Salt n Vinegar

Starmer has just announced the campaign for the next general election... "Vote Labour... keep Brexit". That'll go down well in Scotland .

? 'kin ell. If you listen really, really carefully you should be able to hear the sound of my late parents spinning in their graves.

What would be really interesting would be if as usual Sinn Fein didn't take up their seats and a combination of Labour and SNP/Plaid Cymru MPs could outvote Tory, Ulster Unionists and Liberal ones but not do so without them. No deals Starmer? Aye, right.

Kind of weird that some see us as too small or economically insignificant to even be "allowed" to ask ourselves the independence question at a time of our choosing. Just as well that these "gotcha" issues didn't apply to Malta, Tuvalu, Kiribati, St. Lucia, the Solomon Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Grenada.

Never, ever underestimate the ability of the Labour Party to shoot itself in the foot and of the Maily Dail, the Empress and the Torygraph to con the voters. The Tory media mandarins will have had their staff hoarding tittle-tattle about the Labour hierarchy for years, all ready to dump on their readership a month or so before polling day.

I realise that I could be accused of slight bias, but one part of legislation I'd look at amending would be the list of reserved matters in Schedule 5 of the 1998 Scotland Act so that the mother(etc) of Parliaments couldn't just stick its fingers in its ears and shout "lalalalala" after every election held in Scotland.

There aren't any. It seems to me that the ruling by the Supreme Court contains a further, puzzling, undemocratic element. As I understand it, it cited a decision of the Canadian Supreme Court about Quebec, and the UK version said that the right to self determination did not apply to Scotland as such arguments were limited to situations involving colonies or foreign occupation, “none of which applies to Scotland”. At face value, that seems to suggest that the right to self determination would only apply to Scotland if we had been successfully invaded or colonised. Repeated electoral demonstrations of political aspiration is viewed by the court as irrelevant. One might say that if one was forced into a marriage, either party can leave, but if one agrees to a marriage, one party is locked into it in perpetuity. It seems to me bizarre that the 21st century rights of a people to determine their own future next year depends on the circumstances under which a decision was taken on votes cast by 110 members of the Scottish Parliament - an entirely undemocratic body with members appointed by the Monarch or holding a hereditary title - almost 316 years ago. I’ve been unable in the brief digging over lunchtime to find detail of the limited pre-union “electoral” process, but as Monty Python might have put it, a three centuries old gaggle of placemen is hardly an ideal form of a decision-making body that seemingly fetters the political aspirations of a 21st century population.

Amateurs. Not a burning torch or pitchfork in sight. Won't happen. The Labour Lords and Ladies won't let them do it, doncha know. The unelected (including much of the press) won't allow it and if Charlieboy can't dole out gongs and "you've done very well" rewards to the not-so-great and the not-so-good, and sit atop an "honours" system, what is HE for? Nice try by Starmer, but he knows it'll never happen.

Crazy talk. Everybody knows that you can't make laws in a modern democracy without hundreds of unelected (and in many cases unelectable) placemen and placewomen bringing their decades of experience of such crucial matters like giving money to politicians to bear on laws before they become law. How on Earth will his Britannic Majesty know if it's ok for him to sign things into law without the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal? That way madness lies! Get these chancers in the Lords in the bin.

Could be worse... Could be a Budweiser rep at the World Cup. Serves the fekkers right.

Oops. Poor Dross... even when he tries to announce good news, he can't catch a break. Apparently he spoke about the inflation increases in pensions and benefits in FMQs before the Chancer of the Exchequer announced it in the Commons. Naughty boy!

No, don't think so. If your bills in one year are met from a fixed income, then higher bills in the next year are met from a fixed income that has risen by the same amount, your standard of living is the same. There's no increase in any meaningful sense. If your rent goes up by 7%... many times the % rise in your income... you are demonstrably worse off. You are not saving £200. In no sense is 7% higher rent a "saving" of anything. It's an increase in the rent of 7%. It's a bit like claiming that a neighbourhood thug is saving you a month in hospital by only slashing your face instead of also breaking your legs.

Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't like what the Chancer has announced because of the tax rises. Will he have the guts to vote against the budget though? A) no, or B) no. Select as appropriate...

Yes, I understand what you say but the Chancer applied some thick gloss to cover a pretty ugly wall. Talk of pension and benefit "increases" is a bit cheeky... they are increases in cash terms certainly, but is keeping pace with inflation really what most folk would call an "increase"? I'm not suggesting that actual real terms increases were in order but I'd prefer a bit more honesty in the terminology used. Also there was something about a saving of - what was it - a couple of hundred pounds because some rents would only rise by 7% instead of the rate of inflation - sorry, in my book that's not a saving of anything, it's a whopping 7% increase in rent. For folk in the public sector, their pay seems unlikely to even approach inflation for the next few years. On energy bills, if I have this right, the energy price cap is rising, support will fall (the £400 payment is going away I think), with the resulting higher bills being met from incomes rising at well below inflation and being hit by higher taxes. It's all going very well, isn't it?

If the pupose of the statement was to placate the market, one indicator, the ftse 100 doesn't seem particularly impressed - at the time of typing this, it's slightly lower on the day and lower than when the Chancer stood up.

Damn. I was hoping to buy my barricade material, torches and pitchforks in the January sales...

Aye, can you imagine the rage and snotters there'd be all over the press if Corbyn's wife/partner/bidie-in (delete as appropriate) received huge dividends from a company that still operated in Russia? Or Starmer's? I'm pretty confident that Tories would be beside themselves with rage and the fact that wasn't the politicians themselves doing it would be utterly irrelevant.

Were the pupils of Larkhall Academy who recently chased off an alleged (in case the lawyers are watching) 'Nazi recruiter' denying him free speech?

Ok, taking a bit of a risk here, but is using criticism, wit (complete or half) or name calling to criticise or bring down an opponent no longer allowed then? Winston Churchill took the pee out of Bessie Braddock MP and Lady Astor with his comments about them but his quotes are still discussed, praised and I dare say used today. Please look them up - I don't want the consequences if the hyper-sensitive curtain twitchers are about. (Oh-oh.... I suppose I have to formally apologise to the hyper-sensitive curtain twitchers out there... see Chief Constable Miekelson's series of apologies in Scot Squad for a giggle about language use.) If all that's left is 'I say, I strongly disagree with you on that and consider you to be most reprehensible!" or "is that wise, Captain Mainwaring? " type stuff, that's pretty sad. Governments can plunge folk into abject poverty, wreck the economy, feather bed their pals' finances... but we have to play nice? Now THAT is obscene! Calling someone a grumble 'n grunt? Nah, not so much. Scottish football match officials are sponsored by Specsavers... they're taking the piss out of THEMSELVES so I've got no problems with folk doing it. In one of the few episodes of River City that I saw, one heavily overweight bloke fought back about his size with something like "you know I've got trouble with my feet" to be hit with "Aye, ye canny keep them oot o the fish and chip shop!" Insulting? Very probably. Funny? Aye, it was. If politicians rip folks' knitting to the extent that some members of the public are driven to use "bad language" when discussing them and their exploits, maybe its not the words uttered by "the public" that are the problems.

I've seen a fair amount of coverage about the kinds of measures the Chancer of the Exchequer may put forward in his budget. Cutting the energy bill support, not raising personal allowances by inflation for many years, reducing the starting point for the top rate of tax by 25k, increasing that rate to 50%, even introducing vehicle tax for electric vehicles (currently £0). Airports better get ready for the flood of economic refugees fleeing the UK because they'll be paying more in tax! That's what we hear all the time, isn't it? Or does the fleeing hoard problem only apply to Scottish Government-decreed tax changes?

They've just referred to that quote on "Breaking the News" and thought that was an ideal reason to appoint Trump as the Scottish football manager.

Actually.... that might suit the Donald's ego very well. If DeSantis becomes the nominee... 1) The DT would have an irresistible urge to give a huge GIRFUY to the party that embarrassed him, 2) it would allow him to play the downtrodden "very stable genius"* who was unfairly punished for the failures of others** and the clincher.... 3) how could he resist the attraction of winning the Presidency as an Independent? * as in 'more of a genius than a horse'. ** in his opinion.

I never knew that we had poultry farmers in the P&B clan. Or are you just egging him on?

Pedant alert klaxon... pedant alert klaxon... If anything is being served in these 'Scottish embassies' I suspect it will be "whisky" and not "whiskey".

Dunno if this is an appropriate thread, but the person involved is one of Dross's lieutenants, so why not.... https://www.thenational.scot/news/23110461.scottish-parliament-embarrasses-potato-stephen-kerr-twitter/