For those interested in historical precedents, in 1921 the government fell within a year and the Prime Minister was toppled as party leader. Couldn't happen again, surely...
Tonight Gordon Brown has invited Alex Salmond to dinner at his (taxpayer funded) North Queensferry second home. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at that cosy little twosome. Here's how I imagine the conversation might go as they sit down to enjoy their haggis.
Alex: Nice weather we're having...
Gordon: Hadn't noticed.
[silence for 5 minutes]
Alex: How's Wendy?
Gordon: Wendy who?
[silence]
Alex: I see Raith won at the weekend.
Gordon: Pass the salt.
[silence]
Alex: So, hows' Damian?
Gordon: Nice weather we're having...
25 comments:
Actually I'd like to partition England from Scotland tomorrow. At least we could get rid of the Nokia throwing idiot.
as a scot.....i think i can speak for a fair number of my country folk when i say...we dont want him back.
Seriously we dont, you should keep him, if you dont we would probably send him back.
actually, PLEASE keep him, really REALLY dont want him.
were nice really...not all like him (i dont use a nokia) honest personally im a very nice chap.
Maybe someone else woul have him....but who....
It's arguable to say that Ll.G. was 'toppled as party leader'; he never had been leader of the Liberal Party because Asquithites controlled the party machinery. In 1922 he set up his own party.
Unless you meant to say the Conservative Party leader was toppled, in which case this was true - Austen Chamberlain as the main supporter of the Coalition was forced out of the leadership when it fell. But he was never PM.
Look, one of the reasons I like it up here is because Gordon is down there.
Please do not spoil my idyll by repatriating all the people who would normally have been transported south anyway, due to their criminality.
Alex Salmond is not exactly flavour of the month in the bunker. This smacks of desperation; deals and compromises...for what?
I hope Salmond just smiles sweetly and then leaves with his integrity intact.
For those who don't know, I am English and proud of it, but I live in Scotland - not an easy thing to do, since there is always an undercurrent of racism against us. However, life in Scotland is good: council tax has been frozen for two years, I get free eye tests, kids get free school dinners, the PFI fiasco has been exposed and given the heave ho, bridge tolls have been removed, and you don't get council busybodies checking your wheelie bins. Where I live you rarely see a policeman because they just are not needed.
The so-called Labour "attack blogs" in Scotland are so desperate for mud against the SNP they are reduced to filing FOI requests about how much the Scottish Government spends on mobile phones, given of course, that Scottish Labour are have made a manifesto pledge to bring back tin cans joined by a piece of string.
Salmond's main problem with the London Government (as we call it) is the extent to which the Treasury is doing all it can to sabotage the Scottish budget. If Salmond has a bit of a go, I suspect it will be about the economy.
Gordon is less welcome in Scotland than he is in Westminster.
Scotland is shamed by him and we dont want him back.
Im waiting to see the bodey Scottish Labour suddenly reverse all of their policies about the Union when thew get their A***s kicked out of Wesminster. I think it will be all Scotland needs more powers, Scotland needs a 'Safe?' seat for Gordon. Isint it terrible how Westminster strangles the Scottish Government etc.
The grotty trolls.
Ah I see Wrinkled Weasel is still pedalling the anti-English card and his claim that Scots are racist, bigot that he is. Why he doesn't go back to England I really don't know, he admits it's not easy living here.
Back to the topic. Alex Salmond is nobody's fool and he'll be well prepared as usual. He won't, of course, gain anything from Brown but he'll certainly leave the dinner knowing that he's tried his best for Scotland. That won't be said of any of the other diners although the Scottish press will do their best to imply exactly that.
Iain, we're known to eat more than haggis here you know. An 8oz Aberdeen Angus can be quite tasty too. I'm surprised to read that Mrs Brown isn't doing the cooking and has hired a team of caterers from Edinburgh (quite a journey dragging food over the Forth.)
If Alex Salmond did that at Bute House (the FM's residence in Edinburgh) the media would be up in arms for days.
It is not my fault that the chicken is undercooked. The chicken was imported from America and will soon spread across the globe. This a global problem of undercooked chicken and requires global solutions.
I shall arrange a £20m banquet (where will not serve chicken) for the G20 leaders to discuss spending $1 trillion on test chickens and chicken cooking regulation. We are not like the Tories. They would do nothing. I am the only one who can lead through these tough times.
By the way, did you hear there are more juicy pictures of whatisface Osborne? Some bloke McBride told me.
Alex: We've still got a few independent financial institutions here in Scotland...
Gordon: Hadn't noticed.
[Makes note with large felt pen]
Alex: Ever think of making Iain Gray leader of all Scottish Labour, not just the MSP's?
Gordon: Iain who?
[silence]
Alex: Where did you go for that week after we won the election in 2007?
[silence only broken by the sound of vicious cutlery usage]
Alex: Is that Charlie Whelan in the garden with Tom Watson?
[silence]
Alex: Would you take out a Scottish Passport if we won the referendum?
[silence for five minutes]
Gordon: I'm North British.
[silence]
Alex: I'll get my coat
Gordon: "So what's it like managing with a majority on one?"
Alex: "Not too easy . You have to do what the electorate want. You have to work with the opposition, achieve some sort of consensus on issues. And you must inspire 100% loyalty. Not bully-boy loyalty, 'be loyal to me or I'll break you' loyalty..but real loyalty that drives people to follow you through the conviction of your beliefs. Tribal fidelity just isn't enough. Just one single dissenter could take you down. There can't even be a single rebel voice,or you're done for.
Why do you ask?"
Gordon: "No reason. Just thinking about things"
Subrosa lives in Dundee (even Scots avoid Dundee). She follows me around like a spurned groupie. She also says:
"Why he doesn't go back to England I really don't know"
Get the picture?
Speaking as a half English, half Scottish person I say: Please don't send him back, lepsis is right, Wrinkled Weasel is almost right! I have not experienced the racism he mentioned even though I sound posh and English, as do my daughters. I also quite like Dundee, it's grotty in places but the people are friendly and welcoming and the shopping is better than Perth.
PS The NHS is still shite up here.
But the bin men are lovely.
Is there ANY nation on this planet which would be prepared to take Gordon Brown off us?
@ wrinkled wesel and subrosa
living in dundee(pity me) i have to say that yes there IS abit of anti englishness about in scotland, think its maybe a wee bitty too far to call it racism but then hey ho.
that being said i stopped reading simon heffer a while ago on grounds that the english pillock seemed to be auditioning for the role of 'hammer of the scots' in some braveheart remake.
@mavis b, yes shopping here is better than perth...but then perth sucks!
Unfortunately for your script Iain there will be others at the dinner (CBI, friendly politicians etc.) because as you know Brown will never debate anything with people who see through him and might outsmart him (that's why he's never away from schoolchildren).
The bigger story is that, as a consequence of the above-mentioned fear, he rejected an invitation from AS to have a Joint UK/Scottish Cabinet meeting on the ground that there is adequate communication between the Westminster and Edinburgh administrations(ha,ha).
Now I'm no PR person but surely it would have been a coup for Brown to call a meeting of his Cabinet and ALL the devolved Administrations in order to show that "Britain is working together to beat the recession" (copyright--me).
But once again his hatred of all opposition parties prevents him from making such a gesture.
Well sod him, and by the way we really don't want him back in Scotland.
Wasn't there a story about a hyrdogen bomb that went off in the centre of Dundee and did £47 worth of damage?
Andrew said "...there will be others at the dinner because as you know Brown will never debate anything with people who see through him and might outsmart him (that's why he's never away from schoolchildren)."
I can't wait for the day a child asks him "Why does my daddy call you a Prime Mentalist?"
Andrew. Not really a PR coup for Brown to hold a meeting of the UK cabinet and all the devolved administrations. It might please the 15% of the population who actually have a devolved administration, but at the price of further pissing off the 85% who don't. Brown's arithmetic is shaky, but he can manage that one.
And when you are independent you will have to have him back, because we'll deport him. There is a downside to everything.
Lepsis, Perth sucks so much it should be a vacuum cleaner.
I've been thinking about the anti-English thing and You're right when you say it's not racism (I think), it is far more anti England than anti-English. To elaborate: it is a historic bias and not personal. Having said that I do find the 'we'll support any but England' in the football distinctly annoying...but that's probably just me! I still reckon us lucky folk North of the central belt should cut ourselves adrift and live happily ever after. That would also mean we wouldn't have to have G. Brown back. BONUS!!!!
Oh Wrinkled Weasel what drivel you do talk. I'm not prepared to use Iain's blog to have any dispute with you. Suffice to say it's well documented on my blog that I haven't lived in Dundee for some 48 years.
Mavis, you just can't have better binmen than me. 7.30am on the dot every Thursday (with two exceptions) for the past 18 years. Beat that!
Lepsis there's nothing wrong with Dundee and I'm proud of my place of birth and upbringing. There's no more of anti-Englishness in Scotland than there is anti-Scottishness in England.
As for me following Wrinkled Weasel that certainly brought a smile to my lips. Should he be so lucky. Fool he is. He's the man who posted about sitting on a bench and a woman sitting there asked him if he was on holiday. Instantly she was marked a racist. When I pointed it out to him that she perhaps was just being friendly like Scots are, he immediately took the comment off his blog then called me a liar. Fortunately others saw his post prior to his 'editing'. I don't like people like that. I'm sure he can get his own groupies without involving me.
Alex Salmond and the SNP have run rings round New Labour in Scotland and Brown is most certainly no match for them on a level playing field. Unfortunately Brown has made sure that there isn't a level playing filed for his cabal have complete editorial control over BBC Scotland current affairs, the Scotsman and the Herald in particular. Every day the Scotsman in particular spreads poisonous smears about the SNP on New Labour's behalf. Thank goodness we have the Web Blogs to communicate the truth about what is really going on in Scotland. After what has happened to him ref Smeargate I would strongly suspect that Brown will be urgently seeking ways to exercise editorial control over the Web Blogs sooner rather than later.
Subrosa, 21 years, every wednesday 1 p.m. on the dot AND they give my dogs biscuits every week AND they don't moan when I leave extra bags out!
@subrosa ha! you make me laugh, there are many friendly scots thats for sure.....but dear lord we arent all nice and friendly.
and dundee is abit of a dump, i say after having lived here for three years....good lord another 2, bring on graduation.
incidently dundee is the only place where ive had someone, a ned granted, take the proverbial cos i was in the street in a kilt.
i mean a kilt, in scotland, who da thunk it!
I hope Salmond just smiles sweetly and then leaves with his integrity intact.Sorry, but he's a politician. He doesn't have any more integrity than the rest of them, as his ludicrous claims about financial matters reveal. As a trained economist, he cannot claim the usual politician's ignorance, he chose to talk nonsense in order to further political aims.
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