This post was almost called ‘national conversations, national insults’.
As a sporadic, if not regular, contributor to the Scottish Government’s National Conversation I fear I must acknowledge that I am a “flag-burning blogger” who wishes to “rant and rave [and] blame everything on the English”. So clear to me it is now that I don’t know how I failed to realise that I am a “swivel-eyed, bigoted, lunatic”.
Many thanks to Ms Alexander and Master Cairns for highlighting my severe, and until now undiagnosed, personality flaws. I don’t doubt that the thousands of other contributors, sorry, “swivel-eyed, bigoted, lunatics” (presumably we’re including the unionists in this too?) will offer similar praise to our more learned betters … surely our esteemed leaders of thought and conscience can count on our votes come election time!
Except.
This diatribe (from Alexander in particular) only goes to show how far gone the Labour Party is. It’s an insult to every free-thinking Scot, interested individual, group, and the participants from around the globe who have gone out of their way to contribute to the debate on the future of Scotland. Not just on the independence option, but on all options … can Alexander’s (or is it Brown’s?) so-called commission claim to be so open or democratic?
That Labour leaders should be using such unsophisticated and harsh language merely serves to make a mockery of those who wish to be seen to be re-engaging with the electorate who are rejecting them, both last May and in any future contest. Laughably, they seem to still believe that these are the tactics which will make the union seem more attractive.
I’m ad-lib’ing now, but it seems to me that Labour’s strategy for promoting unionism is to slur those who would support the independence cause. People like me. Labelling people like me as being some sort of in-bred anti-English ‘bigot’ is a bit like saying that New Labour has a socialist agenda … clearly an unsubstantiated claim.
Ms Alexander though does like to make unsubstantiated claims. Consider how Ms Alexander labels New Labour as ’socialist’ opposition, notice how she ignores the fact that Labour ditched socialism at the same time as it ditched the unions. It had to, it was the only way that it could finance its rebirth as New Labour, funded by big business and their big bucks. New Labour is no more socialist than those who sit on it’s front benches.
Ms Alexander has also implied that her party is in favour of ‘progressive taxation’. If by ‘progressive’ she means that they’re going to rob our pension funds, prop up failing capitalist enterprise with tax payers money, abolish the lower rate of income tax (in effect doubling it), have the second highest military spend on the planet (and still manage to be underfunded?!), introduce ‘green taxes’ without ring fencing those funds to improve the public transport infra-structure, be in favour of unexplained ministerial expenses, grow the economy based on a ‘borrowing/debt model’ … if she mean these things then she might be right.
As for Labour’s minimum wage, if you think it’s anything more than a tool for raising more taxes from business then think again … any benefit incurred is more than off-set thanks to massive inflation of energy prices, to start with …
Of Labour’s socialism and the SNP’s tori’ness Iain MacWhirter says:
It was the SNP government, elected in May, that finally ended private sector involvement in the Scottish health service, after Scottish Labour put it there under Jack McConnell. This minority SNP administration has also abolished prescription charges, saved local A&E units, backdated the NHS pay award, abolished student fees, cut class sizes, begun a pilot for free school meals, given equal rights to the children of asylum seekers, rejected nuclear power, doubled the international aid budget, ended ring-fencing of council spending and condemned the Iraq war. This “right-wing” party seems to have done more to further social democratic values in 10 months than Labour managed in 10 years.
The argument that the SNP are a Tory party manque is based on the cuts in business rates and in local authority social service spending, following the concordat with Cosla. Well, in that case, Gordon Brown is surely a true-blue Tory too, since he has consistently cut UK business taxes during his time in office, at the same time as crafting a personal tax regime which allows the super-rich to pay less than their cleaners.
I have heard Labour labelled as ’scaremongerers’ and I’ve heard a Labour supporter deride that label as an excuse for the SNP to avoid the issues. Yet when you listen to the language that Labour use, it is scaremongering, it is the language of fear.
It. Is. Irrational.
Labour. Are. Irrational
Clearly Ms Alexander thinks that the electorate are a bit thick and will be sucked in by her irrational accusations and empty rhetoric, some might suggest that she seems to be a bit thick, could she be?
And to think I’ve still not dealt with Wendy’s coronation as ‘Leader of the Labour Group in Holyrood’ and her now infamously unprosecuted illegal donation or her failings at first ministers questions … so much material so little time!
Related Links:
Scottish Government’s National Conversation
Wendy AlexanderMSP and Leader of the labour Group at Holyrood
David Cairns MP
Iain MacWhirter - Sunday Herald
