Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Sayo-Nora?
misterinquisitor@hotmail.co.uk is the place to go.
Word also reaches us from the harsh, frozen North East of Scotland of an interesting scenario being played out.
Local Aberdeenshire Councillor Alison McInnes, whose ward is in the Gordon constituency, has decided she will not be standing for the council again in 2007.
This, on the face of it, seems barely newsworthy.
Look a little deeper, however, and it all becomes clear.
You see, Cllr McInnes is 3rd on the Lib Dem Regional List for the Scottish Parliament in the North East, behind Nicol Stephen and Mike Rumbles.
In order to obtain a place in parliament, however, she would require the Libs to lose a constituency seat in order to open up a list place.
Since Mike and Nicol are both ahead of her in the pecking order, that leaves only one option for her to get into Parliament. Nora Radcliffe to lose Gordon.
So, local councillor gets a high list ranking, needs her local MSP to lose in order to get the list place, and chooses to show her confidence in said MSP by standing down from council in preparation for becoming a list MSP.
With friends like these Nora...
Some of Nora's colleagues decided telling her to get on her bike wasn't enough of a hint...
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
When in a hole...
Not our new friend Bernie Hughes, though.
Having been caught trying to blame the entire Lanarkshire health fiasco on Labour he tried to wriggle free by saying the following:
There is no formal position of collective responsibility. There is a statement of the "determination of two parties to work together"and "we are determined, together, to improve public services and tackle the real issues that matter to people in Scotland". But it seems to me that the enforced closure of A&E units against the wishes of everyone bar the health board contradicts this explicitly.There are 3 LibDem Ministers, and 2 deputy ministers in the coalition. None of these have responsibility for health.
Which I am sure will come as a surprise to those who drafted the Ministerial Code, which clearly states:
Collective Responsibility
2.2 The Executive operates on the basis of collective responsibility. The internal processes through which a decision has been made should not be disclosed. Decisions reached by the Executive are binding on all its members. Ministers are required to abide by them and defend them as necessary.
Perhaps you should just throw the spade away Bernie?
Sunday, August 27, 2006
And today's FibDem chancer is...
Who he you ask? Well he's the Fibs candidate for East Kilbride and he has his own blog.
My thanks to Yellow Peril for pointing out this example of FibDem deceit by that "nice looking young man" Bernie.
It would appear that Bernie is raging about the Scottish Executive's decision to back the decision by NHS Lanarkshire that decided to downgrade the A&E unit at Monkland's Hospital.
"That should cheer you up while you're dying in an ambulance, stuck in a traffic jam somewhere on the M74" he fulminates in that typical scaremongering FibDem style to eek out a few more votes from voters who are kept unaware of his own party's reponsibility for, er, cheering people up...you get the point.
Anyway old Porridge thought Yellow summed it up best so over to Yeller...
This one really takes the biscuit
Someone ought to tell this numpty that the Lib Dems are in office in the Scottish Executive and, yes, that means they too are responsible for this decision. In fact the Scottish Labour Party ought to be reminding them of that, all the time:
"NHS Lanarkshire are an unelected quango, answerable to the Labour party and no-one else"
It's a bare faced lie. The quango answers to the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Executive operates via collective responsibility. That means the decisions it takes are every bit as much a responsibility of Lib Dem ministers as anyone else. No ifs, no buts or maybes. Those are the facts.
Ordinarily you could dismiss this sort of rubbish as Lib Dem desperation but it was this sort of disreputible fiction (and the seeming inability/unwillingness of leading members of the Labour Party in Scotland to face it down by calling a spade a spade) that allowed the Lib Dems to win the Dunfermline by-election.
Everyone who moans about Labour getting tough on the Lib Dems please take note - you don't defeat people prepared to tell such lies and resort to such tactics with statistics about tax credits.
Chasing votes had a new meaning for Tavish when he went to Lanarkshire to avoid telling people he was responsible for traffic jams on the M74
Thursday, August 24, 2006
FibDem Caption Competition
Saturday, August 12, 2006
Fib Dems Gain/Lose* From Labour? (* - Delete as appropriate)
Aberdeenshire Council voted to retain maternity services in a number of communities where NHS Grampian were threatening to close them.
When the NHS Board meeting took place, did Aberdeenshire's Liberal Democrat Provost, Raymond Bisset, vote according to the democratically expressed wishes of his council? No, he backed closure.
Also involved in voting for closure was Bisset's fellow Lib Dem, and leader of Aberdeen City Council, Kate Dean.
All this has led to a motion being tabled in the Scottish Parliament condemning the decision by, erm, Mike Rumbles, Liberal Democrat MSP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Bin rakers
It's just that Porridge wonders if anything came of this attempt at giving the impression they were cleaning up the town in Dundee?
Why does Porridge have images of pairs of happy-clappy LibDems raking the cities for some rubbish to get a quick photo just to rake in a few votes in a false premise?
If any readers have similar images of FibDem bin-raking please email them to porridgeoatens@hotmail.co.uk
Coming to a doorstep near you - The FibNats
Now as any political anorak would know this is utter balderdash as their policy is one of the most - erm, how can Porridge put it without piddling off his fellow co-conspirators? - Euro love-in. The above anecdote is yet another example of how dishonest the Fibs will go in order to get votes.
Nevertheless that incident has had old Porridge wondering why they have done sweet football association about the LibDem Earl of Mar & Kellie. Despite going against party policy on preserving the Union he still remains the Fib's spokesman for Scottish Home Office & Legal Affairs and Transport and is a whip for them in the Lords. FibDem Towers did ask why he had not been sacked by "tough" old Ming?
But the plot thickens. Mar & Kellie's enthusiasm for an independent Scotland now finds favour on the Fib's official website with this page on his proposed Scotland (Petitions for a Referendum on Independence) Bill.
"Mar and Kellie says a democratic path should be available to Scottish independence," it reads. Now Porridge may not really have an interest in such things but after consultation with some of my more tartan co-conspirators it was agreed that this looked like an attempt by the Fibs to be the "only" party offering something when the fact is that several other parties already offer "a democratic path...to Scottish independence".
Porridge suspects the lack of disciplinary action taken against Mar & Kellie and the official veneer given to his idea on the party's website is just a convenient cover for them to grub votes by pretending to be Nats in next year's Scottish Parliament elections.
Of course it could just be Porridge being over-conspiratorial but it would be nice to see Ming squirm when he is asked why this policy is getting an official veneer and why their Lords' whip remains undisciplined?
Having decided that Ming was beyond a makeover the expensive imagemakers decided to have a bit of fun
