Better Together?

Willie’s gone Wonka

The opinion polls make dire reading for the Lib Dems these days, with a projected 5% of the vote for the Scottish Parliamentary elections next year. So Wee Willie Rennie has jumped on the UK Labour Party’s Scottish Branch Manager’s wheeze to try to entice Yes voters back into the fold by allowing their MSPs to speak for Independence in the event of another independence referendum. Notice that the Umpa Lumpa’s will only be allowed to campaign for a Yes vote, not necessarily vote Yes.

They must think we’re daft. Who is going to trust these people? Remember that Wee Willie backs the self-confessed liar Alistair Carmichael. One of the newly ennobled Lib Dem peers, Malcolm Bruce, famously said, “If you are suggesting every MP who has never quite told the truth or even told a brazen lie, including cabinet ministers, including prime ministers, [should be removed] we would clear out the House of Commons very fast, I would suggest.”  Why would anybody vote for the Liar Democrats? As for Kezia Dugdale, she lies on a daily basis. She doesn’t even blush these days. I wonder if the Conservative and Unionist party will come out with a similar ploy?

But what of it? Well it shows that the writing is on the wall for the Unionist parties. People just don’t trust them anymore. No amount of grand standing, no amount of positive media coverage is going to change people’s point of view. That’s why we are hearing them tell us that they may kind of support some idea of independence if the need arises in the future. I haven’t laughed this much since I heard of David Hameron’s porcine fellatio.

However, what it does show us is that the Scottish constitutional question is still very much alive. They are starting to realise that, if they want to survive another election, they will have to move with the current. That current is moving inexorably towards independence now. There is still much work to be done, but surely we have earned a brief moment to smile.

All Animals are Equal

Four legs good, two legs bad

So runs the quote from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, which seems very apt on this day of lurid allegations about our Prime Minister’s bizarre sexual proclivities. What is probably even more bizarre is the person who dished the dirt, Lord Ashcroft, former Tory party deputy chairman. Hell hath no fury like a peer scorned. But, as we have learned already, today would be a great day to bury bad news. So let’s cast our eyes around to see what else was happening while we were laughing our socks off at David Cameron’s alleged porcine necrophiliac bestiality.

A bit of how's your father?

A bit of how’s your father?

Well there was the news that George Osborne was visiting China where he announced that the UK taxpayer would underwrite £2bn of risk, called a loan guarantee, for the proposed new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point. This is expected to rise substantially over the life of the project. But we can’t call it a subsidy, because that has a negative connotation. But that’s what it is. The UK government has already agreed to buy electricity from the new power station at a minimum price of £92.50 per MWh. For comparison, a power station burning natural gas can produce electricity at a price as low as £55 per MWh. Although if you read the DECC’s “Levelised Costs” i.e. fudged, nuclear appears to be competitive.

So in these austere times, why are we over paying for some new nuclear power stations? Saving the environment? You can Fukushima that. So it must be something else. What is a byproduct of nuclear power plants? Plutonium. The raw material for nuclear bombs, the prestige weapon of choice for the modern career politician. My guess is that these power stations are designed to keep the UK as permanent member of the UN security council. No nukes, no prestige.

Another item which reared it’s head over the weekend was the news that an anonymous “serving general” had said that there could be a mutiny if Jeremy Corbyn were elected as prime minister. This is a truly shocking story. You see, every member of the armed forces swears allegiance to the Queen, who is the head of the armed forces. But she no longer directs the armed forces because of the Royal Prerogative, which means that the power to direct the armed forces rests with government ministers. They can wield this power by decree if they wish, with no need to consult parliament to ask for permission. Which means that this anonymous general, if he exists at all, would be contravening his oath. Which would be treason, for which the death penalty is still on the statute books.

So why no investigation to find the source of this story? Well it could be something to do with publisher, The Sunday Times, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch and run by Rebecca Brooks, friends with David Cameron and his wife.

David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch

David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch

David Cameron and Rebecca Brooks

David Cameron and Rebecca Brooks

So it would seem that this is a non story, cooked up by persons unknown, in an attempt to smear the leader of the opposition and discredit him. Or it could be that the Prime Minister has already exercised the Royal Prerogative and ordered the anonymous general to talk to the press. Either way, this is a serious issue and it needs to be investigated. But will it?

Longannet shut

Smashing the monopoly of National Grid

The National Grid holds a monopoly on the operation of the high voltage electricity transmission network within the UK. They have done so since Margret Thatcher sold off the nationalised Central Electricity Generating Board in 1990. They also own the high voltage electricity distribution network in England and Wales, but the grid in Scotland is  owned by Scottish Power and Scottish and Southern Electric (SSE). Last year National Grid made £3863000000 profit (that’s almost £4bn) and disbursed £1614484200 (£1.6bn) in dividends to its shareholders. Since it was created the share price has trebled. All this just goes to show how profitable an enterprise this is.

As regular readers will know, Scottish consumers pay more for their electricity than our cousins in England. We also pay more to connect a generator to the grid, which is why Longannet is closing. If it was located in the SE England then it would be paid for generating electricity. From an environmental perspective, the closure of Longannet’s dirty, coal-fired, furnaces would be a good thing. However lots of jobs depend upon it and it would leave Scotland a net importer of electricity from our cousins down south. Which would cost more than generating it here of course.

The logic behind the closure of Langannet goes like this: generators which are far from London must pay more to connect to the grid because it costs more to transmit the power over longer distances (Edinburgh and Glasgow don’t count as major population centres). In a lovely piece of Joseph Heller style logic remote communities, which are far from power generators, must pay more for their electricity for the same reason. So Scotland not only pays more to consume electricity, our generators also have to pay more to connect to the grid. All this money flows into the energy companies pockets.

So what’s the solution? It’s called the Micro Grid. This is where a community, or even a group of houses or an industrial estate, have their own electricity generator which supplies most of their needs. This generator can be anything, but let’s think of the environment so it should be a combination of renewable energy technologies like solar, wind and some biomass. The generators will be able to power the needs of the community for most, if not all, of the time. There could also be a grid connection, but crucially, the generators will not export to the grid so no connection charges are required. If the community shared a meter then there would only be one consumer connection charge. The grid connection would just cover the shortfall of the generator during high demand periods.

But energy policy is reserved to Westminster, so how can this be achieved? Well the Scottish Government controls the planning system. They could make it a planning policy for all new developments which would free the lucky people who live and/or work there from the extortion of the energy companies. They would be masters of their own power. Eventually, when energy policy becomes more enlightened, all those wee grids could be connected together into the Scottish National Grid.

Existing communities could be encouraged, through grants and planning policies, to create their own micro grids. Through these small steps we can be free of the oppressive pricing regime that currently exists for our electricity, free from the monopoly of the National Grid.

Lord Arse of Hole

The rewards of failure

Our Tory prime minister has announced that 45 of his tory pals will be made into lords, where they can wear a coat made from dead stoats and park their generous behinds on the red leather benches and be paid £300 per day for dosing off in a wonderful, champagne induced haze. They will be joining the other 781 unelected peers on the taxpayer funded gravy train and they will have the ability to block and amend our laws. Before we get into the wonderful personalities who will be elevated, it is worth having a look at the current membership:

  • Conservatives  226
  • Labour   212
  • Crossbench   179
  • Liberal Democrats   101
  • Democratic Unionist Party   4
  • UKIP    3
  • Plaid Cymru   2
  • Ulster Unionist Party   2
  • Green Party   1
  • Non Affiliated   25
  • Priests   26

Notice how there are no truly Scottish parties represented in the lords? There are no SNP, no SSP and no Solidarity. There will be lots of fine words from the likes of the Green Party, Peter Hain and others about how the house of lords can only be reformed from within. But they are just that, fine words.

Our new lords break down like this:

  • Conservative   26
  • Liberal Democrats   11
  • Labour   8

Which will bring the total to 826! if they all bothered to turn up that would cost us £247800 per day (not including expenses, champagne and subsidised food).

Some of the notable new entrants are:

Blue Tories

  • William Hague – former MP and ex leader of the party – for services to blue torydom
  • Michelle Mone – for services to espionage and failed businesses
  • Stuart Polak – for services to Zionism
  • Philippa Stroud – ex adviser to Iain Duncan Smith – for services to the poor and disabled

There are a further 9 former MPs, assorted blue tory councillors, party officials and donors.

Yellow Tories

  • Malcolm Bruce – former MP – for services to expenses grabbing sucking up to the blue tories
  • Ming Campbell – former MP – for services to sucking up to the blue tories
  • Jonny Oates – former lacky to Nick Clegg – for services to sucking up to the blue tories

There are also 5 former MPs, 2 former councillors and a former MEP. A notable person, who just missed out on a peerage, was Danny Alexander who will just have to make do with a knighthood for screwing as much tax out of the North Sea as possible.

Red Tories

  • David Blunkett – former home secretary – for services to his ex-lover’s nanny
  • Alistair Darling – former chancellor – for services to tory bankers
  • Peter Hain – former colonial officer – for services to Robert Mugabe
  • Tessa Jowell – for services to paedophiles

There are also 4 former MPs and a party lackey.

So it would seem that once you get a ride on the UK’s gravy train, there’s no need to get off just because the plebs have had the bad grace to un-elect you. You can just keep on riding in a dead animal coat. I, for one, am glad that we are better together in this wonderful UK where we dehumanise refugees, starve our sick and poor and reward the failures of our chums.