Fitaloon at MicroShaft

The Caley has been taking a bit of a blasting from the SNP, but this article should have them really boiling over. They seem to have a fatal attraction for anything that hints at them not doing so well in the polls.

Surely at some point they will work out they are having the piss taken out of them….

…. The Cal Merc has this:

SOMETIMES you have to wonder whether our political leaders think before they act.

This morning the Scottish Government issued a consultation on – rabbits.

The consultation seeks views on the welfare of rabbits kept as pets. This does not cover the welfare of rabbits farmed for food, oh no, that will doubtless be the subject of something bigger and more substantial.

In the scale of the Scottish Government’s £30 billion budget, it probably doesn’t amount to much more than a hill of lettuce leaves, but the fact that officials believe this is a good thing to be spending money on at this time does seem out of touch, at the very least.

Labour certainly seem to think so.

Ian Davidson, Labour MP for Glasgow South West, said: “I don’t know why lemmings are so concerned about rabbits.
“We are coming out of the worst economic crisis since the Second World War but it seems to have escaped the attention of SNP ministers.
“Their job is to help get people back into work. Instead of cutting teacher numbers or cancelling vital capital investment, they are worrying about rabbits.
“They’ll probably want a referendum on the outcome of their consultation.”

Rabbiting on | Caledonian Mercury – Politics.

The Tories and the SNP have a reasonable relationship now in Scotland and with the Referendum having to be shelved fore the moment the Tories  have a chance to build on this relationship as they move into Government.

David Cameron has been addressing the Tory Conference in Perth and has promised.

“That will signal the beginning of a new relationship, a fresh start, based on mutual respect,” he will say, adding: “It will be good for Scotland, good for Britain and good for the Union.”

Mr Cameron will also say he takes seriously the recommendations of the Calman Commission – which called for more powers for the Scottish Parliament – and wants to make devolution stronger.

“Not just because it is a weapon against the Nationalists’ obsession with independence – but because devolution should be central to our whole political approach,” he will say.

“Today we are the party that passionately believes that local is best, the party that knows that the more power people have, the more responsible they become, the more fulfilled they are – we are the party of decentralisation.”

Please, this is the way to go in Scotland.

BBC News – David Cameron promises ‘fresh start’ with SNP.

Sure to be much wailing and gnashing of Teeth from the SNP at this story. The BBC has this

Scotland’s deputy first minister has written a letter of support for a man who could be jailed over benefit fraud.

Nicola Sturgeon asked the court to consider “alternatives to a custodial sentence” in the case of Abdul Rauf.

The 60-year-old, who is a constituent of Ms Sturgeon, defrauded £80,000 from the Department of Work and Pensions.

Labour said she had made an “appalling error of judgement” and should resign. The SNP said her representations on behalf of a constituent were routine.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard how Rauf admitted failing to declare a property in Newington, Edinburgh, worth £200,000 on his application for income support.

He subsequently received £650 a month in rent while he claimed the benefits between 2001 and 2006.

At the same time he was living in a £400,000 house in Glasgow’s Maxwell Park area.

When the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) later discovered that he owned the Edinburgh property Rauf said he did not declare it as it had “slipped my mind”.

Oops, major Sturgeon fail.

BBC News – Minister intervenes in fraud case.

BBC tells us that the SNP blogger Mark MacLachlan who had run the Universality of Cheese blog under the pseudonym Montague Burton has been arrested for Breach of the Peace. The BBC has this.

The former aide to Education Secretary Mike Russell, who left his post after a row over an internet blog, has been charged with breach of the peace.

Mark MacLachlan, 47, quit his role after it emerged he had used the blog to smear political rivals.

Lothian and Borders Police have confirmed a man had been arrested and charged.

It is understood police took the action in response to emails allegedly from the blogger to his former boss.

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders police said: “A 47-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with an alleged breach of the peace. A report has been sent to the procurator fiscal.”

Mr MacLachlan had run the Universality of Cheese blog under the pseudonym Montague Burton.

It contained allegations about the personal lives of politicians and other public figures.

The blog was removed late last November after Mr MacLachlan was unmasked as its author.

Tis all a bit strange.

BBC News – Controversial blog aide arrested.

On Alastair Campbell’s blog we have this piece he has written for the Sunday Mail here in Scotland. It was entitled “Here goes with the Smoked Salmond”, but is instead another of his huge chippie articles on the Tories and his favourite old Trout Margaret Thatcher.

Campbell first explains how Scots can help David Cameron win and that is as follows

And for Scots, there are at least two ways of helping bring it about, and deliver as leader of the UK the most untried, untested, under-scrutinised Prime Minister in history. The most obvious is by voting Tory. Another is by voting SNP.

Thanks for that tip Alastair, but we already know and want that.  Anyway we can get rid of Labour as a party of power in Scotland is a good way, God help me but I might even vote Lib Dem (joke!) if  I thought it would help keep Labour out!

But then Alastair comes onto his real thoughts  for why Salmond might want David Cameron in power

So why would Salmond prefer Cameron? Because when it comes to the argument for independence, it will be easier made against a very English, very right-wing, very elitist leader of a very English, very right-wing, very elitist government which has shown precious little interest in Scotland. Indeed, so far as Scotland’s relations with the Tories are concerned they are still defined as much by Thatcher as by Cameron.

It’s resurrection time, time to pull out the ghost of the old trout  Thatcher as a warning to all us recalcitrant Scots who might dare to oppose him and vote SNP or the devil herself Thatcher disguised somehow as David Cameron. It’s time for him to point out how those nasty Tories are all upper-class English Twits who are not  fit to lace his so working class boots.

Campbell can’t resist having a poke at Salmond

As with Cameron, Salmond does the style stuff better than the substance stuff.

Unfortunately from Campbell this is praise of the highest order!

Nowhere in the article does it have a positive reason for voting Labour. All in all a very bad  attempt to help his poor belaboured party in Scotland.

Here Goes with the Smoked Salmond