The Fox/Werrity affair

Liam Fox must be as lonely as a kitten in a wash-house copper with the lid on this weekend, perhaps reflecting that it is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations. Or he might think that charity begins at home but justice begins next door.

What’s with the Dickensian quotations, you make ask? Well, no good reason other than the Werrity, a surname I’ve never come across before, sounds Pickwickian  to me – a Sam Weller pronunciation of verity, perhaps – and verity means a true statement, especially one of fundamental import.

I don’t like Liam Fox, for a variety of reasons, other than the fact that he’s a Tory (some of my best friends are Tories – I’ve even had relatives who were Tories) but certainly including the fact that he is a high-road-to-England Scot who followed the heat-seeking missile route to defence that ambitious Scots, often Labour politicians, have blazed the trail for, because of certain well-known advantages that it confers it those who wish to have a secure financial base to their political career, as I observed in recent blogs.

I don’t like him because he is a medical doctor by profession who is an enthusiast for weapons of mass destruction capable of killing and maiming millions and blighting the planet for centuries, maybe forever.

And I don’t like him because he loses no opportunity, and spurns no platform where he may profess his undying support for the Union, something that I wholly irrationally don’t like to hear from an East Kilbride boy and graduate of Glasgow University.

And I do not like him for the same reasons as an ancient Roman once set out -

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare;

Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te

or in a late 17th century version, familiar to me as a child’s rhyme since primary school

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,

The reason why - I cannot tell;

But this I know, and know full well,

I do not like thee, Doctor Fell.

My distaste for the man, however, does not make him guilty of anything, and we await the results of the enquiry.

The facts, as far as they are known, have been set out by the press, and despite being wary of trial by media, they seems pretty strange to me. Some of them, e.g. the trips, the access, the business cards, the two incarnations of a right-wing charity set up to celebrate the Thatcher-Reagan era – Atlantic Bridge - and which some interest groups seems to have been almost indecently enthusiastic about financing – seems to speak for themselves, and they don’t tell a tale I would like to be associated with, but who knows?

(Other speculations about the exact nature of the relationship between Doctor Fox and his friend I will leave to those who trawl in such waters.)

He has the full support of David Cameron, rather as Andy Coulson had, and that should be enough to send a chill down the good doctor’s spine. If in a few months the question is Doctor who? we may be assured that the post will be filled by yet another career politician, party immaterial, since politicians are not at all doctrinaire when it comes to the Great Honeypot and the military/industrial complex.

Perhaps the Coalition can make him a Lord – that path is well-blazed, and well-greased as well.

Keep the Union and learn to love the Bomb! – happy tweeting time

 

moridura Peter Curran

Independence? Scots can have whatever they want, except defence and foreign affairs. Devo Max? Nae problem! Just leave the UK with the WMDs.

 

moridura Peter Curran

What must a Labour or Tory mediocrity do? Get a defence post ASAP. That's where the power and money lies. It's the nuclear honeypot, stupid!

 

moridura Peter Curran

Labour and Tory politicians get into defence and the war game as fast as possible like money-seeking missiles. Scots can have their devo max

 

moridura Peter Curran

The UK - a state whose operating principle is war. That's where real money, real power lies. The Blair Factor: War = power,influence, riches

 

moridura Peter Curran

Why are unionists committed to devomax? To retain the nuclear war core of UK, control of foreign policy. That's where the money and power is

 

moridura Peter Curran

All unionist parties are committed to devo max. What's left of the Union after devo max? WMDs, foreign policy, defence - the war core of UK.

 

moridura Peter Curran

If the West and Israel had no WMDS, would I support invading other countries to stop them having nuclear weapons. I'm thinking about it ...

 

moridura Peter Curran

US/UK line - our WMDs deter mad dictators elsewhere. They don't know a lot about mad dictators, wherever they are. Dr. Strangelove is alive

 

moridura Peter Curran

Multilateral nuclear disarmament is a smoksecreen for US/UK and Israel keeping their WMDs and trying to stop anyone else having them.

Oh for the hazy, crazy, spinning days of Blairism …

The former Labour spinners turned commentators are emboldened, having glimpsed a false dawn in Tom Harris, stalking horse turned into contender. John McTernan has taken to flaunting his Blairism at every opportunity, on Twitter and elsewhere, and on Sunday, Lorraine Davidson made one of her periodic guest appearances in Oor Wullie land, flogging the horse that is not only dead, but embarrassingly smelly – the ‘What Labour Must Do …’ genre, the Mills & Boon of political commentary.

Lorraine’s belated and not entirely original topic, one that has been done to death for a week on the media, is titled Labour need to widen the search for a new Scottish leader, which translated, means that they must stop fishing in the pool of mediocrity that is Scottish Labour and cast their net into the stagnant, polluted, but larger pool that is Westminster.

But Lorraine has moved quite a bit from her McConnell spin doctor persona since she has been with The Times – one might say she has moved with the Times – and she has some good lines.

“Labour in Holyrood, with a few notable exceptions, appear to measure their every move against how it will be countered by the SNP, to the point they are allowing themselves to be defined by their opposition.”

How true – and they didn’t have a Stephen Noon to protect them from this folly during their woeful election campaign.

“They appear to think that if they credit Mr Salmond with extraordinary powers that will somehow absolve them of responsibility for their failure.”

Gaun yersel, Lorraine – this is good journalism! More! More!

But, alas, the auld Lorraine appears again, the objectivity cloak slips off, and we slide into familiar territory. She points up three areas where she thought the First Minister was vulnerable – delaying the implementation of the anti-sectarian legislation, the UK Supreme Court row and the comment on the English riots – and observes that Scottish Labour didn’t lay a glove on Oor Eck. Lorraine, however, doesn’t understand that on all of these, Alex Salmond  perfectly judged the mood of Scots, and that Labour’s failure lay in their decision to pick a fight in these areas.

And Lorraine concludes with a message of desperation (“I’m desperate, Dan!” YOSSER, in The Boys from the  Blackstuff trilogy) – search everywhere, anywhere: among MPs, peers and every other party member – in the dosshouses, the flophouse, the gutters of the Union – anywhere but among  Scottish MSPs.

 

The Scotsman, BILL JAMIESON and NIALL FERGUSON

Today, Bill Jamieson, in his comment column, quotes Niall Ferguson, who has been around the Book Festival, on one of his mercifully brief visits to Scotland. Bill Jamieson lauds Ferguson extravagantly, but what it all comes down to is the old Union song in the last paragraph, asking, po-faced, the question “And how might a small, independent country such as Scotland fare in this global shift?”.

The Fergusonian answer is entirely predictable.  A re-hash of the tired arc of prosperity accusation, and a reference to the Queen Mary that reveals the aching nostalgia Ferguson entertains for the supposed glory days of empire that he never witnessed. I did, in the latter stages – they were anything but glorious.

In summary, his message to Scots – I won’t call them his fellow Scots – is “Be feart, and get in a big boat quick”, i.e. the UK. My message to Niall Ferguson is that when you’re on the Titantic, get aff intae a wee boat, and fast. But keep good relations with other big and wee boats close by that are not about to slide beneath the waves that Britannia once ruled.

You can find my July 1st 2010 thoughts on Niall Ferguson and his ilk here 1707 and a' that

Niall Ferguson departed from Scotland a long time ago in a tirade of bitterness against the land of his birth. He came back recently under the auspice of Michael Gove to influence how history was taught in British schools, only to leave yet again in the huff at the failure of Britain to recognise his sterling Empire values.

But this time, he’ll have Bill Jamieson to wave him goodbye. One day soon he’ll return to find himself in an independent Scotland, with the UK a memory and the British Empire an ancient and discredited myth.

I cannae sing “For your no’ awa’ tae bide awa ” to you, Niall, because I fervently hope you are ..

 

Alex and the Trams Fiasco

The unionists are casting about frenziedly trying to find a way to implicate the SNP in the great disaster movie of the East – The Trams that ate a city’s budget. The latest ploy is demanding that the First Minister step in personally to rescue Labour, the Tories and the LibDems, aka the unionist parties, from their folly. The FM has already called for an inquiry to be set up. The danger now for the unionist block is what that enquiry will do when it gets the answer to the question – How did so many people make so much money, in salaries, bonuses, final settlements, consultancy fees etc. in the midst of such staggering failure and incompetence?.

“Simples!” says the Scottish meerkat, “Show me incompetence in public service projects (e.g. the M.O.D.) and I will show you its eternal companion – corruption, active or passive.” To be corrupt, of course, you don’t have to actually commit a criminal offence – just be rotten enough to accept personal rewards for failure and endangering the lives and/or social welfare of the people.  It’s sometimes called contractual obligations. Parasites are not corrupt, they’re just acting in accordance with their natures – sucking the life blood from the host body.

But sadly, there are many who are part of this mess, perhaps a majority,  who are not profiting from it, have not profited from it, whose reputations are now in ruins, upright and honourable people, wondering how they can make amends.

Simples! Resign, resign, resign! Doing the honourable thing is the honourable thing to do.

Afghanistan–the futile killing fields

The UK has the fourth largest defence budget in the world, even after the cuts.

WHY?

For this?
                
For Iraq?

To pretend that Britain is still a world power? 
                               
For the rump of an Empire?
 
For a bloodstained flag?

To allow an old Etonian rich boy and arms dealer - David Cameron - and a glib grammar school Yorkshireman - William Hague - who made his millions by giving talks to rich businessmen, to pretend that they are international statesmen, while demonstrating their ignorance, incompetence and impotence over the Libyan crisis?

Scotland! Free yourself of these people, and this poisoned union.

Saor Alba