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Here's some figures for your consumption:
The UK is the only G7 country not to have a stimulus package this year. Out of the G20, the UK's only company is Argentina.
The UK bosom that Labour and Tory politicans say that Scotland relies on is being shown more and more to have been made of cheap implants that have now been removed.
Meanwhile, over 60 leading economists have come out strongly against cuts in public spending. The media have for some reason portrayed this as backing the Labour position. This is the same Labour government that have imposed an £814m cut on the Scottish Government this coming year.
Public spending is needed now more than ever to replace reduced private spending in the economy. Cuts will only increase unemployment and therefore increase welfare spending i.e. increasing the deficit. Investing in jobs gets unemployment payments down and brings in tax - decreasing the deficit in a proper manner. Labour's cuts will make a double-dip out of their recession - if we're even out of it at the moment.
Have you heard any Scottish Labour MPs talking about this? The way they've danced to the Tory tune on cuts shows they cannot be trusted. This is why they need replaced.
Many want to see a hung Parliament this year. Hang both Labour and the Tories.
New use for The Sun's front page image from 2007?
Tom Gordon of the Sunday Herald seems to be quite taken with the Sarwars. In his piece on Sunday he said Anas Sarwar had been "blessed with his father's charm."
We may quibble with such descriptions, and we may question exactly how many Labour MPs could be so described. For now though, a smitten Gordon described how Sarwar Jr is at every Asian wedding going shaking hands. The journalist has listened to and bought into the Sarwar narrative of the campaign, as if voters are gullible enough to think that it is still 1997 and all we need is some handshakes on the street to the themetune of "Things can only get better".
Sitting in Edinburgh, Gordon tried to characterise my campaign as somehow being behind that of that of the Sarwar dynasty because Anas had given up his job last year to be a 'professional candidate', while I have a fulltime job (as do the vast majority of election candidates).
The other side to that particular story is that Anas Sarwar worked only for a year or two after doing the second most expensive university course there is in dentistry. He then left the NHS in the lurch by packing it in to live off his father's dollars because they were worried about losing an election they thought would be a cakewalk. Voters are right to ask what experience of life he has got, and how he can identify with them during these tough times.
His father, in the very week that Tom Gordon wrote about his charm, was named as the UK's most expensive MP, with a whole series of questions about that state of affairs. He is mired in illegal immigration scandal, while he has one more son who is out of jail on bail pending trial. Gordon still writes about how well his campaign is going.
The Herald have got very touchy about their apparent anti-SNP bias lately. Some fair play would be the best remedy to that.
Every little thing about me is reported on negatively by Gordon. I've written in more detail about the number of recent articles he's written on me here. He claims I was "nervously pacing up and down the room" before last week's fundraiser because of how late Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon were. Reality is we knew exactly what time they'd be arriving, and if I was walking around it simply because there were things to organise.
A fortnight ago he wrote about how long it apparently took SIF to return an underspend cheque, when officials were actually expressing thanks for the "quick response". He ignored my emailed response to that effect, while in another story the following week he even printed that I had not responded to him when I had.
Gordon has a keen interest in Glasgow Central. He got the 'Lunchgate' story from this obsession so it has worked well for him. Last year he took me aside at the Sunday Herald's 10th anniversary bash and asked me to keep him informed of any stories in the constituency. He only really seems interested in one side though.
That Glasgow Central is within reach of the SNP at this General Election has been devastatingly demonstrated this week.
The party is throwing itself behind this campaign and the public are responding. As has been widely reported, there was a fundraiser for the Glasgow Central campaign held this week which was packed out and raised much needed funds given we're up against multi-millionaire opponents.
The event sent shockwaves through the Labour ranks. The natural order of things was troubled. It is Labour who are meant to organise big dinners with the Asian community. There was a layer of people there hungry for change and willing to put the time and money into making it happen. They weren't the usual "community leaders" and chuntering classes.
The news coverage came from Labour's feeling of "How dare the SNP come onto our patch and raise sums of money too"! They even demanded to know whether diners knew they were donating to the SNP. Our donors have been phoned by the Sarwar family with demands to know why they are supporting us. Politics is rarely simple in the Asian community, typified by how the owners of the restaurant where the dinner was held, the Kabana, made a video of the event which is the one that was leaked to the media.
In the ensuing press coverage it has been hard to assess what the issue is. In the small print, issue has been made about food being consumed at the Scottish Parliament. Clarification has been sought from the authorities, and it has been made clear that the lunches can move elsewhere. Donors were not hung up on the Scottish Parliament aspect of it, and in fact were possibly even going to be put out having to go to Edinburgh.
We've then got the 'cash for access' aspect which apart from on the headlines, only a few have tentatively put forward because of the absurdity and hypocrisy of it. The donors/auction winners didn't need to win the auction to make whatever points they may or may not have. They were sitting a few yards away from Alex Salmond all evening. We're also talking about the most accessible First Minister we've had. I know all sorts of people, often of no real substance, who have successfully held meetings with him and Nicola Sturgeon just because they requested it. Some have tried to deride the comparison the SNP have made with charity auctions, but the principle is the same if you see it as 'cash for access'.
This takes us back to two points here - the first is that the opposition don't like the SNP raising money. And those donating to the campaign were an indication of the desire for change in Glasgow Central, and no amount of shenanigans of the type we've seen over the last few days from Labour is going to change that - in fact it's likely to harden it.
Labour in
the Scottish Parliament have been complaining for months about the
Glasgow Airport Rail Link not going ahead.
The uncomfortable fact for them though is that their manifesto back in 2003 promised us a Glasgow Airport Rail Link and they didn't produce it in the next four years. After the election, "delivering" the rail link was also in their coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.
It followed the previous parliamentary session where Iain Gray, then transport minister, announced in the Scottish Parliament on 9 October 2002 that it was one of the then Scottish Executive's "top priorities" (col 14500), and the plan was for work to begin in 2005. They didn't end up presenting a bill before Parliament till 2006.
Labour were in power till 2007. If GARL was such a top priority for them, why hasn't it been completed already? They like to harp on about manifesto commitments. Fact is that they didn't get round to GARL during the times of plenty.
This post was updated on 8 February 2010 While the London government makes preparations to curtail the ability of courts to pursue war criminals, there has been no discussion of what this means to the Scottish legal system.
On first glance it may appear relatively simple. It is the UK government which has signed up to the relevant international treaties, so theoretically they run the show. They are not likely to be advocating withdrawing from international treaties though.
What the proposal from London is expected to be is that magistrates can no longer issue arrest warrants, and instead the Attorney General has veto, so that he can take into account political interests. Her equivalent in Scotland is the Lord Advocate who could take a different view on these matters.
Arrest warrants till now have been issued under the Criminal Justice Act 1988. This only though applies in England and Wales. What may be relevant in this regard instead in Scotland is Schedule 5 of the Scotland Act:
"observing and implementing international obligations, obligations under the Human Rights Convention, and obligations under community law."
If this is not considered encompassing though, the Scottish Parliament could theoretically legislate for it as criminal justice is a devolved matter. There then is the question of whether Scottish courts could bear the universal jursidiction of a war crimes trial. My understanding is that the position on this is unclear.
I'm not a lawyer, and my aim here is to kickstart a debate and get people thinking. If my analysis is correct, the Scottish position could do with tightening up on war crimes and it would be good to see that happen.
UPDATE: Craig Murray calls for the Lord Advocate to publish her opinion on the legality of the Iraq war, while Bill Wilson and a group of SNP MSPs begin action to have Tony Blair prosecuted in Scotland.
