Labour gets its story straight
Ed Miliband's speech to the Scottish Labour conference, 2nd March 2012:
"If we believe in the idea of Scotland as a progressive beacon, why would we turn our back on the redistributive union – the United Kingdom?"
John McFall, Baron of Alcluith, Scottish Labour MP until 2010 and ex-chairman of the House Of Commons Treasury Committee, on BBC News at 8.46am, 21st March 2012:
"The North-South divide is getting bigger, not smaller."
When Labour ask you to vote for the status quo of the "redistributive Union" in 2014, readers, remember which direction it is that the party – by its own admission – wants to keep redistributing the UK's money in.
The magical thinking of the unionist parties. They go to great lengths to make out that Scotland is poor and needs money from the south because it is in a terrible state (or when they are under the light of facts and good opposition they imply it heavily to the same end) and then, scarcely a breath between, try to claim that Scotland is doing great and it's all thanks to them now. Meanwhile they ignore any financial reality, relying on scaremongering every which way.
You can almost understand the doublethink and blatant dishonesty of the MPs and party leadership, but it is harder to understand why the public or lowly party members put up with this nonsense. You'd think they'd be more interested in seeing the people they are paying to do a job do it right. I doubt many people would put up with someone else ostensibly doing something far less important or less well paid (working in a supermarket, putting up a shed or basic work in their garden, etc.) trying the same sort of twisting and contradictory claims or efforts to back out of earlier promises.
I've seen some argue for a half hour on a 2 for 1 on beans or some other petty offer or mistake in a shop but then they don't bother to vote or think before they do. This is why I am going grey.
I think they can be sharp as knives so long as they think there's something at stake (even if it is just a single pound coin from their pocket), but for some reason they don't make the connection with politics having the ability to alter their lives to at least a single pound coin's worth…