Jim Murphy's ordinary followers hit the capital

 

Jim Murphy is a thoroughly unpleasant individual.

I'm convinced that he is the thin, more conservative version of George Galloway. Neither like being challenged and will blow and bellow any naysayers aside. Bullies.

Galloway-Wilson roadshow

On the other hand, whereas Galloway rarely has anyone accompanying him to hog the limelight - other than maybe Brian 'poison dwarf' Wilson making a cameo appearance - Murphy has a small cadre of weird looking drones in suits to beef up the numbers. These followers seem to have a dual purpose - they can act as 'grassroots' listeners in the PR photos but also Jim can rope them in to laugh at anyone who questions him.

Myself and a friend got wind that he was gonna do his 'soapbox' thing 'opposite' a certain pub on the seafront in Edinburgh West. We're both left of centre and can both remember meeting Mr Murphy on anti-racist marches in Glasgow some time ago - back when Murphy was an NUS high-heid-yin hoping for a cushy career in the Labour Party.

My friend is a member of UNISON and hails from a Glasgow scheme. Indeed, he admitted to having been a member of the Labour Party Young Socialists some 30 years ago. Both of us are public servants and are seeing our pensions eroded and pay frozen. We also don't like it that Better Together see fit to use sectarian BNP supporters who one day tweet that 'Catholics should hang from lamposts' while the next appearing on televised Better Together propaganda posing as 'ordinary voters'.

Things are slow to get going but at half an hour later than the scheduled time there are around ten BT automatons gathered. There is no 'juice crate' or megaphone. Instead, Jim and his weird looking band set up camp in a local beer garden. Two shiny drones in BT jackets take to the esplanade for all of 3 minutes to hand out leaflets. No-one seems interested so we engage the drones in conversation and are invited across 'for a chat' in the beer garden where Jim is holding court with a pint in hand. Farage?

Where is William Hague Jim Murphy?

One lady is stating that the NHS is "100% devolved". I add that maybe the running of it is up to us but the financing certainly isn't. Something that Labour-affiliated UNISON seem to agree with.

I raise the Yvonne Hama issue. Murphy asks 'Did that sway you into voting Yes or were you Yes beforehand?' I say it doesn't matter - you shouldn't use racist sectarian nutters in your publicity. 'If you were Yes beforehand then it isn't an issue' he retorts.

Better Together's grassroots - kept hidden today

During the conversation, another friend who's working on a documentary about the referendum texts to ask where Murphy is going next. Reasonable request, no? However, this is where things get really weird.

"It's all online" says one of the drones. 'No it isn't, my friend has tried. Can you tell me just now though?'

"Stick to the issues" says a posh professional PR guy in a suit who wears a 'No Thanks' badge.

Eh? We're confused. 'We aren't arguing, only saying that a friend would like to interview Mr Murphy for his documentary. He's a Swedish film-maker...'

"Shut up and listen!" says the posh suit.

'Er... where will you be next...?"

Murphy steps in, guffawing and egging on his Mormon-esque mates to shout us down. An elderly posh couple - they look like something from Condé Nast Boat Owner mag - step forward. They old guy approaches me in an aggressive manner, finger wagging, "Why don't you just shut up and stop shouting over Jim" he says like an angry father.

I persist. 'Listen. There's a chance for you air your views in a documentary...'

Jim and Posh Suit raise their voices. 'OK these guys obviously aren't interested in the real issues. let's all move over to another table'.

At this point, we open our jackets to show off our bulging belts of explosives as Murphy seems to expect. "Saor Alba!" we cry as we detonate ourselves sending Yessers and BT loons alike into space...

No. You can't join the club.

Actually, we just left.

It's sad when a discussion with an MP leads to said MP and entourage putting their fingers in their ears and yelling 'nah nah nah....!'

We were struck by a number of things...

• my friend said that they were the poshest Labour guys he'd ever met
• none of them looked 'ordinary' - they were like pseudo-religious politico hobbyists
• Jim Murphy doesn't like being challenged as has been evidenced in his '100 Days of Sodom' tour
• Murphy has the desperate air of a man who sees his seat on the gravy train evaporating
• they made no attempt to persuade us to vote 'no'

The future must be ours.

Jim Murphy 0 - Auld Lady 1

Or in other words, Jim Murphy's Chernobyl. Or Jim Murphy becomes a bellowing bullying blawhard against a wee pensioner. Or Skeletor's demise...

Who was the last desperate politico to attempt a 'soapbox' stunt in public? Was it William 'Happy' Hague on his 'Save the Pound' tour? Anyway, Murphy reminds me of George Galloway who also resorts to shouting others down when faced with difficult questions.

Whatever, some points to consider from Murphy's very public anal hemorrhage are:

• the pensioner offers a seasoned politician a fair question
• Murphy can't even look her in the eye
• despite the sparse attendence, he feels the need not only for a megaphone but has to yell constantly as if to deafen his naysayers into submission
• he lies again - the NHS in England is being privatised bit by bit and his Labour colleagues in England have confirmed this though not opposed it
• all he has to fall back on is.... Braveheart! 

Where's the auld wumman?

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.

Johann Lamont - a woman of many faeces

In the past, the Iron Lady of Scottish politics has perhaps been unfairly treated. Say, portrayed as a sad auld jakie whose days of youth, vigour and radical action are long gone. However, now she has now wholeheartedly adopted the policies, excuses and even the language of the Tories. The taxpaying public are scolded for expecting 'something for nothing' and that we should apply 'common sense' to public finances. Lamont is going from a sad auld figure to a new Thatcher.

Much has been said in recent days of Scottish Labour's sudden and sickening lurch to the right - even mainstream journos on the BBC has expressed their shock and dismay - so there will be few words here. Even Angus Macleod of the Times - and no Jimmy Reid is he - questioned that if the elderly, the sick and students were to be means-tested for their benefits and entitlements then what next? The NHS?

I can point you to the erstwhile Jimmy Reid Foundation - poor Jimmy would be livid at the current position of Scottish Labour and Bella Caledonia for some good reading on this topic.

Suffice to say at a time when the UK government is pursuing projects that started under Labour or are still supported by Labour - including Johann Lamont - paying the PFI rents on schools and hospitals, such building aircraft carriers, renewing Trident, maintaining a fleet of nuclear submarines, maintaining the huge subsidies on nuclear power and continued involvement in foreign escapades such as Libya and Afghanistan, it won't wash to say 'we can't afford these public services.'

As always, it's a matter of priorities. We could choose to protect and enhance the lives of Scottish people through better public services - that we all pay for already - or go down the auld road of arming ourselves to the teeth in the spirit of Rule Britannia.

This also comes after Labour has joined with the Tories in Stirling Council and delivered...a council-tax cut! I'm not really sure how that will protect services in Stirling. For example, how will Stirling Council reduce class sizes with a reduced income?

Labour... are kaputt.