenda in this UK wide contest from Labour.
They will lie. They will muddle devolved issues with reserved ones. There will be Vow II. They will pretend to have a Scottish agenda at WM. All chaff in the wind.
And, you would have to be really really gullible to believe them!
Nearly wet myself laughing. You just couldn’t make it up.
I’ve been scouring the “Scottish” Labour website to find its constitution and have had no luck. Can anyone help me out?
I’d like to apologise to Johan Lamont. It seems that in terms of Labour leadership she was an actual intellectual heavyweight.
The Herald is going all out on the fawning of Murphy, no doubt with the helping hand of labour stalwart Magnus Gardham.
We need to get some leaflets together to counter the pish that the usual unionist suspect newspapers are putting out about Murphy and not the previous YES tame leaflets either.
My brain hurts and I’m going to bed …NOW!
[muffled sounds of partially suppressed chortling in background]
@Kenny 11:02pm
It’s like the “Vow” it doesn’t exist – hang on though, is that the sound of a Daily Retard editorial typewriter clacking away in the background?
NOT this one at 75yrs, I will jump into my SCOTCH PYNE BOX FIRST.
he is in a different world,a bampot that couldnae dae a uni course,believe nothing that comes oot o his mooth
All of this is of course aimed directly at the low information voter, just as happened in the indy ref. Aided and refined, promoted and given a veneer of polite socialism by the BBC and MSM.
Aye they’re not very clever!. as we approach the Election it won’t be THEM we have to deal with. Our palls in the media will handle things for them.
Seeing as we’re back on topic-read Kevin McKenna’s letter
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/10/jim-murphy-how-to-make-glasgow-man-love-labour
Murphy’s law-I’ve heard it all now ;-)When does it start? Oh it has, silly me.
Sunday Herald front page:
http://t.co/zBy0h3Qxb7
It actually reminds me of a joke I once heard about Aristrocrats..
For the longest time, the agent just sits in silence. Finally, he manages, “That’s a hell of an act. What do you call it?”
And the father says, “The Scottish Labour Party!”
murphism = je suis jim
O/T
Article about fracking for info
http://t.co/ao9S6LhPWc
Seriously, either Murphy is trying to play us all for fools (which is the likeliest bet), or he truly is living in a fantasy world of his own making.
I suspect that most Scots probably either can’t be bothered with Murphy, or like everyone here, they can see clean through him and know what he is up too.
The only thing that concerns me, is our wonderful Scottish (with a London address) media. I can definitely see a media war going stratosphere around April-May time as the Unionist media at all costs, attempts to promote this exiled-Westminster ‘career politician’ as a credible voice for socialism (snort! chortle!), while the rest of us try to finally expose him for what he truly is; a toom tabard with hee-haw policies …except for one; to gain as many votes for London labour as possible!
Scottish labour will put the needs of Scotland first when creating policy under a new doctrine, the party has dubbed “Murphy’s law.”
Dim Jim two questions if I may:
1: Who is the Scottish Labour Party and where do they hang out?
2: What the f*** has this supposed “Scottish Labour Party” been doing for the last 55 years if it just dawned on you that Scotland and its people should come first, after expenses, HOL, foreign trips, gold plated pensions not forgetting lucrative speaking tours (all expenses paid).
A your a laugh Jim or you think we are totally stupid! Don’t forget to get your bully boys to frighten the elderly Jim, that is about your limit. Bayonetes ready?
Sky is blue.. #ScotlandsCleverestMan
River Nile is really long.. #ScotlandsCleverestMan
John Murphy a good guy.. #ScotlandsCleverestMan
Tories love money.. #ScotlandsCleverestMan
For these are my mountains.. #ScotlandsCleverestMan
As far as I know I think all the postal votes during the referendum were mailed to England “for verification purposes”. Anything could have happened to them upon arriving in England. It would have been easy to open the ballots and record Yeses and Noes in a database for future use. There should be much tighter control in any second referendum and all ballots should remain in Scotland so there’s a paper trail.
I believe that he genuinely thinks he can pull off some kind of herculean effort of a turnaround of SLABs fortune in order to thwart a rout in May.
If Brown can do it, then Jimbo is gallus enough to think he’s in with a fighting chance. comedy gold awaits.
Either they are very very stupid or very very clever
It does look like they are determined to flood the mainstream media with so many contradictory messages and distortions ( oil, NHS etc ) that any truth out there will be drowned by misinformation and a confused electorate will believe anything or nothing and end up either not voting at all or revert to whatever comfort zone they have left…..
If there is any method in the current Murphy madness which is designed to pick up more Labour votes and discredit the SNP this might be it……
Or am I being too kind attributing any brains or coherent strategy to the Scottish Labour dream team ( the new 3 amigos Murphy, McTernan and MacDougall)
Some jokes are just too funny, eh?
If Jim Murphy is the punchline, what was the gag? If it is metaphysically possible for a British Labour party accounting unit, or ‘branch-office’, to have autonomy from London HQ, perhaps I need stronger meds. 😉
Metaphysically, there is no such ‘thing’ as Scottish Labour’, only a marketing gimmick employed to mask inner tensions within the British Labour party trying to portray imperialism as socialism. As such, selling it as the ‘real deal’ is an expression of London’s control and an outright insult to Scottish voters. Little or no cohesion between surface appearances and inner substance. No particularly wabi-sabi.
Trevor Davies outlines the need for Labour to develop new language, rediscover its stories to communicate its mission for change in Scotland.
Second, start acting as if we really, absolutely, with rock-solid purpose want to find the emotionally stirring narratives and the political strategies and the ideas for ‘we-really mean-it’ change that will bring people back to us and our values in their hundreds of thousands. In 18 months time.
http://www.scottishfabians.org.uk/whats-labours-story/
Astonishing stuff.
My late uncle was a Murphy. Someone gave him a calendar (in 1991) which I found when clearing out his house. It’s one of those cheap efforts you get in tacky souvenir shops. Someone had brought it back from Ireland for him and he kept it. It’s called ‘Murphy’s Law’ and has wee drawings of toadstools and leprechauns, and the whole thing is bordered by shamrocks. It’s as cheap as chips, but strangely cute, and it’s hanging in my room.
Some of the wee aphorisms (which, I must confess, I haven’t read until now) :
It is morally wrong to allow suckers to keep their money.
Celibacy is not hereditary.
Beauty is only skin deep. Ugly goes to the bone.
A Smith & Weston beats four aces.
Never argue with a fool. People might not know the difference.
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.
In order to get a loan you must first prove you don’t need it.
The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.
Murphy’s Golden Rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
When it becomes difficult to tell the difference between a political party’s mission statement and a joke, we should be wary. As others have noted above, it’s as if they’re just taking the mickey. To any truly objective observers it’s surely becoming farcical, and that’s why – if we cannot, between us, wipe SLab off the political map in May? – we don’t deserve another shot at independence.
The ineptitude of Labour in Scotland never fails to please me.
If I was Murphy I’d sack whoever titled their incompetence ‘Murphy’s Law’.
So is Murphy going to launch a separate Scottish Labour Party Manifesto in time for the 2015 GE. If so, how will it differ from the London Labour Party Manifesto.
I thought we were all better together, pool and share and all that.
If you keep this up Jim, you’ll be voting YES in the next Referendum.
Parliamentary Labour haven’t put anyone but themselves first for decades. Mr Murphy being a prime example.
Kevin McKenna’s article in the Guardian (mentioned above) is a belter.
Thank you Lollysmum, that is good news!
Keep taking the meds folks. Apparently it is possible for a system to produce positive results, in an environment that is not conducive for such positive outcomes to occur. The vote was to retain the British state?
Nicola Sturgeon has had a long time to think about her leadership of the SNP. She has been the anointed heir ever since she stood aside to let Alex Salmond reclaim the leadership in 2003. She is likely to push her party towards a Nordic vision of social democracy. This, coupled with enhanced autonomy, will form part of the effort to further differentiate Scottish political culture from that of Westminster and the UK. However, for all the talk of Scottish social democracy she is faced with a Scottish society with a very neoliberal look about it. In terms of rates of poverty, multiple deprivation, inequality in health, education and a whole host of public policy outcomes, Scotland remains of the most unequal societies in the western world. The alignment of the socio-economic and constitutional politics of Scotland is the message Sturgeon will seek to project.
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/the-snp-is-in-a-good-place-despite-the-referendum-defeat/
Next to a story on Helping You Understand Assisted Suicide no less
I think canvas returns may have identified the people who say they had been Labour voters, but would be voting Yes.
The Subtle Lie in all of this, is that these Yes voters would not automatically have become SNP voters, so what Murphy is telling us, unintentionally, is that as was repeatedly said on Wings and elsewhere, Labour has lost credibility with it’s own voters, because of their behaviour during the referendum campaign, and they are now viewed as anti-Scottish by a lot of people who previously voted for them.
They have probably identified that it is these very voters who are now turning away from Labour and towards the SNP.
McTernan & McDougals, job is to think of strategies or media releases that will scare or con these voters enough to get them back into Labours fold, and they have clearly identified that these people would need to believe that Jim Murphy has taken control of Labour and turned it from being anti-Scottish into a pro Scottish party.
So every action and statement in which Murphy Mcternan and McDougal have expressed pro UK sentiment at the expense of Scottish interests should be shouted from the rooftops.
The disgusting comments from Kelly and Hood and Davidson etc should not be allowed to be forgotten either.
We can see their strategy and we can see that if they can’t con these previous Labour voters they are in deep dodo, so lets not let them con our people.
Hmmm…
This clip is from last summer – Brian Taylor does a piece about Peter Kilfoyle coming out for Yes, then it goes back to a studio discussion with Sarah Smith, Jeanne Freeman and yer man McTernan.
Interesting final words from McTernan:
‘If you don’t know, vote no.’
Is this, perhaps, the earliest record of that particular slogan? Can we assume that McTernan was the inventor? I recall Darling using it, but not until close to the end of the campaign…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZDqlzK2Aeg
50% tax rate (yielding £250m per annum!!!), another £250m from the mansion tax, setting up a ‘Resilience Fund’, 1000+++ nurses… who does St Jim consult as he makes up all the policy on the hoof? God? The Pope? Tony Bliar? The Ghost of Henry Jackson? Does he ever discuss these complete u-turns with Scottish Labour’s (ahem) legions of members in order to derive his democratic mandate?
Maybe they meet down the Barrhead Labour Club and Jim gets the drinks in till all five of them are nodding to anything he says.
I wonder how many other “laws” we can spot
Lets look through the round window children
Rothbard’s law – Everyone specializes in his own area of weakness.
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Goodhart’s law – When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
————————————————-
Oh here’s a good one
Finagle’s law – Related to Murphy’s Law, states “Anything that can go wrong, will – at the worst possible time.”
Who’s getting the popcorn?
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Dilbert principle – Coined by Scott Adams as a variation of the Peter Principle of employee advancement. Named after Adams’ Dilbert comic strip, it proposes that “the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.”
Hmmm!
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Gresham’s law – Typically stated as “Bad money drives good money out of circulation”, but more accurately “Bad money drives good money out of circulation if their exchange rate is set by law.” Coined in 1858 by British economist Henry Dunning Macleod, and named for Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–1579). The principle had been stated before Gresham by others, including Nicolaus Copernicus.
Quick someone tell Gideon!
——————————————–
Hanlon’s razor – A corollary of Finagle’s law, and a play on Occam’s razor, normally taking the form, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” As with Finagle, possibly not strictly eponymous. Alternatively, “Do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence.”
Oh I like that one
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Heres one for Mark McDonald
“Hitchens’s razor – An epistemological principle maintaining that the burden of evidence in a debate rests on the claim-maker, and that the opponent can dismiss the claim if this burden is not met.”
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Hotelling’s law in economics – Under some conditions, it is rational for competitors to make their products as nearly identical as possible.
We know where Murphy got his policies now!
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Muphry’s law – “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.” The editorial equivalent of Murphy’s law, according to John Bangsund.
I just dont get thitr on?
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Peter principle – “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.” Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) in his book The Peter Principle. In his follow-up book, The Peter Prescription, he offered possible solutions to the problems his principle could cause.
That explains a lot!
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Ribot’s law – In amnesia, more recent memories are most affected.
Does Kaye Adams know about this?
———————————–
Sturgeon’s law – “Ninety percent of everything is crud.” Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985)
What? is says Sturgeon in it!
—————————–
Wirth’s law – Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster.
I’ ve a lways sa id t ha t .
————————————–
Zipf’s law – In linguistics, the observation that the frequency of use of the nth-most-frequently-used word in any natural language is approximately inversely proportional to n, or, more simply, that a few words are used very often, but many or most are used rarely. Named after George Kingsley Zipf (1902–1950), whose statistical body of research led to the observation. More generally, the term Zipf’s law refers to the probability distributions involved, which are applied by statisticians not only to linguistics but also to fields remote from that.
Weell I couldn’t leave the poor guy out, he’s last to be invited to every party.
MoJo SAYS
“Or am I being too kind attributing any brains or coherent strategy to the Scottish Labour dream team ( the new 3 amigos Murphy, McTernan and MacDougall)”
Ahem can I just draw your attention to this?
Hanlon’s razor – A corollary of Finagle’s law, and a play on Occam’s razor, normally taking the form, “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.” As with Finagle, possibly not strictly eponymous. Alternatively, “Do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence.”
@Patrick Roden:
canvas returns could not have identified all 190,000 in this category, yet Labour claim they will be sending them all letters addressing them personally.
This isn’t a conspiracy thing: it’s just about pointing out yet another obvious lie in Labour’s publicity stunts. As tinyzeitgeist say above, this stuff is all aimed at the low information voter, the kind who looks at politics one of 2 ways.
1. They believe all politicians are trying to be honest.
2. They believe all politicians are lying.
I am a great believer in O’Reilly’s corollary to Murphy’s Law: Dat feckin Murphy always was a feckin optimist.
Got to keep in mind that we are not their target audience, they are playing another game of confusion, positioning and fear mongering and many people will be taken in by it
I’m actually starting to think that coversion by conversation and wbb type info is going to be more important for the general election than it was for indyref
Murphy’s Law will be erased from msm history from today. Red Tories don’t seem to appreciate that millions uk-wide would vote for any Labour candidate, whatever their policies, if they look intelligent. Murphy brings back frightening visions of the alien series “V”, and Kid Milliband has the startled look of a boy whose mum has just caught him with a nude book!
The fact that I can’t even remember any of the others tells it all.
Very optimistic about GE
O/T Apologies.
Just been watching Sky News where they had a review of cartoons published on the subject of the tragic events in France.
It suddenly struck me that during the Indy Ref campaign the London based press published numerous cartoons which were, frankly, insulting to Scotland. But that’s freedom of expression and although I personally didn’t like the cartoons, I wouldn’t take away that freedom.
But guess what, I don’t recall any UK newspaper showing the backbone that Charlie Hedbo have displayed.
So it’s ok to insult Scotland, but when it comes to using freedom of expression and challenging religion, the UK media don’t have the courage. Double standards methinks.
Schrodingers Kat
06 January 2015 3:44pm
Either Murphy has been tasked with writing labours manifesto or labour has decided every constituency mp or ppc can write their own, regardless of whether their party support it.
Could be, labour, Tory and especially libdem manifestos are at best a work of fiction. Welcome to politics 2015
Schrodingers Kat Schrodingers Kat
06 January 2015 3:58pm
I await with bated breath, Jacky baillies (there’s no such thing as a free lunch dontcha know) announcement of a new gravity tax
Schrodingers Kat
06 January 2015 10:36am
Once labour is elected, any dropped jelly pieces which fail to land, jam side down, will incurr an additional tax…….
Now if only I can come up with a snappy name for this new law…..
During the referendum wasn’t there a call for the members to reclaim the Labour Party, Didn’t the people speak by joining the SNP /Greens. Perhaps Labour were not listening. When you are lied to, you stop listening. Honesty should have been there best policy but alas they seem to think that they have a winning formulae
The Tory/Labour alliance rulers of these islands are well aware that Murfo is a numty.
They will use their pawn to discredit Scottish politics in general, and continue playing swapsies with the wealth of the land.
We need to bargepole Murfo away from any credible association with Scotland.
Who is Labour’s “qualifying party leader” for purposes of allowances. Surely must be Kezia Dugdale.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/Allowancesandexpensesresources/Party_Leaders_Allowances_Scheme.pdf
Schrodingers Kat
06 January 2015 10:36am
Once labour is elected, any dropped jelly pieces which fail to land, jam side down, will incurr an additional tax…….
Now if only I can come up with a snappy name for this new law…..
How about, as a tribute to Matt’s song: Skyscraper Wean” – McGinn’s Law.
When does Murphy fall jammy side down?
Not forgetting
Gresham’s Law: Blairites drive out good guys.
and
Grisham’s Law: Truth is stranger than fiction.
Indigo @ 9.25 am
I think you may be correct on that one.
That famous Unionist double-act is back on our screens this morning on the Sunday Politics Show BBC Scotland.
Murphy and Brewer are going to tell us what it is like to be a “Scottish Patriot”.
This is Murphy’s new angle, the guy who stood on a crate during the Referendum and told us how Scotland was too stupid to run it’s own affairs, is now telling us he is a “patriot”.
And don’t miss the warm-up act, booting the shit out of the Scottish NHS.
BBC Scotland and Scottish Labour really make you feel proud to be a Scot.
(Can I have a sick bag please).
One thing we should guard against is over confidence. If you think your opponent is doing something stupid, it may be that you just don’t understand what is going on.
Don’t forget that during the indyref we thought that BT’s negativity would lose them the vote, but it turned out that they’d accurately targeted a segment of the electorate who were overly influenced by fear.
Don’t let’s make the same mistake again.
MoJo says:
11 January, 2015 at 12:05 am
Either they are very very stupid or very very clever
It does look like they are determined to flood the mainstream media with so many contradictory messages and distortions ( oil, NHS etc ) that any truth out there will be drowned by misinformation and a confused electorate will believe anything or nothing and end up either not voting at all or revert to whatever comfort zone they have left…..
If there is any method in the current Murphy madness which is designed to pick up more Labour votes and discredit the SNP this might be it……
Or am I being too kind attributing any brains or coherent strategy to the Scottish Labour dream team ( the new 3 amigos Murphy, McTernan and MacDougall)
It’s a panicked, scatter gun response to the continued rise of the SNP. They are quite useless, but ironically this dumb tactic may just work, for the simple reason that the SNP require a huge swing and the Red Tories only have to minimise the swing to retain most of their seats in May.
We could end up with the SNP receiving the most votes in Scotland and the Red Tories holding on to most of their Scottish seats. How frustrating would that be? What;s the point of reducing a Red Tory majority of 20,000 to 200, if it’s a Tory hold?
Labour still thinking all Scots wanted is to be noticed by them, and when that happened we would all be simperingly grateful!
Cameron & Johnson The Early Years
So it was a shock to discover that this photo was in fact taken in the mid-Eighties, a time more synonymous with Wham!, Beverly Hills Cop and the miners’ strike. If you looked closely, you recognized the blond seated in the front row staring defiantly into the camera as Boris Johnson, the mayor of London. Look harder, you’d spot the man most likely to be leading the country next year: David Cameron, a handsome youth staring dreamily into the distance.
But what was the Bullingdon Club? What drove the generation that spawned today’s two most powerful Conservative politicians in the country? And how had they been shaped by a background of Eton, Oxford and secret societies?
http://caltonjock.com/2015/01/11/cameron-boris-the-early-years-revisited/
Yesterday Murphy opposed Scotland getting 100% of income tax. Today he supports it. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?
I am afraid I think Murphy is being very clever. He is stealing the SNP’s clothes one garment at a time. And the UK party will give him carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to stop the rot in Scotland. Of course, they will rein him in after the election – but by then it will be too late.
Nicola needs to take Murphy’s nonsense on head to head – but guess what, Jim’s not there. How clever is that?
If we are smug we are in trouble. Wake up and look out.
MMM…… I’m lobbing it.
Cheerio Labour
The best way is to get these unelected chancers out of Scottish politics. The SNP Gov has done more for Scotland in 4 years than Labour/Unionists did in forty. The pity is Labour/Unionists liars got rid of the best FM Scotland has had.
Scotsrenewable: Iam afraid I think Murphy is being very clever. He is stealing the SNP’s clothes one garment at a time. And the UK party will give him carte blanche to do whatever is necessary to stop the rot in Scotland. Of course, they will rein him in after the election – but by then it will be too late.
A perceptive comment.
Of course, Murphy will do all he can to make it seem as if Labour is on par with the SNP, and then like Gordon Brown and his shadow self, Darling, betray voters.
The objective is to keep Scotland part of the corrupt, bankrupt Union.
From my days as an Electrician, I recall “Murray’s loop” Is a bridge circuit used for locating faults in underground or underwater cables.
Could we honor Dud Smurphy by using “Murray’s Loopy” when assessing the many faults he tries to drive underground?
Murphy’s First Law
• Anything is possible if you don’t know what you are talking about.
Murphy’s Second Law
• Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
Murphy’s Third Law
• If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.
Murphy’s Fourth Law
• If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway.
Murphy’s Fifth Law
• If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
Murphy’s Sixth Law
• Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
Murphy’s Seventh Law
• After things have gone from bad to worse, the cycle will repeat itself.
Murphy’s Eighth Law
• Nature always sides with the hidden flaw.
Murphy’s Ninth Law
• It is impossible to make anything foolproof, because fools are so ingenious.
Murphy’s Tenth Law
• A closed mouth gathers no feet.
.
Tamson says:
“canvas returns could not have identified all 190,000 in this category, yet Labour claim they will be sending them all letters addressing them personally.”
That would point to them still using the Patriot (telephone user database thingy) that they bought from America for the referendum campaign. Let’s not forget how effectively they used that to target the over 50s and frighten them into voting No to ‘save’ their pensions and savings.
See Jim is on ‘Sunday Politics’ again. It must make him feel important to have his own television channel, JBBC.
That Bastard Smurphy is on BBC right now condemning SNP;s NHS
record and like the Tories, they never have the decency to apologise to the people they let down by missing their targets.
With unprecedented demand on NHS Scotland, 9 out of 10 A & E patients were seen within the 4 hour target.
NHS Wales, run by a Welsh Labour group are hitting 8 out of 10.
Nast Nasty Creep and backed up by BBC Stooge they call a journalist.
Yes, Yes, Yes, We need to rid our shores of this vermin!
Murphy is of course nowhere near Holyrood, so there is no opportunity for Nicola to take him on head to head.
This is dangerous as long as Murphy is given endless unchallenged exposure on the BBC and in other media – see today’s Scotland on Sunday for another sycophantic article entitled “‘Labour Party “Open To YES Voters”‘
(Links to Archive.IS, not the Scotsman site)
Whoops, link missing for some reason.
HERE
So the ‘Murphy’s Law’ gag isn’t a gag? You just can’t make this shit up!
I thought Shona Robinson performed very well on Sunday Politics this morning.She has improved massively in a very short amount of time. As for Smurphy, he really doesn’t like being put under any kind of pressure. The cracks in his veneer appeared as soon as Brewer began tripping him up, in the nicest way possible you understand. If Smurphy agrees to any live debate with Nicola before polling day, I will be amazed. She will eat and shite him….please let it happen!
I suspect it will be Murphy’s law until the election, then Sod’s law afterwards.
I think that Jim Murphy and the Labour Party are missing the point.
Yes voters did not vote yes because of “Patriotism” but because they wanted change and a better Scotland.
.. also with regards to the Western Isles Labour guy. I have said to my daugther from a young age “That it is important to know where you came from to know where you are going.” …and to me the Wars of Independance leading to Bannockburn in 1314 is a pivotal part of Scottish History and has absolutely nothing to do with nationalism or separatism as stated.
Without even being asked the tricky question jim may as well come out with “I have stopped beating my wife”.
According to various sources the Labour Party have brought Alastair Campbell in to coach Dead Ed for a debate against Davina Moron.
Short discussion on it can be found on today’s Andrew Marr Show at approximately 17m 51s into said programme:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04yp1nt/the-andrew-marr-show-11012015
btw, did you know, according to dipstick Marr, apparently we had an “identity crisis” last year – most of us, however, tend to refer to it as the Scottish referendum.
‘Murphy’s Law?…..More like ‘Murphy’s baws!’
@ Tamson,
I think the modern canvasser, will record the visited houses names etc and also record what their issues are if they have decided to stop voting for the party, (in this case Labour)
Labour therefore would have the names and addresses of every elderly person who said they had voted for Labour throughout their lives, but voted Yes, while sighting the fact that they viewed Labours standing shoulder to shoulder with the Tory’s etc.
It makes sense for Labour to target these voters because:
1. it is the elderly who are less likely to access news on-line and who still trust the MSM.
2. Since these voters have only recently left Labour, it goes without saying that they must be easily manipulated (mostly because they get their news from the MSM)
3. further to the above points These voters will trust people like Jim Murphy because they have not had the information that we on Wings and other sites have, so they will be susceptible to the Con, of Jim Murphy standing up for Scotland etc etc.
It’s cynical and cruel, but the Labour Party are past masters at using the most vulnerable and trusting members of Scottish society, as voting fodder, and they have the full support of the MSM.
These voters would need one to one conversations and written materials handed to them to combat this.
I certainly would take anything Marr said with a pinch of salt. This is the man who had the launch party for his book last year at 10 Downing Street no less. His missus had a ‘go’ at someone else there-certainly made it a launch to remember & was covered by the press.
Murphy’s Law: “First you win, then they come to fight you, then they laugh at you, then they ignore you.”
Nice of Jim Murphy to acknowledge that the Labour Party in Scotland, or Scottish Labour, or whatever it is called, NEVER put Scotland first. Never before, that is. So, to be fair to him, he is quite right in calling this a BRAND NEW POLICY.
With all this ‘newness’ in the air we now know what he means when he says that his New Scottish Labour is going to re-write its old “Clause Four”. The inverted commas are necessary because the old “Clause Four” of Scottish Labour was kept secret. It must have been an unwritten clause, since the public never had access to it, known only to Labour insiders.
The discerning voter could all the same surmise that the secret “Clause Four” existed, and even guess its content. Simply by watching the antics of the Labour Party in Scotland, it would become more and more apparent. Hush! Whisper it: the old “Clause Four” of Scottish Labour, known to all insiders though never revbealed in public, was simply this:
‘Put Scotland Last!’
Why else would a Labour-led administration in Holyrood under Jack MacConnell underspend its budget, and send the surplus back to London?
Why else would Henry MacLeish collude with his Labour colleagues at Westminster to re-draw the sea boundary between Scottish and English waters in the North Sea, although they had never been in dispute, on the eve of the inauguration of the Scottish parliament? Why else, if not to increase England’s potential under-sea wealth? And decrease Scotland’s? ‘Put Scotland Last’, as the old (“Clause Four”) slogan had it.
‘Putting Scotland first’ really is a stunningly new concept for the Labour Party in Scotland. They never ever thought of it before.
In the old days, the Labour Party saw themselves as part of not just a UK_wide but an international force, with commonly held ideas and values across national boundaries. One of these ideas was the nationalization of major services and industries. When Tony Blair rewrote the real “Clause Four”, which pertained to the whole of the Labour Party, not just in Scotland, it was indeed a ‘revolutionary’ act.
But a very strange kind of revolution it was. Blair was not just dropping nationalization from his party’s agenda, he was transforming Labour into a fully-fledged free market party on the model of Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives.
The said Margaret, in her own turn, had also been a ‘revolutionary’ in her own right. Far more than Tony Blair ever was, because he was only capable of copying her. Pale imitation of Maggie that he was, Blair’s Clause Four ‘Revolution’ was simply an acknowedgement that she had won. Labour would fight her no more. “Clause Four” – not Margaret Thatcher – had beceome the enemy, and it would have to go.
Blair admired the revolution she had successfully carried out in her party, and now he would do the same to his own.
She had moved her party to the right by ridding it of any remnants of ‘One Nation Conservatism’, which she considered weak, wet and feeble.
He would move Labour to the right as well.
She had gone to war with the Unions and defeated them. He would show that he accepted the result of that war, and make sure the Unions never again wielded the power they had once held, even in his own party. The repeal of “Clause Four” was part of this strategy, signalling that the Labour Party had cut its links with socialism once and for all.
Above all, Tony’s idol and role-model, Margaret Thatcher, had waged a real war that had proved immensely popular. He couldn’t wait to do the same.
Whatever might be said about the justice or injustice of the Falklands issue, going to war over it had proved a remarkable electoral weapon in the make-believe world of Westminster politics. Here was a vote-winner of fantastic proportions. All you had to do was feed into the imperial nostalgia of an uncritical public that had not reconciled itself to the plain fact that Britain, whether you prefer to think of it as good old UK or just jolloy old England, is finished as a major power on the world stage.
The Thatcher government had been moribund and plumeting to oblivion until ‘victory emotion’ turned everyone’s heads skywards, and the whole nation began to march on thin air once again. Not since the Second World War had this been felt …
Tony too, as Margaret’s true successor (far more than Major ever was), would wage his own neat little wars. They were to be won in a matter of weeks rather than years, Britain would be a great moral force in the world, and that heady emotion would bring election victory after victory. The foolishness may have been of good intention, but the foundation was still the feeding of old imperial-based illusions, and the outcome was awful. We still have the illusion that we are immune from committing war crimes: these are things that only awful people from backward and delusional other countries do. ‘Johnny Foreigner’, and all that …
The reason why the Thatcher-inspired Labour-and-Tory establishment of the UK hate the SNP so much is because the SNP is the biggest threat on earth to their illusions. The revolution Margaret Thatcher inaugurated, and all her successors continued, especially Blair, will come to an end if Scotland becomes independent.
If the UK breaks up, the fantasy is over.
And it is a fantasy with a long history, over centuries, deeply rooted in the British psyche.
No one likes being ‘dis-illusioned’. We all use illusions to comfort us. They are the crutches we cling to in order to prop ourselves up.
We are terrified that if anyone kicks our crutches from under us, or simply removes them, we will fall flat on our face and be unable to get up again. In fact, the contrary is true.
The ‘No’ vote in the referendum was a tragedy for all the inhabitants of the current UK, not just Scotland. If our illusions are taken from us, we will be able to live again in the real world. If our infantile fantasies of power and greatness are removed from our minds, we will be able to make amends for the horrors of past mistakes. That will free all of us – Scotland as well as England and the rest of the current UK – to make a contribution to the world that will be far more modest, and far more useful.
To return to Jim Murphy, if he and his ‘New Scottish Labour’ do learn to ‘put Scotland first’, he will turn out to be a ‘revolutionary’ after all. But I can’t see it happening. What kind of a player has he been up to now?
His talk of repealing “Clause Four” is all too reminiscent of the only revolution he has ever been involved in: that of Tony Blair. The Thatcher-inspired revolution that turned over the Labour Party, and made it into the monster it now is.
The ‘Better Together’ compact, the subsequent campaign in which our Jim so distinguished himself, and the eventual ‘No’ vote amounted to the ultimate victory of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Her vision – her awful vision both of ourselves, and of our roile in the world – triumphed on 18 September 2014. Let us hope – no, let us make sure that it is the last victory the Thatcher Revolution ever wins.
It was a victory not only in Scotland but, sadly, over Scotland. Its basis was nostalgia and illusion, and flight from reality. Having lost the battle, it is incumbent on Scotland to keep fighting the war. Not only for Scotland’s good but for England’s too, and for all the good people of Wales and Northern Ireland. We need to be liberated from our illusions, and become good citizens of the world.
As for Murphy’s Brave New Scottish Labour putting ‘Scotland first’. I will believe it when I see it. That is, when I see it transformed into action, not the cheapest of cheap words.
If he wants to convince anyone, he should begin by breaking with Milliband over Trident. All he has to do is commit himself and his supposedly ‘New’ Scottish Labour to its non-renewal and eventual scrapping. And he should do it before, not after the May election. When he is suddenly converted to scrapping Trident after May, it will only be because the cohort of SNP MPs at Westminster have squeezed it out of Milliband as a concession to the poor man’s desire to be Prime Minister.
If Murphy did come out against Trident, even now, he would of course be stealing the SNP’s clothing. That is what he is already tryting to do with his revolutionary ‘new’ (new-to-Labour, that is) idea of ‘putting Scotland first’. The only Party that has ever done that is the SNP.
But then, in order to get up to par with the SNP and win some votes, the brave Jim could even steal a bit more. Why not declare himself in favour of a Federal Britain, with full Home Rule for Scotland? That would really banjax the SNP, wouldn’t it?
But that might not be quite enough to swing it. Surely it won’t do to be simply on a par with the SNP, our Brand New Labour will have to overtake them. So another new idea might just dawn on Jim: why not have it have it written into the manifesto for May 2015 that Scottish Labour is in favour of independence?
Now that one really would outwit the SNP, and put a spoke intheir wheels, not to be more graphic.
Good move, Jim!
You are just the brilliant opportunist we need to provide us all with exactly what we want.
Here, courtesy of the Wings website, is your slogan for 2015: ‘The SNP is only going for Home Rule: Vote Scottish Labour and get Independence.’
Just the job, Jim. Such a great advantage in politics to have no principles whatsoever: ‘Vote for me; I’m made of plasticene!’
@Wull (10.26) –
!!!
Soo-perb.
🙂
@Wull –
‘…made of Plasticene!’ made me think of this –
When Murph first met McTernan?…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEI72Vpp87g
Wull – that was superbly insightful. Thank you. Was that your first post? If so, a very warm welcome to you,if not, I’m glad you’re a Winger. 😉
Murphy’s Law:
Never let lack of political principle stand in the way of a good football tale
Cole’s Law:
Grated Cabbage, Carrot and Onion, held together in a slimy gloopy mess of mayonnaise…oh wait…. that sounds like Murphy’s Jaw…..
Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Usually a Labour hack at the back of it You couldnt write it Well yes you could!!!!