Limerick

Words from Limerick

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Sorry for the lack of posts recently, I’m doing some work down in Limerick in co Clare, Ireland at the moment. So it seems fitting to embrace the poetic form and apply it to #GE15. Here’s the first effort:

There was a Lib Dem called Justine

Who angered easily in hustings

She gave us a laugh

With gaff after gaff

And policies sadly lacking

Here’s another:

There was a candidate for Gordon

Who despised Alex Salmond

She lied to the voters

About tax cuts and pollsters

But soon she will be forgotten

And a wee one for Braden

Young Braden was Dame Begg’s tea maker

She promoted him to Ortsgruppenleiter

Nobody knew who he was

All he could say was soz

There’s no way he should give up the day job

 

Ellon hustings 17 April 2015

An evening with Justine, Part 3

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On to the next question which is about salmon netting at the Ythan estuary.

Clark is first up and he doesn’t support it. He then goes on to attack land reform calling it class war. Here’s their website for reference. I couldn’t find any reference to land reform on there. Braden is against but he doesn’t seem to know too much about it (to give him his due neither did I until I got handed a flyer on the way in). He magnanimously agreed to support the case against. Justine doesn’t say very much about it, WeeEck says that the people who are netting have a heritable right to do it which is why we need land reform. That was news to me too. Clark hits back in his rebuttal, he makes the point that farmers do what they do so that they can pass on their farms to the next generation, land reform would stop that. WeeEck says that’s rubbish. Some guy cuts this one-off, which I was disappointed about.

I know that land reform worries the farmers around me, they will not rent any land out because the renter will end up with a right to buy the land. That doesn’t seem right to me, it also acts as a block to new entrants to the farming industry, something which it sorely needs. Here’s an interesting fact for you, there is only 3 days food supply in the shops at any one time. Any interruption to the supply and we all starve. The next time you take a drive through the countryside, take a look around you. All that stuff in the fields is our food, and there isn’t enough of it to feed us all. Farmers invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in growing crops, the value of which they cannot know until it’s time to sell it. Very often they sell at a loss and the only reason that they survive is through the subsidies.

Some guy gives us the nest question which is about Donald Trump, his golf course and the offshore wind farm in Aberdeen Bay. This one is a potential banana skin for WeeEck and he’s first up. WeeEck backs any development which creates jobs and he backs the Trump development, he also backs the wind farm (although it is an experimental project not a wind farm apparently) because they both create jobs. Justine agrees with WeeEck (michty) but accuses him of riding roughshod over the local cooncilors by calling it in when he was First Minister. Braden is particularly weak on this one, that’s what happens when you get parachuted in I guess. Clark claims that 70% of the money which is paid to wind farms by way of subsidies goes to foreign companies and tax exiles, although he backs farmers having them. This smacks of hypocrisy to me, tories decrying tax exiles. He also backs centralised strategic planning for wind farms.

Wind turbines are an emotive issue for me, for it is because of them that I ended up in local politics. We used to have a really picturesque view of Glen Ythan, but now it is corrupted by 20 wind turbines which are all different sizes and haphazardly arranged about the place almost always in the most prominent spots. All of these turbines are owned by local farmers. Why are we spoiling our countryside with these ugly machines?

Next up was a question from a young loon who I was very impressed with: how would you connect with the electorate?

Clark is first to go, he tells us all about himself and his family. It seemed like a load of waffle to me. Braden waffles on too, mentions social media and Twitter. But hang on Braden, you blocked me on Twitter, remember? How is that connecting with the electorate? Justine knows the questioner, she goes on to talk about going to community council meetings and surgeries on the weekends when she’s not in London. WeeEck mentions social media and his office in Inverurie.

The final question was about unpaid carers. By this time we had all pretty much had enough and so on to the closing speeches.

Clark goes first since he was last for the opening speeches. He says that the tories are committed to saving the NHS, but he doesn’t say how (privatisation perhaps?). He says that the Gordon constituency is conservative with a small ‘c’ (I don’t know how he works that one out). He harks back to the referendum and asks to be judged on the tories track record (aye we will). There follows an attack on the Lib Dems and Labour, only the tories stand up for the worker apparently. Eh? He then says that this election is a choice between Ed or Dave (that’s a lie right there Clark, there are 5 PPCs standing in Gordon). He gets a wee cheer and sits down again.

Braden tells us that he supports Ed, fancy that. He wants an end to exploitative zero hours contracts, but doesn’t tell us what the definition of exploitative is. He then comes out with the best joke of the night. “I may not drink with Donald Trump (a reference to WeeEck) or own a multi million pound business or…be a Lib Dem.” It was genuinely funny and a great dig at Justine, you could see her ire rising. He gets a wee cheer.

Then Justine is up, she was angling for a supporting role in Ed’s government> Claims that Lib Dems were a moderating influence on the tories (yawn). Invest in health. Aim high and dream big, she then goes on to tell us about her working class roots (which probably means that she is not working class) She gets herself worked up into a frenzy, getting the whip oot again and lashing it all ower like she’s some king of sadistic dominatrix. She takes credit for the Smith Commission (I’m not sure that’s a good idea) and finishes off with a final flourish of the whip, “I will be scary.” I agree. She gets a decent cheer.

WeeEck then gets up and immediately sticks a chib intae Justine ower tuition fees then moves on to austerity and how it is killing this country. He makes the point that all three of the other parties present want to increase spending and increase cuts. He says the SNP want to end austerity and have a moderate increase in spending. He also wants the vow to be honoured and he is the man to do it. I totally agree. He gets the biggest cheer of the night.

In conclusion, I thought Clark was too far up himself. He tried to connect with the common man but at the end of the day he is a tory who is only interested in profit. Braden is like a fish out of water whenever he is beyond tha party dogma, very weak on local issues. WeeEck was exactly as you would expect, rambunctious and a formidable opponent. He knew his stuff, from the geopolitical to the local.

Then there’s Justine. She is the unionists’ great hope to defeat WeeEck. My impression of her is that she is a dominatrix, she flails the whip around and lectures her audience. She spent time defending the indefensible i.e. tuition fees. She wants an end to the bedroom tax, but Malcolm Bruce voted for it! Her hypocrisy knows no bounds. She is also weak on local issues, but then she said that she wanted to go to London from where she can board the gravy train like her predecessor rode for 31 years.

All in all I enjoyed our date Justine, I only hope that we don’t have another one anytime soon.

Effie Britannia

Oh dear Effie

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We interrupt this party political broadcast on behalf of the people of Gordon for an important news item. Effie Deans has published a post on her blog titled, “We must attack the SNP at its roots.” That’s right, get in among them like a dose of roundup.

You may have come across Effie before, she is an advocate of tactical voting. Especially in the constituency of Gordon where she hopes this will prevent the SNP candidate from being elected. Effie spent some time in the USSR, of which she has fond memories. She sees parallels between the break up of the USSR and the current state of the UK, of which she is particularly fond. She is also an ardent opponent of nationalism. Effie sees nationalism as a great evil, one which must be stopped at all costs.

But I’ll give her credit, she has got right to the root of Scottish nationalism and it boils down to this: do you think of Scotland as a country? It really is as simple as that. For Effie, Scotland is not a country, it is a region of a larger entity called United Kingdom. It’s just a part of something greater. For me, Scotland is a country and it should have the ability to manage its resources for the benefit of the people who live here. Effie laments that all of the economic arguments against independence are ignored by the nationalists. Most of the arguments against independence are economic and inherently selfish.

Effie believes that the final solution to Scottish nationalism is to disallow the assumption “Scotland is a country.” She even has a four point plan:

  1. Accept that UK is one nation.
  2. Ban all referendums.
  3. No deal with the elected representatives of the Scottish people should they be SNP.
  4. Bring about more unity into the UK and promote a feeling of common identity.

Effie is getting desperate, she is issuing a clarion call to the rest of the UK to give urgent assistance. It would appear that the SNP are winning. Her final recourse is to a grand coalition of unionist parties, a quicker route to the break up of the UK you couldn’t find.

Effie and I are mutually blocked on Twitter, and the reason is that I called her a British nationalist. Effie insisted that she wasn’t, then blocked me. But what about this quote from the post, “…remember, this is Britain. We always win.”

Ellon hustings 17 April 2015

An evening with Justine, Part 2

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“So the question was: How do you plan to improve support services?

Clarke’s first up, he says the councils are very hard up because of the council tax freeze and he would like to get rid of it and raise council tax. Is that a vote winner? Braden wants all carers to be paid the living wage, scrap the bedroom tax and pause the roll out of Universal Credit. Fair enough I suppose. Justine wants to devolve funding down to the lowest level, she is against centralisation. She appears to be offering more of the last 5 years but decides now is the time to pull the rabbit from the hat, “I’ll gie ya £800m for your NHS Scotland.” That’s a fat rabbit, but the LibDems voted with the tories for £30bn cuts. Where’s this cash coming from? WeeEck sets aboot defending the council tax freeze, he says abody’s benefited fae the freeze, afore it was frozen cooncil tax had shot up faster than a squib on bonfire nicht. A the auld folks had benefited too and a the cooncils hid been fully funded.

A this chat fae WeeEck fair winds up Justine. She his a go at the tories’ cuts, but yon Malcolm Bruce voted for all of them. The irony is lost on her. Noo she’s wanting to bin cooncil tax a thigethir, but she wid gie us a new local income tax. By this time she’s up tae high doe, ranting aboot the bedroom tax (irony again?). It seemed to me that WeeEck had pressed a button and set Justine off. Braden agrees with WeeEck about bedroom tax. Clark says zero hour contracts are magic, because without them some people wouldn’t have a job. He makes a pre prepared Freudian slip and calls the LibDems the Labour Democrats. It fell pretty flat.

For me I would like to see a local income tax, it would make the councils directly responsible to the electorate. I always thought that council tax was unfair.

Some bloke serves another course: When will we see home rule or devo max?

WeeEck’s got fire in his belly, gies us a stirring speech aboot vows and pledges beein honoured. “Send me tae Westminster an, wi ma pals, we’ll mak sure Scotland gets fit it was promised,” sort ae stuff. That went down well (with me anyway). Justine gies us a history lesson that  must hae been written by her pal @historywoman (get the tag right, all lower case). Then she says she wants Federalism within the UK. Braden gives WeeEck a dressing down about the costs of Full Fiscal Autonomy (FFA), he says we would end up with all of the costs of independence but none of the benefits (Wow, a Labour PPC admitting that there would be benefits to independence. He’s gone off message there.) Clark decides to have a go at Justine’s claim, “I’m not a Unionist.” That’s right, Justine claims to not be a unionist, “I’m a federalist,” she says. But I remember her dedication to the Union during the independence campaign. She stood shoulder to shoulder with the tories in defence of the union, but she’s not a Unionist? Come on. She even tried to deny that she had said any such thing, but all of the other panelists told her that they remember her saying it. Oh dear, sometimes it’s best to just stop digging.

ae finish aff this wee spell WeeEck cracks a joke, “The Smith Commission had to go at the speed of the slowest boat in the convoy, and with Conservatives, Labour and LibDems there were lots of slow boats.” It had me laughing. Then he said that Smith doesn’t come close to devo max. I couldn’t agree more, Smith was a giant fudge with every aspect of it reduced to the lowest common denominator. If we allow it, we won’t even get the powers in the Smith recommendations.

I’ll finish this one here, watch out for Part 3 soon.