Performance of SNP MPs in Westminster

[robbylad]

5 hours ago, phil38 said:

I along with many of my friends have had enough of this whole SNP thing, if anything it has taken power away from us as the only votes that have counted are those for tories and labour, and as scots we have taken away our vote contribution and as much of scotland is better off with labour then scotland has really shot itslef in the foot by taking those Scottish labour mp out of parliament, unless we change our votes back, tories will dominate for decades

Even if Scotland returned 59 Labour mps, the Tories would still be in power.

[Charles Bannerman]

6 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

Some punctuation, including sentences and the odd capital letter wouldn't go amiss. Seems, thankfully, according to the polls, that you and your many friends are in the minority.

Oh well, it must make a new forum member feel very welcome to find his spelling and punctuation attacked by a moderator within three days of joining up. Interestingly enough though, and to be absolutely frank, I do have to say that I have also found the said moderator's written English (as opposed to simple typos) somewhat short of perfect on occasions over the years, but have been too polite to mention it. I suppose the parallel here is with the Biblical tale of the casting of the first stone.

Now to return to politics and the con trick which is the SNP.... whilst I have no doubt that the SNP will win in May since the gullibility factor remains fairly strong, I would not be surprised to discover that there is increasing merit in what phil38 suggests is beginning to happen. Anyone in any doubt about the kind of fantasies which the SNP have relied on people believing should just look back a few posts on this very thread to discover the absolute belter from Alex MacLeod about the GTA computer game being worth more to the Scottish economy than oil.

Damn! I still can't find these smilies, but if ever there was a prime insight into the manner in which the SNP has got where it has, Alex provided it for us there. IT'S SCOTLAND'S GTA may not be a direct product of the party machine but as an exemplar of its kind, it is without parallel!

Indeed it would possibly even have the Beaut House propaganda department quivering with embarrassment, but it serves as a wonderful example of the sheer fantasy with which the electorate was saturated in industrial quantities by way of engineering the 45 and the 55. Then of course we had that MacLeod - Salmond double act where the latter based his Economics of Separation on $103 a barrel and then the former, once the backside promptly fell out of the market, began to tell us that this was merely a natural hiccup in the market and prices would be back up in months. Aye, right - twice over.

We would have to accept that many of the newcomers who rushed to the YeSNP cause last September and May perhaps found the basic principles quite challenging so were hence prime candidates to be drawn in by this kind of stuff. However it will, sooner or later although perhaps not as early as May, become more than apparent that you can't con all of the people all of the time.

[IBM]

18 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Now to return to politics and the con trick which is the SNP.... whilst I have no doubt that the SNP will win in May since the gullibility factor remains fairly strong,

Charles,

It is not a con trick by the SNP, it is the case that many people have been gullible enough to vote for Labour and the Lib Dems for many years but have now seen sense.

[Charles Bannerman]

25 minutes ago, IBM said:

Charles,

It is not a con trick by the SNP, it is the case that many people have been gullible enough to vote for Labour and the Lib Dems for many years but have now seen sense.

Au contraire... as Del Boy used to say. Indeed I should perhaps have given Alex rather greater credit in my last post for that absolute beezer about GTA. That's because it not only gives us a prime example of the kind of simplistic tosh with which the Nationalists have been conning the electorate for years now - it also provides an insight into the kind of second generation cons which we can expect to see more and more as an attempt to cover up the shortcomings of the first generation which are unravelling before their eyes.

For instance here, after decades of incessant assertions that the wealth of a separate Scotland would be transformed by the untold riches of oil, it then becomes apparent that the oil is going bellyup faster than you can say Free By 93. So bring on the next stage of the myth involving a new assertion that the oil was only ever a bonus anyway (where ARE my smilies!!?) and not even worth as much as a computer game!

Edited November 20, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[+DoofersDad]

1 hour ago, IBM said:

Charles,

It is not a con trick by the SNP, it is the case that many people have been gullible enough to vote for Labour and the Lib Dems for many years but have now seen sense.

Typical SNP response.  A one liner making a statement with absolutely no attempt to provide any justification for it.  This in response to a post which backed up the con trick allegation with a very specific example of a previous one liner being shown to be complete nonsense.

[Charles Bannerman]

Perhaps Holyrood could make itself useful and abolish nonsense like this where some clown in stripey troosers and a pinafore can tell a football club what it can and can't have as a badge.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34882922

Or does the Scot Gov think waste like this is acceptable in an era of austerity? This, by the way, is is an item of 100% Scottish farce which they can't even begin to attempt to blame Westminster for.

[IBM]

5 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Perhaps Holyrood could make itself useful and abolish nonsense like this where some clown in stripey troosers and a pinafore can tell a football club what it can and can't have as a badge.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34882922

Or does the Scot Gov think waste like this is acceptable in an era of austerity? This, by the way, is is an item of 100% Scottish farce which they can't even begin to attempt to blame Westminster for.

More SNP bashing Charles!  If you are that keen to get this changed you could start a petition as stated in the article.

"Although the rule only exists in Scotland, the law would need to be changed at Westminster and to start this process it would require at least 10,000 people to sign a petition."

[Charles Bannerman]

16 hours ago, IBM said:

More SNP bashing Charles!  If you are that keen to get this changed you could start a petition as stated in the article.

"Although the rule only exists in Scotland, the law would need to be changed at Westminster and to start this process it would require at least 10,000 people to sign a petition."

The bizarre technicality that Westminster needs to repeal a law which only exists in and affects Scotland could be overcome in at least a couple of ways.

* The SNP could instead start shouting for the devolution of a power that could actually be put to some good rather than one they want because they simply want to have powers such as at present. Holyrood could then change the law. OR

* The SNP could mobilise just a fraction these hunners an hunners of new members they have and easily get 10,000 signatures and then get the 55 to make a complete nuisance.... sorry, to make an even bigger nuisance of themselves at Westminster to get this nonsense repealed there.

I'm surprised the radically socialist wing of the SNP isn't pure jumping up and down about this feudal nonsense being imposed on "the people of Scotland".

[+DoofersDad]

You really shouldn't be surprised, Charles.  Feudal system it may be, but it is Scotland's feudal system and that makes it OK.  Remember how in the referendum the pro independence lobby were bleating about how the Scottish nation was being oppressed by a Westminster government and how Scotland could only progress as a nation if it could win back its "freedom".  The "freedom" they yearn for was when, rather than feeling oppressed by all the rights and freedoms that a representative democracy provides, the average Scot was living in dire conditions and obliged to do the bidding of which ever unelected, coat of arms bearing, clan chief owned the land they existed upon.

[Charles Bannerman]

3 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

You really shouldn't be surprised, Charles.  Feudal system it may be, but it is Scotland's feudal system and that makes it OK.  Remember how in the referendum the pro independence lobby were bleating about how the Scottish nation was being oppressed by a Westminster government and how Scotland could only progress as a nation if it could win back its "freedom".  The "freedom" they yearn for was when, rather than feeling oppressed by all the rights and freedoms that a representative democracy provides, the average Scot was living in dire conditions and obliged to do the bidding of which ever unelected, coat of arms bearing, clan chief owned the land they existed upon.

DD... please stop using the word "freedom" like that. It creates visions of an Australian with a blue and white painted face bellowing at a bunch of film extras and makes me want to wet myself!

However you do make an interesting observation about the so called "Scottish Wars of Independence". What that was all about was simply to which brand of unelected royalty the "Scottish People" would owe feudal allegiance - Edward I/II or Bruce and co? The reality is, and despite all Mel Gibson's shouting, that it actually didn't matter - because either way the ordinary people were going to be oppressed by one king or another and his appointed nobility. It's not as if democracy was at stake or anything like that. It was just about who were going to be the head honchos - the supremacy of one group or another, both of which owed their positions solely to the efficiency with which their ancestors had cheated, stabbed and fornicated their way into positions of influence.

However I would still suggest that it would probably have been far better if Bruce had got a right good doing at Bannockburn since, as a result of us having a different set of oppressors, the failed and dysfunctional state of Scotland would at least have been put out of its misery hundreds of years before it was. No gubbings at Flodden etc, higher standard of living long before 1707, no constant weeping over failing to qualify for football tournaments! And today we wouldn't have to listen to the constant whingeings and embarrassing grievance mongering of Sturgeon, Salmond et al. There would be NO SNP!!

If Edward II hadn't had such a bad day at the office in June 1314, the natural conglomeration of statelets within this island would have continued rather than stop as it did at the point where Mercia + Wessex + Northumbria etc = England and Strathclyde + Dalriada + Lothian + Pictland = Scotland.

The Nats really do need to get themselves up to date and waken up. The real debate in this country is about how much further amalgamation we want with other European states and not about turning the clock back to the bad old days of more than 300 years ago.

Edited November 22, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Kingsmills]

The difference between yourself and DD who's choice of language you criticise is that, while you both espouse the Unionist cause, he does so with well reasoned and cogent argument whilst you never rise above hectoring and cynical sarcasm tinged with more than the occasional flirtation with the boundaries of decency and respect.

I find neither persuasive but always feel that DD makes intelligent and more than occasionally thought provoking points whereas I struggle to find any of your politically related posts of which the same could be said. Perhaps it would be a start if you could drag yourself out of the eighteenth century and into the twenty first.

[Charles Bannerman]

3 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

The difference between yourself and DD who's choice of language you criticise is that, while you both espouse the Unionist cause, he does so with well reasoned and cogent argument whilst you never rise above hectoring and cynical sarcasm tinged with more than the occasional flirtation with the boundaries of decency and respect.

 

I'm glad you even place my comments in the "cynical sarcasm" category. I would be quite happy to have them categorised as straightforward Natbashing which - along with football, athletics and shinty - is one of my favourite sports! Quite frankly I regard the entire Nationalist concept as so ridiculous that, rather than take these people seriously, it's far better to expose them as the ever more demonstrable pantomime which they are. There's certainly no shortage of material and the manner in which so many po-faced Nats  (especially our chums the Cybernats) get so well wound up by it all just adds to the entertainment. It really is bizarre that, when the real debate is about extent of involvement in Europe, we should be constantly sidetracked by people banging on about turning the clock back 300 years to the era of a serially failed state.

By the way, after the earlier mauling you gave phil38 for his spelling/grammar/punctuation, I did say that I was too polite to exploit this kind of thing in public .... but (WHISPER).... take another look at the quoted passage!

[Charles Bannerman]

On the other hand... and returning to the letter of this thread's title.... maybe I should be taking these people a little more seriously.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34901119

So what next? "The 54"?

[Kingsmills]

35 minutes ago, Charles Bannerman said:

On the other hand... and returning to the letter of this thread's title.... maybe I should be taking these people a little more seriously.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34901119

So what next? "The 54"?

The matter is in the public domain so open for comment but, while no criminal charges have been brought, there is now an active police investigation so the usual rules in such cases apply and what can be posted is limited to matters of fact within the public domain and any posts straying outwith that territory including speculation about guilt or innocence will be deleted and the posters dealt with according to site rules.

[Charles Bannerman]

3 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

The matter is in the public domain so open for comment but, while no criminal charges have been brought, there is now an active police investigation so the usual rules in such cases apply and what can be posted is limited to matters of fact within the public domain and any posts straying outwith that territory including speculation about guilt or innocence will be deleted and the posters dealt with according to site rules.

As long as it is understood that "The 54" would be achieved simply in he event of the same withdrawal of the whip which reduced "The 56" to "The 55" pending the "Mortgagegate" investigation... all of which are/would become matters of fact within the public domain.

Maybe we should resurrect Agatha Christie to write "56 Little Nationalists"... except this one would have to sit in the NON fiction section!

[Charles Bannerman]

22 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

The matter is in the public domain so open for comment but, while no criminal charges have been brought, there is now an active police investigation so the usual rules in such cases apply and what can be posted is limited to matters of fact within the public domain and any posts straying outwith that territory including speculation about guilt or innocence will be deleted and the posters dealt with according to site rules.

I seem to be having some strange difficulty trying to quote but instead getting the above?

But in any case, I only wanted to say.... YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST

(although the BBC have now caught up)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34914067

They are now officially "The 54"!! (And that is a matter of fact within the public domain.)

Anyone want to open a book on the date the number of SNP MPs drops even lower than the North Sea Oil dollar price?

56 little Nationalists headed down the road.....

55 little Nationalists.....

54 little Nationalists.....

 

Edited November 24, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Kingsmills]

1 hour ago, Charles Bannerman said:

I seem to be having some strange difficulty trying to quote but instead getting the above?

But in any case, I only wanted to say.... YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST

(although the BBC have now caught up)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-34914067

They are now officially "The 54"!! (And that is a matter of fact within the public domain.)

Anyone want to open a book on the date the number of SNP MPs drops even lower than the North Sea Oil dollar price?

56 little Nationalists headed down the road.....

55 little Nationalists.....

54 little Nationalists.....

 

Yet another intelligent and well reasoned contribution to the 'debate'.....

[Charles Bannerman]

My quoting machine still seems to be playing up, but anyway.... it does seem that "taking the Mick out of the SNP" has become "failing to make an intelligent and well reasoned contribution to the debate" in the same way as, during the referendum, "pointing out the obvious flaws in the separatist case" became "talking Scotland down."

 

Edited November 24, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Alex MacLeod]

I notice Charles, that you choose not to highlight Labour MP Marie Rimmer, who still represents her position in that party and in parliament and who is today appearing at Glasgow Sherrif Court on assault charges.

[Charles Bannerman]

9 minutes ago, Alex MacLeod said:

I notice Charles, that you choose not to highlight Labour MP Marie Rimmer, who still represents her position in that party and in parliament and who is today appearing at Glasgow Sherrif Court on assault charges.

231 little Socialists headed down the road...... :-)

[+DoofersDad]

It will be interesting to discover just what the 56 55 54 will be saying in response to Osborne's pledge to continue to pump significant extra resource in real terms into the NHS in England. 

These are the MPs who have decided to vote on devolved matters (like the NHS) on the dubious justification that they can protect Scotland from the indirect consequences of the Tories' spending cuts. They are from the party who, in the referendum, won loads of votes by scaring the voters into believing that remaining in the Union would result in disinvestment in and privatisation of the NHS.  They are from the party which runs the Government in Scotland; a government that was criticised in an Audit Scotland report earlier this year for failing to increase spending in the NHS in real terms, for increasingly failing to meet targets and for increasingly having to resort to the private sector to bail them out.

Hopefully Robertson's rabble will head North and tell Sturgeon's stooges that it is possible to commit to long term investment in the NHS by ensuring that the nation is not crippled by debt.  One dreads to think what the long term future for the NHS in Scotland would have been had we voted for Independence.  Crippled by debt repayments from the massive borrowing required for measures used to bribe the electorate and with the promised massive oil revenues failing to materialise, the Holyrood Government would have been forced to cut spending to the NHS.  I sense that many people who voted "yes" are just beginning to wake up to the fact that they were well and truly duped by the SNP. 

Fortunately, enough of us voted "No" and as a result, the NHS in the UK is safe.  If will be safer still if we can get a change of Government at Holyrood in the spring.

[Charles Bannerman]

5 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

 One dreads to think what the long term future for the NHS in Scotland would have been had we voted for Independence.  Crippled by debt repayments from the massive borrowing required for measures used to bribe the electorate and with the promised massive oil revenues failing to materialise, the Holyrood Government would have been forced to cut spending to the NHS.  I sense that many people who voted "yes" are just beginning to wake up to the fact that they were well and truly duped by the SNP. 

Fortunately, enough of us voted "No" and as a result, the NHS in the UK is safe.  If will be safer still if we can get a change of Government at Holyrood in the spring.

One dreads to think what the long term future for ANYTHING in Scotland would have been had we (or rather... they) voted for independence. I also sense that people who were deluded into voting yes are also beginning to wake up to a few facts as described above. However I also fear that this will not yet happen to a large enough extent by May to have the desired effect at that point.

Indeed now we see that Alex Bell - a major contributor to that publicly funded pitch for separation which was the paper "Scotland's Future" - is saying that it was bollox and that the independence case has collapsed. So maybe Alex Salmond should now write a sequel to "The Dream Shall Never Die/Mein Banff" entitled "The Dream's Deid"!

Imagine, though, the current scene in a dimly lit room, deep in the bowels of Westminster, where 54 individuals, plus two empty seats, are assembled beneath a huge saltire discussing this....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34915218

....and they're saying to each other "Sh*t lads (and such lasses as are left)...... that's one hell of a new whinge we've got to dream up to replace Tax Credit cuts!!!"

Edited November 25, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Alex MacLeod]

No Charles, instead we'll all whinge about the means of paying for the Tory U-turn. 5% cut in Scotlands funding and this http://www.thenational.scot/politics/axing-1bn-carbon-capture-contest-threat-to-600-jobs-and-environment.10468 Isn't it also strange that the claimed billions in losses from North Sea revenues would have had such drastic effects on Scotlands wealth if independent yet have no effect, and are never mentioned, in UK budgets?

[Charles Bannerman]

4 hours ago, Alex MacLeod said:

No Charles, instead we'll all whinge about the means of paying for the Tory U-turn. 5% cut in Scotlands funding and this http://www.thenational.scot/politics/axing-1bn-carbon-capture-contest-threat-to-600-jobs-and-environment.10468 Isn't it also strange that the claimed billions in losses from North Sea revenues would have had such drastic effects on Scotlands wealth if independent yet have no effect, and are never mentioned, in UK budgets?

I'll put this down to Alex suffering one of these Freudian states of denial where he can't even admit to himself that the obvious answer to his question actually lies in one of the fundamental reasons for Scotland needing to remain within the Union.

In view of what the size of the Scottish economy would have been post-nightmare scenario, the disappearance down the toilet of North Sea oil revenues which we are now seeing would have been a pretty well mortal blow. On the other hand the UK economy is around 12 time bigger so can stand this and other similar changes a whole, whole lot better - which is just one reason why we are far better sticking where we are. Could you imagine the scenes of panic and angst if there had been a yes vote and then a few short months later the oil bubble had been shown to burst, despite the "second oil boom" and $103 a barrel predicted by Salmond? Well I suppose there's always Grand Theft Auto.......

Everybody's funding is being cut, but Scotland's remains significantly above everybody else's because of that other benefit of the Union, the Barnett Formula. If the Nats want to provide services over and above what can be funded by current revenues, then why don't they use their powers to increase income tax and also scrap the Council Tax freeze, hence also releasing the partial compensation for that offered by Holyrood for other things?

Intriguing that the link in the quoted passage should be to that unquestioning SNP soapbox The National. The other day when most front pages were reflecting on the likelihood that the 55 would become the 54, what does that National have?

"It's our first birthday!!!!" Cracking stuff.

[Yngwie]

Getting back to the "Performance of SNP MPs in Westminster", I note that the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman didn't attend today's debate on the case for UK military action in Syria because he was instead occupied with important constituency business attending the unveiling of a portrait of himself. You couldn't make it up!