Partisan opinions are very interesting, but only to others who hold the same partisan opinions.
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Partisan opinions are very interesting, but only to others who hold the same partisan opinions.
Leaking is one thing........lying is something different.
Wasn't me who said that about the lost in translation..but which conversation was in English, the one with the Secretary of State, the FM and the French Ambassador.or the one on the phone between whoever wrote the Memo and the French Consul General...who wasn't privy to the conversation? It does make one wonder how it is that nobody in the media has bothered to ask Carmichael who was also there what was actually said, though........or might that spoil a good few days of misinformation in the hopes of damaging the SNP?
I assume you'd be happy to sweep all misdemeanours undertaken under Westminster auspices under the carpet to be ignored...no enquiries into anything they do which breaches probity, morality, rules, convention, the law etc if it's going to cost money? As well to be ruled by a sovereign elite who have one set of rules for us and a different set for themselves! Oh...wait.......that is how it is already in Westminster!
Until proven otherwise the veracity of the leak has to be taken at face value neither proven or unproven.
I am unaware as to whether Nicola Sturgeon is fluent in French maybe you can enlighten us on that issue otherwise it's fair to assume that she and the French ambassador would of spoken in English as would be customary.
Alistair Carmichael is a big boy if he was there I'm sure the press will be aware of that and ask his opinion but even if he where at the event it would be doubtful whether Ms Sturgeon would utter such a statement within his ear shot.
As for sweeping all misdemeanours under the carpet that is what I'd consider a fairly typical sweeping statement issue which are of a serious nature should be investigated thoroughly and dealt with accordingly regardless of party or position.
To try and claim that everything is run by a sovereign elite is just nationalistic rhetoric and typically divisive twaddle the SNP no doubt have their fair share of bad behaviour and people not playing totally by the rules. Employing relatives quickly springs to mind although virtually all other parties have stopped that little gravy train it still carries on within their ranks.
Let's not try painting SNP ministers as whiter than white and beyond reproach all ministers ideally should have all statements recorded for public viewing instead of all this hidden behind closed doors stuff that goes on currently including expenses available for scrutiny.
Unless it's a question of national security or such like then why shouldn't we know what our elected representatives are up to.
Regardless of party politics the unfortunate thing is they are all human and non of them perfect so should be held to the highest standards and dismissed when they fall below the par.
What we have here is a WM centric MSM which has failed to move on from last years referendum.
Despite the comments aimed at those of us supporting the SNP and the SNP itself that we "should get over it" or that we are somehow re running the referendum, nothing illustrates the fact that WE have moved on whilst much of the opposition have not. We see this in the papers, in the parties themselves, in the anti-scotland rhetoric published by the likes of the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, in the calls for the SNP to be treated as somehow not fit to have a voice in Westminster. On and on it goes.
The SNP and Nicola Sturgeon may, as has been suggested, find that a Tory Government is useful in persuading people that independence is the best way forward. The "democratic defecit" was and remains an important argument for Independence. The fact that Scotland's votes make little difference to the make up of the WM parliament and that Scotland has had a Government which its electorate did not elect so many times is an example of how Independence could ensure better representation.
However, this is a General Election, the SNP is NOT operating in an independent Scotland and THAT means that we need to consider the whole of the UK. Nicola Sturgeon has made is clear, categorically, unequivocally so that the SNP will not put the Tories in Government, that they WILL Work with a labour Government because that is best for Scotland AND the UK. A labour Government is better for the people of the UK and a large number of SNP MPs will hold that labour Government to its promises and to account for its actions in a way we have not seen being done in many years. This will benefit the whole of the UK.
The idea that Nicola Sturgeon would chatter loosely to someone she doesn't know in complete contradiction to what she has said every time she has been asked is ridiculous. The powers that be don't like this because it challenges the two party system which labour and the Tories think gives them an entitlement to do as they please. In coalition the libdems did nothing to challenge this, the SNP are likely to be a different proposition altogether and people everywhere are seeing this.
The reality is they have opened an enquiry into a leak ! Not that someone is lying.
As squidge quite rightly says this is a general election not the referendum, so given that Nicola Sturgeon is herself ramping up the requests for a coalition with labour surely it would be better to just vote labour rather than SNP.
David Cameron was overheard in a private conversation with an overseas attache in an exclusive London Gentlemans's club to say that he would prefer SNP to win as it would give him more chance of 5 more years in office. When asked about the risk to the Union he replied he didn't care about anything else except his 10 years.
The reality is that someone is lying.
You can, if that is what you prefer to think, convince yourself that the French Ambassador, the French Consul General and Nicola Sturgeon are lying, or alternatively you can convince yourself that someone in the Scottish Office is lying...but sure as hell someone is. I am sure you will understand why I am more inclined to believe the Scottish Office is making the same kind of mischief as they did during the referendum, as opposed to believing that Nicola Sturgeon would be so abysmally stupid as to say anything which could be used to smear her at this, or any stage, in the election run-up.
Given this "memo", if it exists, has been around since the beginning of March, and is referring to a meeting which took place in February, am I the only person who thinks it is a shade "interesting" that it turns up in the Torygraph so soon after Nicola did well at the leader's debates?
Not that I'm donning my conspiracy theory tinfoil hat, but we appear to have the 2015 equivalent of the 1924 Zinoviev letter...which was instrumental in winning that election for the Tories. In reality, what we have is an an entirely uncorroborated third or fourth hand account denied by all participating parties and clearly intended to damage the SNP. We have a "memo", about which the FCO, which is purported to have leaked it to the Torygraph, claim to have no knowledge........we have a Scottish Office "not commenting on leaked documents"...we also appear to have a Scottish Secretary who isn't overly bothered about keeping on top of what is happening on the Scottish political scene, given he "didn't know anything about the "memo" until it was reported in the Torygraph"....and the utter coincidence of Scottish Labour Twitterati being online tweeting about it extensively within twenty minutes of it being published.
Re surely it would be better to just vote labour rather than SNP.......we have been voting Labour in the majority of seats, though not in popular vote, in Scotland since 1959 for UK elections, for all the good that has done for Scotland. In that time, as an opposition to the Tories for 30 of those years, Labour has been as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to doing anything which helps Scotland...remember the Poll Tax and the feeble fifty, who were perceived as feeble, even by Labour supporters? And when they were in before 1979, they didn't accomplish that much bar IMF control, because England wouldn't vote for them in big enough numbers. Before the 1997 election, to gain votes in England, Blair pulled Labour rightwards...and they spent the next 13 years becoming Tory-lite and forgetting the principles on which they were founded.
Voting SNP in Scotland won't let the Tories in, any more than voting Labour in Scotland in the past has ever stopped the Tories getting in if England votes that way...whichever of the "big two" gets in is solely down to the choices made by the voters in England....the only difference we ever make by voting for a UK party in a general election is regarding the size of the majority it does, or doesn't, get....a lot of Labour seats in Scotland increases the Labour majority(or gives them a small majority IF people in England vote them to within striking distance of getting one in the first place).....and a large number of Labour seats in Scotland, if England votes majority Tory, simply cuts the size of that Tory majority. And whichever way the vote goes....Labour majority or Tory majority, Scotland's voice might be heard, via the SNP MPs, but won't be listened to unless that voice fits the plan in place for the UK (ie London, the Home Counties and the prestige of the UK Government on the world stage.)
We know that Labour has no plans to change anything in the last Tory budget, and will cut as much as the Tory government, though perhaps in different areas, but I'm not overly impressed with the only differences between the two options being the route taken to get to the same place at around the same time to catch the same bus. That's not a choice, that is a coin-toss using a double-headed penny.
If you are happy with continued austerity, continued expansion of zero-hours contracts, part-time jobs, and pretendy self-employment to "cut" the numbers claiming JSA; if you are happy with the sanctioning of people for being ten minutes late for appointments at the job centres, for filling in the forms incorrectly or for not finding enough jobs to apply for in the 35 hours a week they are meant to search for one; if you are happy at the declaring of people with terminal cancers and people awaiting heart transplants and being kept alive by portable machines, fit for work, happy with people with real health problems dying penniless before their appeals against removal of their disability benefits, people with mental health problems committing suicide because they can't cope with the hassle any more; if you are happy with our finite resources being handed over to corporations as working tax credits so they can spend less of their own money and increase their profits, which they then ship out to a tax haven, without bothering to pay their taxes.......then by all means vote for one or other of the Unionist Parties.
Me, I'll vote SNP........for the possibility of political change for the UK and for Scotland.
I shall also be voting SNP. Nicola Sturgeon is the only credible party leader in the UK.
The issue I have mainly is this issue on the one hand we have the End Austerity speeches coming from the SNP all well and good if on the other hand we didn't have the constant harping on about the amount of debt. Then on the other spend spend spend . You can't reconcile the two more and more spending without piling on more debt which means the end result is more draconian cuts further down the line.
Spend a penny to earn a pound? Many industries are on their way out because they don't have the initial hurdle of investment to get going. New nuclear and HS2 are cases where the Government are actually taking a stance. But there are other industries, especially the renewable industry where real investment is seriously lacking. If that investment is directed into a nationalised industry on the scale of USA's New Deal or NASA then that infrastructure could reap longterm benefits for the future as well as short term jobs over the next 10 years. All them workers will pay tax and that money could go back into reinvesting into the country. What we have now is the tory policy of 'scrimp and save' on a massive scale and the economy is suffering because there is no money..
I saw this on facebook and agree with it.
The Left are Patriots because they want British institutions to remain in the hands of the British taxpayers who paid for them.
The Right are Traitors because they want to take British institutions out of British hands, and sell them off to foreign multi-nationals.
https://cablestreetbulldog.wordpress...-are-traitors/
http://forum.caithness.org/images/misc/quote_icon.png Originally Posted by jaykay http://forum.caithness.org/images/bu...post-right.png
I shall also be voting SNP. Nicola Sturgeon is the only credible party leader in the UK.
Read the two statements-
"I shall be voting SNP".
"Nicola Sturgeon is the only credible party leader in the UK."
I can't see where jaykay states that Nicola Sturgeon is standing at the GE.
Please try to keep up.
Yeah whatever ! More tribalistic hair splitting crap : vote SNP as Sturgeons the only credible party leader in the UK....why...my point is still valid...she wont be a UK MP...and her party are utter stirring liars, hopefully her clone / drone / hero..Alexi wont be an MP either : why vote for them ?