Odds and Ends Tuesday 31st January 2023 – From Corruption to Incompetence

It’s a way of life for the scumbag Tory Party – Why am I not surprised by the article today in the Guardian regarding the world corruption index. The paper is reporting “woeful inadequacies” in upholding political integrity. Britain fell seven places to 18th on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index, representing the biggest fall among the G7 countries. Britain’s reputation has been damaged by a string of political scandals among the Conservative party.

They go on to state that there was a “growing list of problems” in the UK. It cited the awarding of lucrative contracts for protective equipment to people with connections to the Conservatives, including Tory peer Michelle Mone. It also highlighted the appointment of politically connected people to public sector roles during the pandemic. How long have I, and the new media bloggers, been banging on about how our colonial status allows these scumbags, in my personal opinion, to basically steal from us left, right, and centre. They reward failure but services to the union, they reward their pals with our money, and they reward themselves while the so-called opposition parties lap up the crumbs falling from the slavers of their, and our, Tory masters.

Digging that hole deeper every day – She can’t help herself can she. The First Minister said yesterday “I don’t think you have to look very far, and I think most people can see – even opponents of this legislation, I think, would accept that there are some people who will argue against rights for gay people, they will argue in other contexts against rights for women. I was making the point that there are people who have decided to become so-called advocates for women’s rights on this issue who have never stood up for women’s rights before.”

The problem with this statement, and she knows it, is she tarnishes everyone who has opposed this legislation with the same brush. She can try to come across as diplomatic all she likes, she can deny she is talking about everyone who opposes this legislation but the implication is, as said at the weekend, if you oppose this legislation then you are transphobic, homophobic, misogynist and “possibly” racist too.

That’s her problem isn’t it, she doesn’t know when to quit. She can’t accept that she might be wrong and the public right. She can’t accept that many people who oppose this legislation are doing so not only for women’s rights but out of real concern for the challenges and difficulties that transgender people go through and want to maintain the protections that are in place for transgender people and that this legislation removes. She just doesn’t get it.

You can’t make it up can you? Boris Johnson calling anyone a liar really cheered me up today. Putin is maybe a madman and is definitely a liar, but Johnson is also a madman and definitely a liar in every way, the man wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in the face. This week he claimed that Putin threatened to kill him with a missile, and even if he did, who cares. The world has gone mad and we are governed by clowns in the UK but the rest of the world is in just as bad a mess as far as leaders go. These people just play games on a screen, or in their minds, the sad thing is that it is the rest of us who suffer the consequences of these nutters.

A storm is coming – I know I have banged on about this before in the blog but this is where the Scottish Government, the Holyrood opposition, and our colonial status have let every one of us down. Council finance chiefs have warned that Scotland’s local authorities are facing unprecedented financial pressures.

The damage this does to independence is even worse for me than the GRR debate. Dundee’s corporate services director Robert Emmott said the council had already tried to make some services more efficient, so increasingly the only option for significant savings was to do less. Why would anyone, who isn’t a political anorak, who sees their communities get worse, their services get worse, and their lives get worse, think that independence would be better.

Most people only see what is in front of them, what their day-to-day existence is like. Will they look to our colonial masters for our lack of pocket money and lack of control to make the important decisions for the main reason for the cuts that are on the way, no, they will look to their councils and they will look to the Scottish Parliament and that is who most of them will blame. The result, independence becomes less of an option for them, just surviving does.