The Return of the Tartan Tories – Why a vote for the SNP is a vote for Cameron.

Let’s face it: in some ways the UK is a divided country.  Even if the Conservatives get a majority at Westminster in the upcoming elections, they are not going to get many seats in Scotland .  We Celts are cursed with what the English find unforgivable: a good memory.  The Poll Tax will continue to cast it’s shadow through many a generation here.

What is a Tory leader to do with us?  General Wade will not avail him nowadays; it is to the more subtle, nay to darker arts Cameron feels that he must turn.

The big man has been busy.  Those few (I bear no illusions) those very few who read my blog of 7^th of October, 2009 would have already been alerted to Conservative efforts to get nationalists (of all colours) onside.  It was very sad to me personally that this policy was confirmed with the wooing of the DUP during January this year.  Being half-Irish, I am appalled at the folly and shallowness of Cameron meddling in sectarian politics which has cost thousands of lives in the past generation. While the situation in North Ireland is improving, it is still fragile as events of the past week has all too readily shown.

Why all this is important is as follows: not only is Cameron gathering support in case of a hung parliament, the Conservatives have already pledged to restrict voting in the Commons on what is defined as English matters to English MPs.  Not that it will really matter to the SNP because they already have a self-imposed ban on voting on matters that they define none of Scotland ’s business.  Hence the Conservatives will maintain a majority on many of the votes through the Commons and it is all the better for them if most of the Scottish MPs are from the SNP.  However, this is a two-way street that also favours Alex Salmond.

Don’t take my word for it.  The Scotsman newspaper has come to the same conclusion.  In it’s front page story today, it states that the SNP’s best hope was a Conservative victory at the polls, because it plays into the (well deserved) antipathy for the Tories north of the border.  In a survey of 1,000 individuals, about two-fifths of both Labour and Liberal Democrat voters said that they would more likely to favour independence if there was a Conservative government at Westminster .

To summarise: in Scotland the SNP wants you to vote SNP for obvious reasons.  But so do the Conservatives because they don’t stand a chance here and the SNP will not vote on English matters.  More votes for Cameron in parliament.  And more chance of a Yes, Yes vote for Salmond’s independence poll, should it finally occur.

So if you don’t want a Conservative government, you had better not vote SNP either. 

Q.E.D.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/politics/Crumbs-of-comfort-amid-poll.6111540.jp 

http://martinveart.blogspot.com/2009/10/strange-bedfellows-snp-tories-and-west.html 

Lockerbie: business as usual

It was sometime in 1992 when the tape arrived on my desk. Before the days of plug-in hard disks and easy-use PCs, data would be recorded onto magnetic tapes which was loaded on massive reel-to-reel machines. The tape in question was on blue plastic, seven inches in diameter. The rim was heavily broken with the pieces being held in a plastic bag. The label was from a UK gas well and its original destination was head office in Houston. It never reached Texas because it was freight onboard Pan Am 103, flying on the night of the 21st of December, 1988.

It is odd how one can be just on the edge of large events such as Lockerbie. Seventeen years later, that feeling has returned to me. A couple of months ago I was in the Scottish Parliament when the First Minister, Alex Salmond, was being quizzed about the possible release of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, the Libyan who was found guilty of the bombing. Despite assurances from Salmond that the decision would be left to the sole discretion of the Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Justice Secretary, the First Minister’s word was widely disbelieved in the chamber. It is understood that Salmond rules the SNP with a rod of iron, with MacAskill been as likely to be able to act in a independent manner as the Westminster Cabinet would have been free to act under the leadership of Tony Blair. In other words, not very free at all.

Anyway, Al Megrahi is free now and at home. Both Salmond and Prime Minister Gordon Brown are swearing until blue in the face that it has nothing to do with oil contracts. Both must be confident that there is no “smoking gun” – nothing that can link the release to oil contracts. Of course, it is entirely coincidental that the UK is the major oil producer in Northern Europe, with most of the industry and jobs being based in Scotland. So my ears didn’t prick up at all when I was in a casual conversation this week, in a furniture store of all places, with a lady whose husband is also working in the oil industry. He is currently in Libya, planning a major new gas pipeline between North Africa and Europe.

This would make sense how? The obvious answer is Russia. Over recent winters, Putin and Medvedev have not been shy about using gas as a political and economic club to wield over the neighbours’ heads. Europe urgently needs another supplier.

America has been understandably outraged about all this. I would have more sympathy with their view if American companies had not continued to trade with Libya during the 1990s. It was widely known within the industry that a lot of business done under the Tunisian accounts was really work which originated in Libya. If managers were needed for a meeting in Tripoli, the road distance is about 500km; not a distance for a regular commute but close enough for an overnight stay. And yes, the authorities in the USA would have been aware of such activity. There seemed to be a fair amount of CIA activity when I was there.

Everybody will give lip-service to the victims and their families. But it looks like their needs are very much second-place to the real-politick of the situation. It may be that justice itself is completely absent. Not only is this a case of a convicted mass-murderer receiving mercy, there has always been doubts hanging over the conviction itself. It was claimed recently by a guest on the Today Programme that the sole eyewitness against Al Megrahi, the Maltese shopkeeper Tony Gauci, had subsequently been resettled in Australia under a new identity and had received payments from the US government to the value of seven million dollars. That is some witness protection scheme.

Seen in the rather ghastly light above, it is little wonder that Gordon Brown has been unwilling to speak on the matter. If it had been only this topic where he has attempted to keep silent, one would have been perhaps been more understanding. But recently Brown has been quiet on all subjects. This is a sign of a leadership dying on its feet. Brown has no new initiatives and can only react to events over which the Labour government is too tired to even attempt to manage.

Media commentators have been advising people to put on their cynical hats when dealing with the entire business. Sadly I cannot advise you any different.