BBC London - what abuse scandal?

Some say that aspirations for Scottish independence are insular. Ditto the demands for a 'Scottish Six' national news service. However, one look at British television, especially in the company of someone from abroad, and the Anglo, London-centric nature of it stabs you in the eyes.

When Hearts met Hibs in the Scottish Cup semi-final in 2006, the novelty of an Edinburgh derby in a major game was deemed to be of some importance in Londum. The guy in the studio turned to the video link and announced that 'our reporter is at Hampden Park in Glasgow...er or is it Edinburgh...no, Glasgow...'.

The general modus-operandi of the BBC and other channels based in London when assessing the value of a story seems to be one of:

1. London
2. The rest of England
3. The US
4. Anywhere else, if the body count is high enough

The latest child-abuse scandal and subsequent cover-up involving the Roman Catholic Church is one such example. BBC Scotland, to their credit, uncovered another saga of sickening child abuse at the former Fort Augustus Abbey School. As one of the offenders was allowed to flee Fort Augustus and to carry on his activities in his native Australia, the story has an international dimension. A dimension that failed to make it dahn sath though.

On a day when BBC Scotland's various media outlets were dominated by the story, the 'British' output from London neglected to mention it. We did learn though about increasing numbers of jelly fish on the west coast and of a project in Cornwall that teaches kids to swim in the sea.

As long as 'national news' continues to mean 'Britain' meaning 'England' meaning 'London' we'll be treated to 'news' that doesn't concern us - Scottish devolution, indeed the ins and outs of the Act of Union, has yet to seep into the London consciousness.

Alternatives to independence?

Apart from the crazy notion of standing on your own two feet and doing things in your own way there are many reasons to vote 'NO!' to Scotland running her own affairs. Especially if you're a sad auld 30-something virgin male who still lives with his maw and has yet to fly the coop to establish your own... er independence in the world.

I say this because there are those who claim we're better off staying together as a 'family' of nations. Now this may be a strange concept to such street-wise guys like Ed Miliband or Alastair Darling but I left home decades ago and yet still manage to maintain cordial relations with my family - the auld dear, brothers, aunts, cousins etc. It's just that I don't want to share a house with them.

Please... stay at home.

Now that's out of the way. Suppose you do vote 'NO!' What next? Scotland continues to run almost all things by herself but leaves the rest - including the financing of it all - to the likes of...

Ed Miliband??! The same Ed Miliband that those durty Tories have outed as a conservative?! 

Er... no, no and no.

Aye, him. Not very inspiring, is it? No wonder he was roundly booed by the large TUC anti-cuts demo in London.

How about ye olde Black Dwarf then... Alastair Darling who's doing a swimmingly good job of keeping the anti-indies of Labour, LibDem, Tory and... Orange Order, BNP et al... together in the good ship Bitter Together. In his previous life as chancellor of the exchequer he presided over the collapse of many of Golden Britain's banks.

Oh, wait a minute... that Alastair Darling. The infamous 'worse than Thatcher' one mentioned here:

 Alistair Darling admitted tonight that Labour's planned cuts in public spending will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s, as the country's leading experts on tax and spending warned that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain" to repair the black hole in the state's finances.

This really is shit. The 'socialist' alternative promising 'pain' worse than the Mother of a Thousand Dead. What else can London offer then?

Whatever floats your boat...

On the Tory side of things, we have the Billy Bunter of the brothels himself, George Osborne. Privileged, clueless and in absolutely no position to lecture others on the need to suffer public service cuts. Here he is with prostitute Natalie Rowe sitting at a table on which there are apparently lines of coke.

...but mind this when the talk turns to morality and family values.

Do you get the feeling that there are those who wish to preserve the Union only as a means of keeping their snouts in the trough? Surely not!

London-based politics is knee deep in shit. Every few months seems to see a new sorry episode. Free rein given to greedy and corrupt bankers. Cameron's friends in the Murdoch media empire illegally eavesdropping on almost everyone - hey, they got a murdered schoolgirl's phone but not Savile's! Cops are paid by said corrupt journos. Cops kill innocent bystanders at demonstration. MPs expenses fraud on a mammoth scale - and they're still at it. The Hillsborough cover-up which includes top cops and yon auld witch Thatcher.

It's a revolving door of corruption and sleaze. Blair copied Thatcher. Guess who Cameron copied...?

So, if you aint gonna vote 'Yes' because as some claim, 'there are no really independent nations anymore', then will voting 'No' save us from this lot?...

Next... Halloween Horrors for 2012.

Rutting season

The Scottish word for October is Dàmhair and describes the time of year when the stags would descend from the mountains and rut in the glens and straths. The political stags in the strath of London are also busy rutting at the moment and their descent has been a moral one.

The bewildering pronouncements of Ed Miliband's chosen envoy to Nof Bwitain, Johanna Lamont have been covered in gory detail in many different forums. Seems though as if her sudden swing from apparent-lefite to full-blooded Thatcherite was but a warm-up act for Miliband himself at Labour's annual lecture for the automatons.

Miliband rubbed salt into the wounds by not only demanding cuts - not to the war budget mind - but by imploring all us Bwits to submit ourselves to the One Nation.

Milibland's right-wing froth was the cue for Cameron's compassionate millionaires to again lay the blame for society's ills at the doors of the poor. The message was, once again, if you are poor then you are to blame and all you need to do is work harder. There was no carrot and Cameron presented the poor with the age-old stick of benefits' cuts. As far back as I can remember, London governments have been shaving £millions of the benefits budget. Thatcher and Major were enthusiastic slashers and the trend continued under Blair and Brown's Nu Labour chimera.

And the end result of three decades of cutting benefits?

Who knows? But there's still loads of dough left for new fleets of aircraft carriers and Trident missiles.

Labour is bad for your health.

Which brings me back to Scotchland and the bloated irrelevance that is Jackie Baillie - Labour's representative in the Scottish Parish Council for the porridge wogs of Dumbarton and also, bizarrely, their health spokesperson. Her defence of the nuclear WMDs at nearby Faslane was every bit as conservative and blinkered as Micheal Forsyth's doomed defence of the Poll Tax in Scotland. Poor Jackie when challenged by Brian Taylor on his 'Big' Debate as to whether there could be any moral alternative to using WMDs to provide jobs was unable to offer anything positive and simply stated, 'well that's the way it is'.

This kind of response to the progressive idea of removing weapons of mass destruction from Scotland is typical of the tired and complacent Labour Party in Scotland. It was simply beyond the ken and wit of Jackie Baillie to imagine that the many hundreds of £millions we spend on Trident could be spent on something more constructive and peaceful. Trams for our cities? Equipment for our hospitals? Wind and wave turbines?

Lastly is the bizarre pronouncement that London will, in 2014, spend £50million on commemorating the start (!) of the First World War. In the absence of a royal wedding, jubliee or Team GB, London obviously needs another excuse to foist the Union flag and London's version of patriotic history upon us.

If my history serves me correctly though, twice as many Scots died in their role of cannonfodder in a what was basically a war between Europe's moribund imperialist elites. Something that is certainly worth remembering in the year of the referendum.

As for the LibDems... their unpopularity has finally been eclipsed by Jimmy Saville.

STUC report on cancelling Trident

MyDavidCameron posters

Not in our name - report on campaign in The Independent

The Labour Olympics

For it is true. While Boris, Nick and Dave from the Condems may be taking the limelight and pressing the flesh in their red, white and blue Bedouin Tent in East London, it was Labour who did the spadework for the Great Satan Olympics 2012.

Little wonder that the sniggering anti-immigrant lizard boy that is Ed Miliband has not exactly been vocal in his condemnation of G4S - the latest in a long line of private enterprises to take the public shilling and fuck up big time.

Do ya feel secure?

Labour have long been loathed in some parts of Scotland for their Stalinist, corrupt and 'jobs for the boys' ethos when in power - be it at local or national level. Funny that, but when I first heard of G4S and their failure to provide much needed 'security' for the corporate Olympics, the first name that came to mind was John Reid.

JR, you'll remember, is the former communist and Irish-republican supporter who became an enthusiastic member of right-wing New Labour and was rewarded by being appointed Defence Secretary and Commander of the British Army in their illegal adventure in Iraq. Indeed, he developed a close and friendly working relationship with dead-eyed neo-con Donald Rumsfeld, not a man known for his efforts on behalf of the downtrodden, poor and oppressed. Whatever, it seems ironic that a Labour government would first appoint G4S to man the Olympic check-points before John Reid waltzes into a cushy 'consultant' job in same company. Illegal? Probably not. Does it stink? Aye, big time.

Whatever the noble aims of the first Olympics of the modern era, the London games are becoming known by a different set of values - security, corporate interests, tax breaks, incompetence, lists of proscribed words. The likes of Coca-Cola and McDonalds are being rewarded for their massive contribution to the wellbeing of humankind with tax breaks and the chance to operate free of competition within the Olympic zone with rivals being removed or threatened. This includes wee corner shops and schools.

For more on this, read Ian Bell's excellent piece in the Sunday Herald.

Artist impression of Olympic Hampden

On a lighter note but staying with Labour, we have Gordon Matheson of Glasgow Labour. This numptie may be top of the dungheap in Stab City but can only dream of the heights reached by  'lads o pairts' like John Reid or even Derry Irvine. One has to marvel at his religious-like zeal on behalf of the Olympics - 

Yes, Hampden Park - home for some minor Olympic fitba games - will be full. Glaswegians are very excited about it. 

This despite two-thirds of the tickets being unsold.

The answer? Lower the capacity and give away tens of thousands of free tickets to bairns.

Not like London Labour to shift the goalposts. Never mind, at least Hampden's owners Queens Park can look forward to sell out crowds this season.

Stop the Tax-Dodgers.

Tomlinson's killer... excessive farce

London has been a cesspit of corruption in many ways from crooked bankers to fraudulent politicians. Add to the cauldron, a liberal sprinkling of violent cops, a few 'unlawful killings' and a legal system that sees rioters banged up in days but killer cops set free.

cunt Harwood, new job in Syria

Last year saw a verdict of unlawful killing on the death of Ian Tomlinson. The cop who unlawfully killed him was understandably put on trial of his death. However, two plus two does not make four here.

Apparently, Tomlinson had a history of alcoholism and had been homeless. PC Simon Harwood on the other hand had a history of violence and a litany of complaints made against him regarding his use of 'excessive force'.

Of course, London's cops are not the only ones to use violence. Just as the politicians in Westminster are not the only ones in the world to lie and cheat. Bankers are by nature greedy wherever they are but London - under both Labour and Tory rule - gave them free reign. Some though, say in Scotland, wish to run their own affairs and do things a bit differently. Who could blame them?

Hey! Can I join the Met?

England expects but money don't talk

England fail miserably again in a major tournament despite having 'the best league in the world'. One can't help but notice that silly-money signings have done little to bolster the English national squad. Here's some examples gleaned from Jambo Kickback:

James Milner - £24 million
Ashley Young - £18m
Wayne Rooney - £27m
Andy Carroll - £33m

On the other hand...

Andrea Pirlo - 12m in 2001 and a free last season.

Despite yon £33m, it's strange that Carroll wasn't trusted with a penalty kick?

How long before the EPL does a "Rangers"? Or to put it in a different and economic-politico context... 'a city of London'?

Occupy London: God gets tough

The end was nigh and so it was done. The Occupy London protesters at St Paul's Cathedral in the centre of the Great Satan had paraded their heresy and stinking sodomy - behind tent canvas - for far too long.

In the early hours of this morning, God and his son on earth, Boris, appeared in the company of several hundred modern angels and disciples - bailiffs and riot cops to non-believers - and whipped the heretics away in a wind of righteous fury.

No more shall the lambs of God in the City be reminded of their greed and incompetence which contributed to the present recession. Here in the new Jerusalem, they shall be free to enjoy their large bonuses while the great unwashed are smited with job losses, public service cuts and homelessness.

It is also foretold in the scriptures that many foreign guests will soon arrive to be greeted in the new Jerusalem by the prophets Dave and Nick Cleggeron. There shall be no upturning of tables in this marketplace.

Amen.

Further reading from the book of the BBC:

Gentlemen and ladies, it's time to move on”

David Buik, Financier

Tom Harris MP: "London's Chomsky"

 

As the Scottish Government stands firm on its elected mandate to hold a referendum against the backlash of an injured ConDem London, the war of words intensifies. And Tom Harris MP posts a video on You Tube.

Thus, the Labour and Unionist Party's expert on social-media has resigned even before Johann could appoint him to fix the wi-fi on Labour's SOS bus. Upon his resignation, tributes flooded in:

"He was like London's Paxman, only they have one already."

"What many don't know is that when not working tirelessly to save the Union on behalf of the Labour and Unionist Party, Tom moonlighted in the CERN Hadron Collider on the outskirts of Geneva desperately trying to find the 'god' particle"

"His sophisticated use of politically charged graphics in conjunction with social media was second only to certain blogs of a Scots nationalist persuasion and earned him the fond epithet 'the Banksy of Westminster'.

His entry in Wikipedia is considered to be entirely dissimilar to this one:

Avram Noam Chomsky ( /ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/ or  /ˈnoʊm ˈxɒmski/, born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,^[4][5] cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years.^[6] Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics"^[7][8][9] and a major figure of analytic philosophy.^[4] His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.^[10][11]
Chomsky is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.
Ideologically identifying with anarchism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy^[12] and contemporary capitalism,^[13] and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure.^[14] His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.
According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall.^{[15][16][17][18]} Chomsky is the author of over 100 books.^[19]

Tom's constituents know where his heart lies.

London: very cross and not amused

It was a mighty effort but us Porridge Wogs finally succeeded in knocking plastic breast implants off the top of the English news agenda.

How dare we? As Scotland makes moves to becoming the latest nation of the former British Empire - that model of enlightenment and ethnic cleansing which served as an example for a whole host of nutter tyrants from Hitler to Saddam - to break free from London governance, the three Eton millionaires of the London parties join forces to fume publically at Alex Salmond's disgraceful democratic mandate. The three sickening hypocrites at times seemed to gleefully rub shoulders as if taking part in a frat party circle-jerk at their exclusive alma mater.

Sorry Dave, the Empire has gone...

Ed Miliband was particularly nauseating. After an underwhelming period as London Labour leader that makes the hapless former Scottish Labour Brown Owl Iain Gray seem inspiring and dynamic, he asked David Cameron - in that strange Gary Numan voice of his - if he agreed that Salmond was a very very bad man indeed for wanting Scots to control their destiny. He did, and Nick Clegg nodded in orgasmic harmony. Miliband had thus gained his minute of acceptance and positive column inches in the London press and was free to scuttle off to his serpentarium. Whatever Miliband is - lizard, Numan voice-over or just weird posh boy - he's certainly no old-style Scottish socialist.

What else can one say? London has a pretty shameful record when it comes to democracy. It didn't like it when the nascent republic of the USA wanted free from London rule. Hey, but they didn't vote for it according to rules drawn up by London. But the Irish did. In 1918, a massive 75% voted for Sinn Fein and other nationalists. The bloody aftermath and smell of pipe bombs are still fresh in the nostrils. In 1979, London drew up the rules on Scotland's first home rule referendum. We needed a 40% majority to win. However, last year, the SNP won more votes than their 3 Unionist rivals combined. It means hee-haw to the three millionaires of Westminster though.

The bemused English media has spluttered indignation and incomprehension. Some though have observed that we may even be 'pro-Nordic' in a kind of healthy wealthy sort of way but...

• Who says that the oil is ours? (International law does) 
• What about our share of UK debt? (ditto - shared pro-rata) 
• What about currency? (Er...mind the Irish punt?) 
• What about Glorious Britain's huge pile of WMD's and assorted warmongering paraphernalia? (England can have it. Think of all that safety and deterrence!)
• What about Europe? (Well, before the Act of Union, we traded peacefully with our Euro neighbours. After it, we were at war with them because England was)
• Er....

In the old days, the days in the run up to an election saw the Scottish versions of the Daily Mail and Express warn about some vague 'threat' from 'Tartan Terrorists'. These days its left to the pathetic Scotsman to fire off a few 'SNP accused...' headlines every month while the political masters in London quickly jot some ideas on the back of a fag packet about 'constitutional and legal precedence'.

Its hard to see the UN not accepting a positive result in an independence referendum. Though, if London has the power to confer these powers to us, then why doesn't it do so? Why the wait? Why the strings attached? And lastly, where's your fkn mandate Cameron, Clegg and Miliband?

England's Arab Summer - time to name and shame

As someone old enough to remember the riots of Brixton and Toxteth in the 1980s as well as the mass unemployment caused by a hated Tory government, there's a sense of deja-vu about this - our very own Arab Summer. 

The morality of today's rioters isn't that clear cut though. On one hand, its not just cops and shops that are the targets but ordinary people's homes. On the other hand, if you're an unemployed person, young or middle-aged, and have sat and watched greedy bankers wreck the economy and be rewarded with fat bonuses as well as corrupt Westminster MPs line their pockets then you may think, 'Well, they lead, I'll follow'.

Add to that mixture, the revelations of Rupert Murdoch's sick News International empire break the law by spying on ordinary people and by paying corrupt police for information. The police themselves seem to kill with impunity and when held to account are never charged with murder like other murderers. As well as that, we've seen successive Labour and Tory governments override international law and wage war on small 'undemocratic' nations such as Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya. We've heard Cameron talk in glowing terms of the rioters in Syria and Libya though the freedom fighters on the streets of Bahrain were a bit too close to upsetting his oil-rich pals in Saudi Arabia.

"But" says the Daily Mail and outraged conservative navel-gazers everywhere, "if these people want change, they can just vote."

Those 'nice' rioters in Syria.

To be frank though, just who the fuck are unemployed English youths of any racial background meant to vote for? Every single one of the big three Ugly Sisters of Westminster - Labour, Tory and Lib Dem are run by privately educated millionaires. Even the lunatic fringe parties of UKIP and the BNP are lead by wealthy wide-boys with posh accents. The present ConDem government can only just scrape together more than 50% of those who voted with only 1 in 3 voting for Cameron and those voters mostly in England. No wonder Gaddaffi thinks that the UK has no right to challenge his leadership of Libya.

England and by extension, Scotland, have some of the most iniquitous societies in Europe. Under Labour, the gap between rich and poor actually widened. The whole Labour/ Tory circus at Westminster is like some kind of mutual masturbation love-in. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were inspired by Thatcher. David Cameron was inspired by Tony Blair. Nick Clegg is inspired by David Cameron. In London, we have the buffoon Boris Johnson - the kind of Eton caricature who is inspired by lighting his own farts.

As things stand the best employment opportunities for many young people in parts of England and Scotland are in the armed forces. That's your choice - dole queue or Taleban target. Why seek to hold the Olympic torch when you can go and torch the Armani store?

Back in the day, I remember a bus load of Hearts' supporters - many of them striking miners - returning from an away game cheer loudly when the radio announced the death of a policemen in rioting in London. Today, there will be many who look to England and say, 'destroy our jobs and communities, destroy society and this is what you get'.

The need for Scotland to divorce itself from this kind of society and aim for a progressive and egalitarian society as we see in the small Nordic nations has never been greater.

Tsunami of ignorance

"These people speak Japanese." 

Amazing but true... London BBC plumbs new depths in insularity in their coverage of the impending nuclear crisis in tsunami-hit Japan. While helicopters hover over the stricken countryside, our well-spoken English correspondent tells us that one of the main problems in gaining information from the local populace is that they are... Japanese speaking. And thus, the navel-gazers of Englandshire are rocked by a quake of higher magnitude that than which hit Japan - these people actually exist without the English language!

While David Attenborough extols the wonders of Madagascar's flora and fauna it seems as if the BBC has sent Germano-Hellenic Prince Philip to marvel at the plight of those yellow and slanty eyed foreigners. 

Phil the Greek, "Come ahead all you slitty-eyed Jock jigaboos and wops"

And then, the Beeb's helicopter returned to more urban areas where islands of Engerlish are often to be found. As people stuck on top of buildings and bridges signalled their need for rescue, the camera crews of the British Broadcasting Corporation had another priority - film first, rescue later, all the while hoping that it doesn't overshadow news of the royal wedding. But while we Brits were reassured that we are too clever to learn others' languages we at least were able to identify language as one of the cultural markers which differentiates Japan from Engerland. 

Meanwhile, back in yon green and pleasant land, a nation of Daily Mail readers awaited their next visual feast amid dire warnings that a Scottish media service would be... 'narrow and insular'.