Those are the words of David Cameron as he launched the Scottish Tories’ manifesto in front of a heavily-vetted invited audience in Glasgow yesterday. They make the pages of a couple of other papers, including the Guardian (which hides them even further down the page than the Sun does), but it’s only the Herald that picks up on their significance, leading its article with the unequivocal lines:
So, let’s just get this one straight, this morning’s English edition of The Sun – two parties with 316 seats are “stealing” an election from two parties with 309 seats?
Want us to walk you through that whole “counting” thing again?
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”.
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “FFS Confused. Just take yourself off to Mecca and sign up or exchange blood or whatever it takes to join.…” Jun 21, 23:53
Confused on The End Of Law: ““the female of the species is more deadly than the male … ” Something just hit me there – lara…” Jun 21, 22:55
Red on The End Of Law: “There are no “concerns” about the findings of the Rape Gangs Inquiry Report. There are only lies and obfuscation, which…” Jun 21, 22:40
sam on The End Of Law: “Aidan, Still trying to read my mind and put words in my mouth. There are concerns about the adequacy of…” Jun 21, 21:46
Lorncal on The End Of Law: “Do you think that men who have no dangly bits are women? Really? If you are so disturbed that you…” Jun 21, 21:27
Red on The End Of Law: “Yes, it’s mostly about ‘cheap’ labour. Of course it’s not ‘cheap’ for taxpayers, rape victims, or the Scottish people who…” Jun 21, 20:56
agentx on The End Of Law: “A 15-year-old boy rescued two men who had fallen from an inflatable toy boat off the Isle of Skye by…” Jun 21, 20:24
Mark Beggan on The End Of Law: “It’s get your jacket time Sam. Pick a window you’re leaving! You fucking idiot.” Jun 21, 20:08
Lorncal on The End Of Law: “Because women and girls stand in the way of ‘progress’ – that is, most of them – not all, God…” Jun 21, 19:53
Red on The End Of Law: “GM, yes there is only one reason to keep this secret from the Scottish people It’s believed one may have…” Jun 21, 19:07
James on The End Of Law: “With his one-eye? Sounds about right. You gie-ing him a haun?” Jun 21, 18:51
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “Wally Walrus wakes? Nah. Another 5 letter word preserving the alliteration.” Jun 21, 18:37
Ex President Xiden on The End Of Law: “Exactly, HR departments are used to socially engineer our thinking. Nobody complains as they fear for their jobs.” Jun 21, 18:31
Aidan on The End Of Law: “Don’t believe the lying rape victims, says Sam.” Jun 21, 18:30
gm on The End Of Law: “The working cops did their jobs properly. I don’t know where the order to keep the operation secret came from.…” Jun 21, 18:27
gm on The End Of Law: “https://www.scotland.police.uk/access-to-information/freedom-of-information/disclosure-log/disclosure-log-2024/march/24-0363-operation-cerrar-child-exploitation-glasgow-2020/ It happened in Glasgow. Operation Cerrar. You can search it. Deeply worrying. What was worse was the response of…” Jun 21, 18:19
Captain Caveman on The End Of Law: ““Do you people own anything?” #spoiler alert Nope. “IT WUZ THE TORRREEES” etc. Hatey has hit the bullseye here.” Jun 21, 18:07
Red on The End Of Law: “There’s a special place in Hell for Rape Gang deniers, sam. Have you no shame?” Jun 21, 17:59
sam on The End Of Law: “Unsubstantiated garbage” Jun 21, 17:32
James on The End Of Law: “Excellent idea, Onlooker; let’s get on with it! Sadly there are bad actors from another country, and their compromised stooges…” Jun 21, 17:08
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “House! I just needed green cheese to complete four corners.” Jun 21, 17:05
James on The End Of Law: “Can you read? Even one eyed?” Jun 21, 17:02
James on The End Of Law: “Unionist Prick.” Jun 21, 16:59
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “Jay I do attach much weight to personal responsibility. Such as the responsibility of the SNP voters in Arbroath. They…” Jun 21, 16:57
Red on The End Of Law: “List of areas where Muslim Rape Gangs have been found operating in Scotland (so far): Aberdeen City Angus Argyll and…” Jun 21, 16:46
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “Loving it, sam. We need to improve benefits and free health care so we can draw even more millions of…” Jun 21, 16:23
Hatey McHateface on The End Of Law: “You’re missing that a male minus dangly bits isn’t a female. Quite a big miss. Maybe excuse yourself from framing…” Jun 21, 16:18
Nemisis Benn on The End Of Law: “Am I missing something? The blurb from Pollock doesn’t quite say that certain criminals are serving their sentences in establishments…” Jun 21, 15:20
Saffron Robe on The End Of Law: “The admissions practice has been deemed unlawful and yet it remains in place. The irony is, of course, that if…” Jun 21, 14:41
Alf Baird on The End Of Law: ““Wasn’t it psychology” Indeed so, for colonization ‘is based on psychology’ (Cesaire). Of course, colonization itself leads to many other…” Jun 21, 14:39
