Here’s (a few seconds into the clip) George, Baron Foulkes Of Cumnock.
Born in 1942 in Oswestry in Shropshire and privately educated at The Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hertfordshire, George was first elected by the public in 1979, serving for 26 years. During his time as an MP he was convicted of a drunken violent assault on a policeman and fined £1,050. In 2005 he was ennobled into the House Of Lords and will make laws for UK citizens until he dies, no matter what voters say.
You’d think he’d have learned better manners by now.
As we write there’s a protest going on outside the Scottish Parliament regarding the privatisation of ferry services to the Western Isles. It was formally announced almost three hours ago that there definitely wasn’t going to be any privatisation and that the service would remain in public hands, but the protest still went ahead.
The people conducting the protest, who’ve got the exact thing they wanted, are now doing their level best to lose it again. Welcome to Scottish politics.
Over the past few days, readers, we haven’t been able to avoid noticing a recurring theme among Unionist types on social media – namely that the Holyrood election results are proof that support for independence is declining.
But it’s not until you ask them to explain that it gets completely mental.
For much of its life, this site has been warning readers that, as their default position, they should always assume newspaper headlines are a lie until proven otherwise.
Today, Britain’s biggest-selling newspaper admitted it in public.
You win a historic third election with a second massive landslide, getting more than twice as many seats as your nearest challenger – the first time such a thing has ever happened in a Holyrood election – on the back of what’s (self-evidently) by and large a very popular policy programme and record, and before you’ve even taken your seats in the chamber all the parties you just thrashed out of sight line up to explain how you’ve been doing everything wrong.
And as alliances go, they don’t get much less holy.
We’re supposed to be taking a few days off, but it’s been tipping it down outside for 36 solid hours, so when an alert reader emailed us a question relating to this article from Monday, we couldn’t help but go and research it just to pass some time.
They’d asked how many of the Tory MSPs elected last Thursday had been rejected by the voters of a constituency seat on the same day, and we were startled by the answer – of the 24 Conservative members of the Scottish Parliament elected on the list last week, every single one was also a failed constituency candidate.
In amongst a torrent of pretty mad analysis of the election result at the weekend, we noticed the most insane reason yet suggested for the loss of the SNP’s majority:
The co-founder of a much-lauded but little-read pro-independence website asserted that the SNP were cruising to victory until the Nats got the backing of the Scottish Sun and Nicola Sturgeon was pictured posing with the front cover endorsing her party.
The whole litany of gaping flaws in that argument is something the Yes movement has needed to talk about for some considerable time now. So let’s bite the bullet and do it.
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Lorncal @ 23 April, 11.07 writes: « John Money was not “tragically misguided”, Fearghas. He was a PDfile » —————…” Apr 24, 00:23
Lorncal on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Confused: that pilot would have been female with XX chromosomes – therefore, intersex or DSD. DSD people are still either…” Apr 23, 23:22
Lorncal on How To Get Away With Crimes: “John Money was not “tragically misguided”, Fearghas. He was a PDfile and made those two boys (the twin brothers, both…” Apr 23, 23:07
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: “I swore a solemn oath to respond to you only once in any 24-hour period. But I don’t mind breaking…” Apr 23, 23:02
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: ““stop the Dog Whistle politics” What other politics would most of them have left if they stopped that? “we have…” Apr 23, 22:52
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: “Cheers, YL. It’s good to be back. Thought I’d drop in to see how close we are to Indy. Damned…” Apr 23, 22:43
Confused on How To Get Away With Crimes: “this is all a deep rabbit hole one thing we distinguished in the past was – transvestite – someone who…” Apr 23, 22:35
George Ferguson on The Pit Of Vipers: “A pit of vipers is the strapline for this article. I just watched Question Time from Aberdeen, so an appropriate…” Apr 23, 22:33
Confused on How To Get Away With Crimes: “psychopathy runs at 100% incidence in rabbis, imams, spooks, freemasons and city/wallst bankers.” Apr 23, 22:32
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “HMcH Please re-post once you’ve sobered up and can make your point with clarity. Thanks in advance.” Apr 23, 22:29
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “HMcH Welcome back! Shouldn’t you “be sorting out” a failed business you neglected by spending 24/7 on here, or, did…” Apr 23, 21:52
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: “Big election in 2 weeks, Dan. You should be serious, mature, and focused on getting the voters out for your…” Apr 23, 21:28
Dan on How To Get Away With Crimes: “A new fiscal year just starts and GERS takes an early hit, whilst Scotland dodges a bullet by having the…” Apr 23, 21:27
Hatey McHateface on The Pit Of Vipers: ““if true Scots in here want to indulge in some easy sport by destroying unionist ‘arguments’” True Scots enjoy the…” Apr 23, 20:41
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “What exactly has that got to do with me?” Apr 23, 20:36
Young Lochinvar on The Pit Of Vipers: “AI Dun I see the latest polls (for what they are worth) have the Scotchland Conservative (and) Unionist (Members) in…” Apr 23, 20:11
SilentMajority on How to tell when Kezia Dugdale is lying: “I guess it continues then….starting a new job, with new ‘friends’….then alienates herself on Day One by voicing ‘respect’ of…” Apr 23, 19:45
Sheepshagger on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Self-pitying men can be like unexploded devices – when it dawns on him that nobody will ever rise to his…” Apr 23, 19:37
Hatey McHateface on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Or just vote for somebody who promises to “drain the swamp”. Boot out the ECHR. Take a chainsaw to the…” Apr 23, 19:20
Hatey McHateface on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Hmmm. Bananas don’t have cores. Plenty of people enjoy bananas so ripe they look half-rotten. But to be serious for…” Apr 23, 19:15
Hatey McHateface on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Fair play to you 100% Yes, but two weeks out, I doubt any of the usual suspects are even remotely…” Apr 23, 19:05
Hatey McHateface on How To Get Away With Crimes: “Great post about psychopathy from Confused. Very light on detail about the type of people who call for the establishment…” Apr 23, 18:53
Hatey McHateface on How To Get Away With Crimes: “That’s the mother of all long reads. I got to here: “modus operandi – personal abuse, threats to doxx people,…” Apr 23, 18:44
Alf Baird on The Pit Of Vipers: ““For England, not that much changes” Indeed, following the supposed ‘Union’ in 1707, “for England nothing changed”, whilst “for Scotland…” Apr 23, 18:22
James on The Pit Of Vipers: “Look, everyone; Adrian used the word “Brigadoon”.” Apr 23, 18:04
Northcode on The Pit Of Vipers: “Due to heightened colonialist activity in this place it’s that time again: Ther scarce be a wird pit doun here…” Apr 23, 17:53
Aidan on The Pit Of Vipers: “I agree it’s a hard sell to those who can’t accept their own deficiencies or come to terms with the…” Apr 23, 16:29
Breastplate on The Pit Of Vipers: “Aiden, You are correct that emotional attachment to a particular stance wins out over reason. Unfortunately, you seem to be…” Apr 23, 16:02
