I noticed on BBC reporting Scotland another "SNP ACCUSED," propaganda news clip regaridng the closure of a school in Ayrshire, doubtless it will be the headline on NEWSNICHT, a programme I can no longer watch without shouting at the TV.
Well surprise surprise:
SCHOOL CLOSURE HYPOCRISY FROM LABOUR
LABOUR PROPOSED AND VOTED FOR KILMARNOCK CLOSURE
The closure of Crossroads School in Kilmarnock, reported in today’s Herald was proposed and voted for by Labour in East Ayrshire.
The SNP MSP for the area Willie Coffey today condemned the utter hypocrisy of Labour’s education spokesman after it was revealed the closure motion was put forward by a Labour councillor and that Labour voted for the closure throughout the process. Mr Coffey also said it was ridiculous to claim that this closure meant other rural schools would close and it exposed how Labour's Holyrood group would stoop to any level of dishonesty.
Mr Coffey pointed out that:
* The key vote on the closure of the Crossroads school was moved by the leader of the Labour group on East Ayrshire Council, Maureen McKay, at the council Cabinet meeting of 23 June and it was passed unanimously by the Council Cabinet – which includes Labour members. It was also unanimously backed by all parties, and local education and church representatives.
* Labour MSPs also voted in favour of the Schools (Consultation) Scotland Bill on 19 November 2009 which was passed unanimously by the Parliament.
* Between 1999 and 2007 Labour closed 64 rural schools.
* Labour’s manifesto did not offer a commitment to any additional protection for rural schools. Under the old legislation that Labour would have left in place, the school would not have been referred to Ministers for a decision and the closure would simply have gone ahead on the basis of the Council’s decision.
Mr Coffey, who represents Kilmarnock said:
“Des McNulty’s comments are misleading and utterly hypocritical.
“This is typical of the unsavoury depths Labour have sink to in opposition. No one can trust a word they utter. They voted for a closure so they can protest about it afterwards. Labour have been misleading parents and children.
“No one likes closing schools and this was a very difficult decision. But Labour MSPS should have the guts to admit that their councillors proposed the closure and that Labour voted for it’s closure.
“The unanimous decision was backed by education and church representatives because of the circumstances of the school and the alternatives on offer.
“This decision has no bearing on any other school. Each case is unique as each school, and the local circumstances will be unique.
"The SNP Government has put in place steps to support parents and children in rural areas in making the case to save their school. Labour simply closed 64 rural schools without question.
"In this case the planning, the consultation and the proposals for future education for children from Crossroads in Kilmarnock ensured the best possible education."
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC)
Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan national, was the only man convicted in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am Flight over Lockerbie, Scotland.
The bombing killed 270 people - most of them US citizens. In 2001, al-Megrahi was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
But the Scottish government released him last year on 'strict justice criteria' - saying he has terminal cancer with just three months to live.
Shortly after Megrahi's return to Tripoli, the Libyan government awarded BP a multi-billion dollar offshore oil deal.
The timing of the deal, and the fact that 11 months after the release Meghrahi is still alive has led to speculation as to whether BP had anything to do with the release.
The oil giant denies lobbying for al-Megrahi's release - saying it only encouraged the British government to complete a prisoner-transfer deal with Libya.
So, what are the likely implications of the alleged BP role in al-Megrahi's controversial release?
Inside Story, with presenter Sohail Rahman, discusses with Bill Kidd, a member of the Scottish Parliament for the Scottish National Party, Hans Koechler, who was an International Observer at the Lockerbie trial, and Dave Cole, the managing director of the Atlantic Council.
This episode of Inside Story airs from Thursday, July 22, at 1730GMT, with repeats at 2230GMT, and the next day at 0430GMT and 1030GMT.
A teacher asks her class, 'If there are 5 birds sitting on a fence and you shoot one of them, how many will be left?' She calls on little Johnny. He replies, 'None, they all fly away with the first gun shot'
The teacher replies, 'The correct answer is 4, but I like your thinking.'
Then, Little Johnny says 'I have a question for YOU. There are three women sitting on a bench having ice cream: One is delicately licking the sides of the triple scoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down the top and sucking the cone. The third is biting off the top of the ice cream.
Which one is married?'
The teacher, blushing a great deal, replied 'Well I suppose the one that's gobbled down the top and sucked the cone' To which Little Johnny replied,
'The correct answer is the one with the wedding ring on, but I like your thinking. (Even this is not my own stuff)
PostHeaderIcon Megrahi, the media and the myths - Part 1: The Desert Deal Monday, 12 July 2010 11:21
One of the earliest incarnations of this site was as a monthly online newsletter sent out to a few hundred interested individuals. The newsletter was consolidated by a very basic blog that served as a kind of portal in order to encourage people to register for the newsletter.
Few posts on the blog attracted more by way of traffic and comments than our analysis of the coverage provided by the Scottish media of the release, on compassionate grounds, of the man known as the Lockerbie Bomber, Al Megrahi.
Few events have caused as much controversy and debate and there can be little doubt that views on the release are entrenched. Whilst Scotland’s religious and legal institutions supported the release, the general populace were pretty much evenly split. The same can be said of the international community, the release was welcomed by some respected international figures whilst others, mainly Americans, reacted with anger.
Last week saw the Scottish/UK media re-visit, yet again, this pivotal moment in Scottish politics. The catalyst for this latest regurgitation of the story was the report coming out of Libya suggesting that Megrahi’s treatment had been stopped and that death may be only weeks away. The story however was quickly supplanted by bizarre headlines suggesting that Megrahi may live for a further 10-20 years.
The 20 year claim was based around a comment from a Libyan professor Karol Sikora who said of the type of cancer Megrahi had: "There was always a chance he could live for 10 years, 20 years," he said. "But it¹s very unusual."
The ‘imminent death’ reports disappeared and the 20 year claim then formed the basis for that weeks headlines. It culminated in the issue featuring prominently on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme ‘Question Time’.
Given this renewed interest, and the headlines and claims that are now gaining currency, Newsnet Scotland decided that it was time to take a fresh look at this coverage. We have also decided to re-publish our original analysis from almost a year ago.
Before you read on, please be aware that we do not seek to change the views of anyone regarding the actual release, we have already acknowledged that these views are entrenched. There are SNP voters who thought the release wrong just as there were Labour voters and indeed Labour politicians who thought the release the correct decision.
Even families of the victims were split as to the relative merits of keeping a dying Mr Megrahi in prison.
What we are seeking to do is to urge people to ask themselves whether the Scottish media have provided informed analysis, objective coverage and reasoned debate on this very serious matter or whether they have manipulated the story in order to satisfy an agenda.
The backdrop to the release was of course the 9/11 New York tragedy and the appalling 7/7 attack on London transport. These two events have redefined the political narrative as far as the Middle East is concerned.
We begin our look back at the coverage of this whole release issue at the point at which it all began. Not, as you might expect, with the announcement of the release by Kenny MacAskill in August 2009, nor with Megrahi’s actual release days later.
We begin in fact with the now forgotten interview of Alex Salmond in 2007, an interview conducted by the BBC’s Kirsty Wark. Ms Wark is a friend of former First Minister Jack, now Lord, McConnell who had only months earlier been replaced as First Minister by Mr Salmond after the SNP had shocked the political world by defeating Mr McConnell’s Labour party in the Holyrood elections.
Why begin here you ask?
Well, the interview relates to the (then) new SNP government’s attack on a secret deal that had been hatched by Tony Blair and Libyan leader Col Gadaffi in the Libyan desert – a deal that we now know concerned the Lockerbie bomber Al Megrahi.
It is interesting to note the reaction of Ms Wark and her tone as Alex Salmond makes clear his concern that such a secret deal had impinged on Scottish legal jurisdiction. A deal that was designed to facilitate the return of a then healthy Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi to Libya.
Not seen in this clip, but Ms Wark introduces the interview by informing viewers that the new SNP government were expected by many commentators to want to ‘pick fights’ with Westminster – and, adds Ms Wark, “they didn’t have long to wait”.
An interesting line taken by Kirsty Wark, who actually went as far as to accuse the First Minister of exposing Blair’s secret deal in order to make political gain and of “risking the sensitivities of the families of the Lockerbie victims”.
It’s clear that in 2007 a secret desert deal involving the transfer from Greenock prison of the convicted terrorist Al Megrahi did not concern Scottish journalists to any great extent. The effect on the families of victims, that such a transfer might have, did not lead to a huge outcry – the only outcry was that the new SNP government had exposed the deal.
In fact the highlighting of this secret deal by the SNP led to them being denounced by many media commentators, including Ms Wark, as simply trying to pick a fight. Alex Salmond was accused of 'grandstanding' for convening an emergency session at Holyrood in order to inform the Scottish parliament of the secret deal.
The deal had been done, the mechanism for agreed repatriation of Al Megrahi would be put in place and the man himself would in time submit an application to return to Libya. Critically, the procedures put in place by the then UK Labour government afforded Al Megrahi the right to make legal representation to the Scottish Justice Minister as part of this process.
In 2007 such an arrangement caused no great media concern. There were no outcries from Labour politicians, nor any cries of ‘outrage’ from BBC Scotland political correspondents. Tony Blair was not the ‘Toast of Tripoli’ and there were no thoughts of any American backlash.
UK companies stood to benefit from oil deals and the cost of such lucrative deals was the return of a long forgotten terrorist to the former pariah state of Libya - a small price to pay.
Aside from complaints by the SNP, who were only picking a fight after all, the whole thing was just another behind the scenes deal struck by the UK government. The episode was quickly forgotten and would have remained so had fate not intervened in the form of an incurable illness.
In 2009 the deal in the desert was rendered academic as Al Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Doctors advising the Scottish Justice Secretary explained that a life expectancy of around three months was a reasonable estimate and, having satisfied the criteria for compassionate release, a dying Al Megrahi was allowed to return home to Libya on August 20th 2009.
A media circus then kicked off as presenters, commentators, journalists and politicians jostled with the families of victims and residents of the town of Lockerbie as each attempted to make points, report and analyse.
This week Newsnet Scotland will take a look back at the coverage of the release in the days and weeks following. How the Scottish press reported this dramatic event and, more importantly, how the event was covered by the BBC – specifically BBC Scotland.
I left this comment on SNP Tactical Voting in response to his comments on last night QT from Edinburgh.
Jeff, If I had any confidence in the FOIA, I would write to the BBC and find out the methods used to select the audience, who did the selecting, and what was the demographic make up of the audience. However the contempt that the BBC has demonstrated for Scotland and her politics makes me believe I would be wasting my time.
It was very obvious that the audience was stuffed with Labour supporters, every means possible will be used between now and the Scottish elections to snuff out the SNPs voice, hence the referendum on the same day as that election on the constitution of the Westminster parliament. The TV and the MSM, channels will be overflowing with that debate so once more sidelining the debate on Scotland. This is no more than the cynical agenda we have come to expect from the Unionist establishment, in particular the Scottish Office. Respect my big hairy a...! Unionism if fighting to the last man for it’s survival, and they have all the tools to make it very dirty, and they will.
As is usual on these few QTs that come from Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon was interrupted and treated in a very brusque manner by Dimbers. She was not allowed anything like the time of the rest of the panel.
No questions were taken regarding the democratic deficit now in Scotland, where we are to vote in a referendum on the constitution of Westminster, but prevented from voting on a Scottish independence in a referendum. To rub our faces in the muck that vote will obscure our own parliamentary election, in terms of the MSM.
Nicola failed to point out, (or was prevented from,) to Forsyth that the banks only became Scottish when they failed. Before which they had been pouring billions into the UK treasury in London. That he was spreading unionist propaganda by speculating that Scotland would not have been able to deal with the bank problem. Also that he knows fine well had Scotland not been prevented from having full fiscal autonomy, we would now have one of the strongest currencies in Europe with an embarrassing surplus, (according to the suppressed McRone report.)
Notably no questions were taken on Scottish independence.
I say taken because I do know that these questions were submitted.
The SNP have to find a way of getting out from under this blanket that is trying to smother them, and they have to do so now. Not leave it to the last minute like the last UK election and then run out of time. If the SNP is serious about independence and turning Scotland round they need to act in ways they have not perhaps considered. However, they must do it and do it soon. At the moment they are being suffocated by lies and propaganda, gleefully assisted by the MSM, in particular BBC Scotland. On this form they are heading for certain defeat in Holyrood.
Chic Murray, one of Scotland's greatest comedians, was born Charles Thomas McKinnon Murray in Greenock, in 1919. He began an apprenticeship in engineering at Kincaid's shipyard in 1934 whilst employing his musical talents in amateur groups such as The Whinhillbillies and Chic and His Chicks. He formed a double-act with his wife, Maidie Dickson. Billed as "The Tall Droll with the Small Doll" their combination of jokes and songs made them a popular attraction on television and in theatres throughout the country. The peak of their success was in 1956 when they appeared in the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium. Later, working as a solo act, with a forbidding expression and omnipresent "bunnet", Chic offered a comic vision of the world that was absurd, surreal and absolutely unique. Much mimicked and much loved by his fellow professionals, he acted in films such as Casino Royale (1967), appeared as the headmaster in Gregory's Girl (1980) and played Liverpool Football Club manager Bill Shankly in the musical play You'll Never Walk Alone (1984). He died in Edinburgh in 1985 at the age of sixty-five.
"Chic Murray was brought up in the land of sugar, ships and showers. He got a lot of his tales from the Tail of the Bank - joiners, platers, plumbers in the yard, were his main source of supply. A very funny man, originality in style was the keynote. He toured the halls both as a double act with his 4 feet 11 inches high wife Maidie - a clever wee lass, as a feed, a singer and accordionist.
Chic's fun was plucked from life. He perhaps combined the humour of two of his mates and the character that emerged was a riot. The two workmen, who were the subject of his impersonation, probably didn't twig it but they certainly enjoyed the result.
A typical Chic Murray joke "I met this chap at the Olympics. I said to him, "Excuse me but are you a pole vaulter?", he replied,"No, I'm German, but how did you know my name was Walter."
Latterly Chic was making films all over the world. In fact when one bumped into him in Glasgow and asked him what he was doing - "doing" he would repeat indignantly "I suppose because you don't see me at the theatre or on the local TV you think I'm not working. Listen fellah I can't do half the work I'm offered. I arrived from Germany this morning. I'm making a film out there - they like me there you know - and flying out to Hollywood on Tuesday for another film. Back here I've got two jobs to do for Bill Forsyth - I like him. Yes it's busy, busy, I'm thinking of doing the love life of a lamplighter - ha ha !" He was a big success in a cameo part in Bill Forsyth's 'Gregory's Girl' where he played a headmaster and was ideal for the role but a few eyebrows were raised when he gave a girl permission to play in the boy's football team."
Archie McCulloch CHIC MURRAY Goodbye from Archie
Here are just a few examples of Chic's unique material:
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.
I made a stupid mistake last week. Come to think of it, did you ever hear of someone making a clever mistake?
So I gave him a wave. Actually, it was more of a half wave, because I only half know him.
What use is happiness? It can't buy you money.
I met this cowboy with a brown paper hat, paper waistcoat and paper trousers. He was wanted for rustling.
If something's neither here nor there, where the hell is it?
My father was a simple man. My mother was a simple woman. You see the result standing in front of you, a simpleton.
I had a tragic childhood. My parents never understood me. They were Japanese.
I won't say I was slow developer, but our teacher was quite pleased to have someone her own age in the class to talk to.
If it weren't for marriage, husband and wives would have to fight with strangers.
After I told my wife that black underwear turned me on, she didn't wash my Y-fronts for a month.
Kippers- fish that like a lot of sleep.
The boat was so old; it must have been launched when Long John Silver had two legs and an egg on his shoulder.
It was a pretty posh place. They were so used to fur coats that two bears strolled in and ordered lunch and nobody even noticed.
I felt as out of place as a left-handed violinist in a crowded string section.
Get into yourself to get yourself out of your self. Then try to lose yourself.
I drew a gun. He drew a gun. I drew another gun. Soon we were surrounded by lovely drawings of guns.
We've got stained glass windows in our house. It's those damned pigeons.
You know what they say about stamp collecting. Philately will get you nowhere.
There's a new slimming course just out where they remove all your bones. Not only do you weigh less, but you also look so much more relaxed.
The police stopped me when I was out in my car. They told me it was a spot check. I admitted to two pimples and a boil.
I first met my wife in the tunnel of love. She was digging it at the time.
I dreamt I was forced to eat 25lbs of marshmallows. When I woke up, my pillow was missing.
My girlfriends a redhead, no hair, just a red head.
I admit to spending a fortune on women, booze and gambling. The rest I spend foolishly.
A neighbour put his budgerigar in the mincing machine and invented shredded tweet.
My parents were wonderful, always there with a ready compromise. My sister wanted a cat for a pet I wanted a dog, so they bought a cat and taught it to bark.
I got up this morning. I like to get up in the morning; it gives me the rest of the day to myself. I crossed the landing and went down stairs. Mind you, if there had been no stairs, I wouldn't even have attempted it.
We were so poor; the ultimate luxury in our house at the time was ashtrays without advertisements. It was all the wolf could do to keep us away from his door. A luxury meal was prairie sandwiches- two slices of bread with wide-open spaces between them. There were so many holes in my socks I could put them on seventeen different ways.
She had been married so often she bought a drip-dry wedding dress.
My mother was so house proud that when my father got up to sleepwalk she had the bed made by the time he got back.
This friend of mine had a terrible upbringing. When his mother lifted him up to feed him, his father rented the pram out. Then when they came into money later, his mother hired a woman to push the pram - and he's been pushed for money ever since.
I went to the butchers to buy a leg of lamb. "Is it Scotch?", I asked. "Why?" the butcher said in reply. Are you going to talk to it or eat it?". "In that case, have you got any wild duck?". "No", he responded, "but I've got one I could aggravate for you".
I rang the bell of this small bed-and breakfast place, whereupon a lady appeared at an outside window. "What do you want?", she asked. "I want to stay here", I replied. "Well, stay there then", she said and closed the window.
A Scot is a man who keeps the Sabbath, and everything else he can lay his hands on.
I was in London the other day and this man came up to me and asked me if I knew the Battersea dog's home. I said that I didn't know it had been away.
There are two rules for drinking whisky. First, never take whisky without water, and second, never take water without whisky.
My wife went to a beauty parlour and got a mudpack. For two days she looked nice, then the mud fell off.
I don't swim. I can swim. I just don't have much cause to do so in the normal run of things.
So there I was lying in the gutter. A man stopped and asked '"What's the matter? Did you fall over?" So I said "No. I've a bar of toffee in my back pocket and I was just trying to break it."
This chap started talking to me about this and that - about which I know very little.
My father was from Aberdeen, and a more generous man you couldn't wish to meet. I have a gold watch that belonged to him. He sold it to me on his deathbed. I wrote him a cheque for it, post dated of course.
It was raining cats and dogs and I fell in a poodle.
I was out walking the other evening. This fellow accosted me, and asked if that was the moon up there in the sky. I replied that I had no idea as I was a stranger there myself.
I was taking my dog out the other day and I met this chap who asked me where I was going. The dog is foaming at the mouth, so I explained that I was on my way to the vet to have it put down. He asked if it was mad, to which I replied that it wasn't exactly pleased about it.
This chap said to me, "If you look over there, you'll see Dumbarton Rock". Well, I looked for 20 minutes and the thing never moved an inch.
I met this chap at the Olympics. I said to him, "Excuse me but are you a pole vaulter?", he replied,"No, I'm German, but how did you know my name was Walter."
I went to the doctor and he told me I only had three minutes to live. I immediately asked if there was anything he could do for me, to which he replied, that he could boil me an egg.
http://tinyurl.com/2vlauzs A BBC investigation into the planning department of one of Scotland's largest councils has revealed evidence of a close personal relationship between an influential councillor and a millionaire property developer. Labour councillor Jim Docherty is facing calls to resign after failing to declare a long-standing friendship with Labour donor James Kean, who owns large areas of land in South Lanarkshire. =================================================================================
This has long been known in East Kilbride, but they have managed up until now to keep the lid on it. The EK news has reported on it, as a result of which McCann the MP who took over from five jobs Ingram, will no longer speak to the EK News. Their is a deep and fetid pit of sleaze to be tapped in this South Lanarkshire town.
I wonder how Docherty can afford a house costing £320000. he probably took lesson from Charlie Gordon who has become a millionaire property owner in Glasgow.
Docherty is the one with the foilage growing out of his nose. McCann is wearing the red tie.
