Bits and Pieces – From the Holidays

I wasn’t going to blog at all during the holidays but I am stuck in the house with a bad cold and I was bored so here are some things you will no doubt have seen, and maybe commented on on various forums and social media, but these are the things that caught the eye when I was just passing time during the holidays so far.

It’s all about the money – Comfy slippers Wishart – “WOW, the SNP could win 56 seats with the Tories wiped out”. Seemingly it was the SNP that brought Tory sleaze to the eyes of the nation, where would we be without the SNP eh. The other serial non achiever Nicolson gets in on the act as well. What I don’t get is that let’s assume the Tories bottle going early for a general election the SNP are basically saying they will be standing in the trough in 2024 so there will either be no referendum in 2023 or they expect to lose that referendum. You just can’t make up how thick these people are and you have to wonder how did they manage to con so many of us for so long.

It’s still about the money – Like 1707 our history of politicians being bought and sold for English Gold continues to this day. According to the National nearly a million pounds a year is spent on BritScot Labour, Tory, and Liberal bought politicians siting in the unelected House of Scoundrels. Is it genetic or something that some so called Scots are just willing to sell our their alleged country and it’s people, that they are happy for the cushy life so much that they will actually deny democracy for Scotland. I cannot get my head around that at all, wonder how long it will take the SNP to quietly drop their policy of putting no one forward for the Lords, maybe even the New SNP wouldn’t go that far.

Council Elections 2022 – John Curtice seems to think that the SNP might have a good council elections next year. They could take control of Dundee and some other authorities while the Tories will lose ground. I am not so sure to be honest, the unionists have shown that they are willing to vote strategically, and we know the SNP are happy to work with the unionists rather than other independence parties.  He doesn’t see Alba making any in roads at all and expects them to lose most of their councillors, time will tell, and I have no doubt the SNP will go after Alba more than the unionists but to be honest next year for myself for Alba is to get the party into the minds of the voters for when the SNP do not deliver on a referendum and people start to need a different place to go with their vote. Then in any 2024 General Election we might see a breakthrough for Alba if enough SNP voters are disgusted enough with their on going failure to deliver on the very reason they exist in the first place.

Not even Poverty Benefits Anymore – I appreciate this is old news but it struck home last week as my daughter was off work with a bad cold and the place where she works don’t pay sick pay they only pay Statutory Sick Pay which means I will have to support her rent next month but in this day and age it is a disgrace what certain companies get away with, it is disgusting. She finished Uni last year but like too many has not been able to find a decent job with any sort of conditions so is working in fast food with a certain large chain who could not be a more shit employer if you searched for them.

It’s all about the money part three – So MSP’s are to get a 3.4% pay rise, this is 1.4% more than the highest pay rise for public sector workers set by COSLA this year. I know they will argue that their pay is set independently, well it shouldn’t be, either it should be pegged to what COSLA sets for public sector workers, or public sector workers should also get an independent pay review body, but either way it is just not right that MSP’s are getting larger rises than the public sector. At least one Labour MSP came out against the rise, I couldn’t find any comment from the New SNP about it but there may be one or two decent MSP’s left in that party.

Sums up the new Scotland and the UK – How sad is the tweet from Russell and how true. Charities believe that 250,000 children have went hungry this Christmas with 500,000 facing food poverty in London let alone have a gift to open. Labour’s Rhoda Grant MSP is still trying to get her  ‘Right to Food’ bill moving forward for Scotland and which shamefully the SNP and Green coalition have been accused of sending a message to the public that they do not care about food poverty after kicking the Right to Food Bill “into the long grass.” Rhoda Grant said: “Food poverty in Scotland is at unacceptable levels. She is not wrong and it is a national stain, some staff at Dundee Council volunteered to work over the holidays to deliver emergency food to local people who otherwise would have been having no food at all. What is it the people don’t get that we live in the shit hole that is the UK when we can make a different choice, what is the SNP don’t get that we need to get out of the UK as a matter of urgency.

Given that I am now stuck at home with this miserable cold and who knows what Nicola Sturgeon will announce tomorrow as MSPs are recalled on December 29 for an unscheduled Covid statement by the Scottish Government. We could be looking at some kind of lock down for New Year, not sure where I stand on that as the message now is all over the place regarding the pandemic, total shambles. So I might actually blog if there is something to say.

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Grumpy Scottish Man – Reaching Out