Tag Archives: Christine Jardine

Carmichael and Willie toast the lies

Carmichaels and lies

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The two are now synonymous. Yes you can now Carmichael to your spouse about the amount of drinks you had down the pub. You can Carmichael to your doctor about how much you smoke. You can even Carmichael to your kids about how they don’t sell replacement batteries for that noisy toy. Carmichael and lies, the two go hand in hand. We’ve got to wonder about how many other lies he’s told? Just how many Carmichaels did the liar tell during the Independence referendum?

Now that his court case is over his party is spinning his “victory” as a complete vindication of his actions, but that’s not what the judges said. They branded him a “blatant liar”. How can anyone trust this man anymore?

Of course his party, the Liberal Democrats Scottish Branch, is right behind him, desperate not to lose their only voice in the big hoose in London. Giving the liar his full backing back in May Willie Rennie, Branch Office Manager, said, “As a liberal I believe that people deserve a second chance. I hope fair-minded people would agree that Alistair Carmichael should be given that second chance.”

The hypocrisy of the man is astounding, for Wee Willie has called for the resignation of Kenny MacAskill. He also called for the resignation of Martin Sime, chief executive of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations, because he thought that Sime is too closely affiliated with the SNP. Not many second chances there. But this is what we’ve come to expect from the Liberal Democrats as whole. Here’s Christine Jardine, prospective parliamentary candidate for East Aberdeenshire:

Justine riven with blame

Justine riven with blame

Now those are honourable sentiments, however her words don’t really match that sentiment:

Justine Blames the SNP 1

Justine Blames the SNP 1

Oh, and this lot too:

Justine goes to town on SNPbad

Justine goes to town on SNPbad

It would seem that Tim Farron was talking about his own party.

But, getting back to that liar. Let’s not forget what Sir Malcolm Bruce, or Lord Bruce of the Gowk Stane to give his new moniker, said about Carmichael, “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, we would clear out the House of Commons very fast, I would suggest,” So Carmichaeling is fine for the Lib Dems. It would seem that they’re all at it.

How about the biggest Lib Dem Carmichael of recent times:

Nick Clegg's tuition fee Carmichael

Nick Clegg’s tuition fee Carmichael

But for me the biggest loser here is democracy, for this judgment shows the depths of  contempt that the people of this country are held in by the very people who are elected to represent us. That a cabinet minister can authorise a libellous leak to smear a political opponent then lie about it to the Cabinet Office inquiry, lie about it to the press and lie about it to the voters during a general election campaign and get away with it is a disgrace. This sorry episode is a damning indictment of the state of politics at Westminster.

Carmichael is a liar, he has no honour and neither does the party which holds him in such high regard. The elections for the Scottish Parliament are a few months away, I’ll bet the people will not easily forget the hypocrisy and Carmichaels of the Liberal Democrats. They are a stain on the people of this land and they need to be wiped away.

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.

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.

Ellon hustings 17 April 2015

An evening with Justine, Part 1

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It was with delight that  I received an invitation, “Justine requests the pleasure of your company at  The Hustings, Victoria Hall, Ellon. 19:30.” There was no RSVP, no return address. I’ve got to admit, it piqued my interest. So I went along, as did a fair few other folk. But Justine wasn’t on her own, she’d brought along a few friends: (from the right) Clark, Braden, some bloke, the lady herself and WeeEck was to her right. On her left, so to speak.

We had an aperitif, or “Opening Statements” as they were called. WeeEck was first up, he was chuffed that Brew Dog made beer in Ellon (so am I by the way). Then Justine spoke for the first time, her voice like a blackbird’s song with hooks and barbs. She got tore right into WeeEck then got sweet on the pensioners. She got fair fired up, got the crop oot and swung it about like she wanted to gie WeeEck the punishment she knows he deserves. It was up and doon and side tae side. She gied it laldy on the economy, bigging up the Lib Dems record. Next up Braden gives us a good old fashioned New Labour sermon. Clark tells us he’s from Auchterless and he thinks shrinking the welfare state is good.

Then some bloke feeds us with our starter: what do you think of reinstating the Formartine and Buchan railway? For those who don’t know, this railway line was closed by the Beeching cuts and is now a long distance footpath and cycle route.

WeeEck’s first up and thought it was a good idea. I’m like WTF? That’s my cycle route to work, that’s the route that allows me to keep my sanity during the morning commute, and he wants to turn it back into a railway! NESTRANS are on the case as we speak!

Then Justine gives the knife a twist, she’s all for it too! She gets the whip oot again: WeeEck’s gettin it wi the SNP BAD and thon Big Brig ower the Forth’s nae needed.

Braden’s all for it, it seems like a good idea to him, like good seems like an idea. But like whatever, why can’t the government own the railway?

Clark’s gives me hope, he wants to turn the A90 into a truck super highway. I’m not sure about that but at least I’ll keep my sanity.

There’s a wee bit o banter, WeeEck tells Justine she’s on a shoogly brig because her an her pals forced a the cash that was set aside for Grand Plans into the Edinburgh Trams. But Clark tells them both off, “Alex, you just want to go to Westminster to shake it to its’ foundations. Justine, you are really quite scary.” I find myself agreeing with a tory for probably the first time in my life.

The next course is expertly served by some guy: How do you plan to improve support services? But Justine has worn me out, so you’re going to have to wait to find out about the rest of the evening.