The bald-eagle-looking chap toting the cerise tie in this clip of this morning’s Victoria Derbyshire show on the BBC News channel is Lord (Andrew) Adonis, a former Labour government minister under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
He also wrote the book “Five Days In May” about the latter’s unsuccessful attempt to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, despite having won almost 50 fewer seats than the Conservatives in that election. So he understands the process.
Lord Adonis does, in fairness, make a brief and half-hearted attempt at punting Jim Murphy’s “1924” line, but in the end he’s forced to concede (nudged along by Peter Riddell of the Institute for Government) that in fact the second-placed party forming the government is perfectly possible.
The Daily Record gets up high on its outrage horse this morning with a front-page story titled “Double-crossed on devo”, echoing Jim Murphy’s claim of yesterday that the Tories’ manifesto pledge on “English votes for English laws” is a “betrayal” of the “Vow” signed by the three UK party leaders before the independence referendum.
Unsurprisingly, the Record gives rather less prominence to the news that the Vow isn’t worth the fake parchment it wasn’t written on than it did to repeatedly hyping it up and then proclaiming that it had already been delivered.
Last week we listened to a Radio Scotland phone-in debate on Trident, hosted very deftly by John Beattie, who managed to steer callers away from political points and keep the discussion on the merits or otherwise of the weapons system itself.
Sadly that didn’t dissuade the usual coterie of nutters/local councillors phoning in insisting that (a) North Korea would invade/blast Scotland off the face of the Earth the moment we let our guard down, and (b) Helensburgh would immediately revert to the Stone Age at the loss of jobs were the few hundred Trident sailors who spend about a week every year in the town to be reassigned to other posts in the navy.
We didn’t have time to ring in ourselves, but we did manage to think of a much better idea that solved both of those problems without lumbering Scotland with a gigantic nuclear white elephant, and one that would also free up an awful lot of valuable police time and resources that are currently spent arresting a bunch of hippies.
We’ve been quiet today because we’ve been wading through the 80-odd painfully-dry pages of the Labour 2015 election manifesto, folks. It’s a deeply tedious read – screeds and screeds of waffly text about how nice things are nice and good things are good but bad things are bad. A couple of things did jump out, though. Here’s one.
Alert readers will of course recall that the party’s solemn pledge in Scotland is to provide 1000 more nurses (hastily revised from the comical “1000 more than whatever the SNP say”) from the proceeds of the Mansion Tax, even though NHS Scotland is devolved and no Westminster government can in fact hire a single Scottish nurse.
But hang on. Something’s not right about those numbers.
With the “biggest party forms the government” lie now sunk and rusting slowly on the seabed (weighed down even further by polls suggesting that Labour actually will be the largest party even if they lose all of Scotland to the SNP), and four weeks of campaigning left to fill, Scottish Labour have had to grab a hammer, smash the glass on the “EMERGENCY – IN CASE OF DESPERATION” box and clutch desperately at whatever they found inside.
The abject answer is “Project Fear 2 – This Time It’s Full Fiscal Autonomy”.
It’s worth reminding yourself before you watch this clip from BBC News this morning that the gentleman at the lectern isn’t some rabid Daily Mail columnist, but is in fact the Secretary of State for Defence, Michael Fallon.
The “SPACE MONSTERS!” rationale for foreign policy. Who saw that one coming?
After literally months of telling voters endlessly that the only way to stop the Tories forming the next government was for Labour to be the biggest party, Jim Murphy was finally pressed properly last night on the question by the First Minister on STV (from around 1h 40m). Here’s what happened:
That seems to be a pretty clear and unequivocal statement – Labour will vote against any Queen’s Speech from the Tories. We already know that the SNP have pledged categorically that they’d do the same.
What that means is that if the SNP and Labour between them – in ANY combination – have more than 323 MPs, the speech will be defeated and the Tories can’t form the government, whether they’re the biggest single party or not.
At that point, Ed Miliband will be invited to attempt to form one, which the SNP will vote for, and which on the numbers above will mean that Miliband becomes the next Prime Minister. Labour, though not the largest party, will form the government.
That’s from Jim Murphy’s own mouth. The lie is dead. Anyone still got any questions?
It was very tempting just to pull a neat soundbite out of Tory minister Michael Gove’s comments on Scotland to Evan Davis on Newsnight last night (from around 15m), but we think the whole five-minute segment bears watching.
You’ve probably already picked up the gist of it (the Tories would prefer Labour to win in Scotland rather than the SNP) on social media, but as Gove calmly and rationally lays out the view, the last remaining tattered shreds of Labour’s “vote SNP get Tories” line disintegrate before our eyes.
Readers will of course be highly sceptical of ever taking a a Conservative minister’s word at face value, but that’s why we’ve put the whole thing up rather than just a snappy ten-second clip. We invite anyone to find fault with the logic of his position.
Southernbystander on Yelling at the tide: “Exactly. Why do people think using lies to justify an argument will work? We have all seen the videos and…” Jan 25, 21:37
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““Were they not still Scots?” Certainly… as Sturgeon is a Scot, and Swinney is a Scot, and Tony Blair is…” Jan 25, 21:37
DaveL on Yelling at the tide: “Caring Hatey rides again. If anybody had posted about it the chances are you would’ve laughed at them and shit…” Jan 25, 21:00
Marie on Yelling at the tide: “Looking forward to the mid-terms Mr Brownshirt? You’ll be needing the tissues doll.” Jan 25, 20:50
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Yelling at the tide: “‘When a Language Won’t Awaken: The Hard Truths of Linguistic Revitalization’ Thanks TURABDIN for the link to this essentially sound,…” Jan 25, 20:25
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Thanks, Northcode for your answers upthread. Yes, Fergusson and Burns wanted to be more widely read and both had a…” Jan 25, 20:08
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “As we all weep bitter, outraged and angry tears on the worlds most-read Scottish Independence site for the man cut…” Jan 25, 20:04
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “I’m at hame the nicht. But in ma younger days, oan Burns Nicht, we wud always get a few shots…” Jan 25, 19:49
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Aye, Northy, I hae absaelootly nae doot ye’re a much better poet than Burns ivver was. The langer ye go…” Jan 25, 19:45
sam on Yelling at the tide: “…so I could put a few shots in him.” Jan 25, 19:35
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Sure, Alf, it’s racism that I don’t want to lose my livelihood because I’m not fluent in one of Scotland’s…” Jan 25, 19:29
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Here’s a question, x. Is it true that with widely available apps, it’s possible to make all protagonists involved in…” Jan 25, 18:45
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “Here, aw this tak o the braw Scots leid haes pit mi in mind tae write doun anither o ma…” Jan 25, 18:45
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “Bang! Whoops! My bad for startling you. I honestly didn’t think you’d have a wee accident like that. Have some…” Jan 25, 18:39
agentx on Yelling at the tide: ““Hello love welcome home – how was your day today?” “Just normal darling. My 3 colleagues were holding a guy…” Jan 25, 18:38
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “All to do with colonialism, sam. You’re long overdue to spend a few hours of quality time with Fanny and…” Jan 25, 18:36
Hatey McHateface on Yelling at the tide: “C’moan, noo, it’s a foregone conclusion. Scotland will win bigly and return home, dripping with gold.” Jan 25, 18:32
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “The answer to your first two questions is: “MONEY!” (The mercenary pricks). There was obviously a bigger market for stuff…” Jan 25, 18:32
sam on Yelling at the tide: “Anent this post Northcode. Some questions. Why did the poets (Roberts) Fergusson and Burns begin to write in both English…” Jan 25, 18:10
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: ““However, i do agree the ethnolinguistic archeology stage is over… ” Thank fuck… I was a bit concerned that you…” Jan 25, 17:26
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “….their true language….what a can of worms you open there, more than a can of worms a veritable chasm. However,…” Jan 25, 17:02
Northcode on Yelling at the tide: “The Scots language is not, by any reckoning, a dead language – nearly half of Scots living in Scotland still…” Jan 25, 16:28
Marie on Yelling at the tide: “James @1.10pm. Indeed James. McHatee has “form” when it comes to celebrating extra judicial killings.” Jan 25, 16:25
agentx on Yelling at the tide: “Not for me I have done it many times. (Maybe add a few spaces after your paste)” Jan 25, 16:02
Alf Baird on Yelling at the tide: ““the few who think like you?” As we know, “colonialism is based on psychology” (Memmi). At least half of Scots…” Jan 25, 15:44
TURABDIN on Yelling at the tide: “AI is neutral, it is sophisticated technology, but like the simple pencil it may be used to produce the sublime…” Jan 25, 14:30
Sven on Yelling at the tide: “Sorry “James”, please bear with an old duffer, I’m still not clear on if you feel being curious enough to…” Jan 25, 14:25
Aidan on Yelling at the tide: “@Alf – do you not feel that you are perpetuating the subjugation of Scotland by continuing to converse in the…” Jan 25, 14:23
