And another thing…

Just shows how much you political people are making to farm out the work.

You sound worried about the SNP Tom. Are they going to take your seat. I mean labour are so unpopular anything could happen.
You could then say you are going to spend more time In Mac Donalds. ( the most famous scottish restaurant)

No, but they can at least claim to be able to afford using a private firm to deliver their leaflets. Not something we could accuse Labour of.

Sounds like the green-eyed monster to me, especially as Labour’s entire election budget is a gift from the unions.

Top story at eleven, SNP has so much money they can afford to pay a private firm to leaflet in an almost completely Labour ward.

I might be wrong… but aren’t most SNP activists elsewhere this weekend?

The picture was taken before their annual hate-fest started.

This list might interest you Tom.

It shows the percentage of graduates in parliamentry seats and the party that holds the seat.

http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=4210

Make of it what you will, but don’t do so until after 13:00 on Monday.

Tom, you’ve been curiously silent on the subject of MPs expenses recently. I would have expected a wholehearted symphony of support from a member of the party whose leader promised us a government that would be ‘purer than pure’.

Paid canvassing in elections is illegal. Section 111 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 says this

If a person is, either before, during or after an election, engaged or employed for payment or promise of payment as a canvasser for the purpose of promoting or procuring a candidate’s election—
(a) the person so engaging or employing him, and
(b) the person so engaged or employed,
shall be guilty of illegal employment.

In my experience of Scotland, the party that hands out the most free beer vouchers usually wins.

Isn’t that right Tom?

To be honest Tom the vast majority of snp/Nationalist Bloggers have already conceded defeat at Glasgow North East.

Most are already trotting out various excuses of why they lost…70 years of voting labour..etc

and my favourite one

“I’ll vote for a monkey in a red rosette cause ma faither did” syndrome,

Old Holborn

pure dead brill !

That’s not legal is it?

Section 111 of the 1983 Representation of the People Act prohibits employing anyone (for profit)”as a canvasser” to promote or procure a person’s election, either before, during or after an election. Both the employer and the person employed are guilty of an offence.

The issue becomes whether delivering leaflets is contained within the definition of a “canvasser”. I’d suggest this is exactly what the law was designed to prevent, but perhaps there’s a stricter definition of canvassing of which I’m not aware.

@ Old Holborn

As far as I can tell, any candidate who talks about getting people off ‘the sick’ in Glasgow is essentially toast.

The scots (present company excepted) seem to have the “victim mentality” down to a tee. That’s why they still hate sainted Margaret, because she tried to get them to do a day’s work.

Wot, really David?

D’you think Liviu is going to be offered free party membership?

>> In my experience of Scotland, the party that hands out the most free beer vouchers usually wins.

How very dare you!

>> As far as I can tell, any candidate who talks about getting people off ‘the sick’ in Glasgow is essentially toast.

How triple dare you!

>> The scots (present company excepted) seem to have the “victim mentality” down to a tee. That’s why they still hate sainted Margaret, because she tried to get them to do a day’s work.

We didn’t mind her economic policies… no! I didn’t mean that!

http://www.totalpolitics.com/magazine_detail.php?id=77

Richard,

Yer talkin’ pure mince, by the way.

‘Sainted’ Margaret helped annihilate industry in Scotland.

When I got my first job in England in 1985, somebody wondered why so many Scots come down South. The reply (from an Englishman) was because we are good workers.

@ Stewart Cowen.

Blessed Margaret was the first politician to admit that manufacturing and mining in the western world is far more expensive than in the ‘tiger economies’ of the east.

Simply removing the grotesque featherbedded subsidies paid to people in the Labour heartlands was enough to put many people out of work where they will remain until the next government job-creation scheme comes along.

Maybe half the Scottish unemployed could dig holes and the other half could fill them in?

Yes, my first reaction on reading the blog was ‘is that legal’. It seems David Boothroyd and Morus had the same thought.

Worth looking into?

Oh and I loved the ‘alphabeticising their grievances’ line.

Denmark – or, d’you prefer Kongeriget Danmark? – next you’ll be telling us that a organization (set up by a former employee of the Fish-heid and now SNP PPC) and staffed by numerous SNP employees/members was being ordered to repay public money which had been awarded with negligable scrutinty.

Tell us it ain’t so!

What’s the Scottish equivalent to the word Cojones?

Whatever it is, Alex has far too much of it and Gordon has too little…

Richard,

What you described is false economy. It is a system only for those who are interested in making a quick profit.

Our trade deficit is running at billions of pounds every month. How are we supposed to survive as a strong, independent nation if we always import more than we export?

But, maybe that’s the idea. We’re not.

Blogging etiquette:

See how Richard and I are writing to each other? As if, Tom, you didn’t exist.

As you know, I like being polite, so isn’t it proper to go through you, Tom, and speak of others in the third person?…for example:

Does Richard not think that…blah, blah…whatever?

Has someone devised a blogging etiquette, or should I do it?

What do you think Tom?

Tom, I wonder what Richard thinks.

Richard, a literal translation would be summat like a boabie (although that’s the third occupant of underpants).

Smeddum is more like what you’re looking for.

I think of Tom as an MC.

Now, this question of legality is growing on me. Is there an MP in the house?

Getting the leaflets delivered this way must free up activists to interact with the voters in a more useful way.

And,yes, Tom must be worried about losing his seat to the SNP-in the last election there, the European elections this year, the SNP topped the poll.

Indeed – as I pointed out on this very blog back in June.

Re: is it legal?

If leaflet dropping using a paid service is illegal, then surely using the post office to deliver leaflets is also illegal?

@ Stewart Cowen

What I’m describing is a capitalist economy. Clearly there is a place for government to deal with some of the more egregious inequities of the market but it shouldn’t be their place of government to try to distort the market.

Where successive Labour governments have failed is in thinking that natural wastage (e.g. The closure of uneconomic coal mines, failing manufacturers, etc) should be prevented using taxpayers money.

Hate fest?!!!?

That is utterly contemptible. Typical Labour. Nothing to offer but slurs at the SNP and right wing policies.

I would have been the sort of person who would’ve considered voting Labour when you were a SOCIALIST party. However, you abandoned your principles and became a Tory-lite party. The SNP are more to the left than your warmongering, Thatcherite, authoritarian disaster of a party.

Your bitterness is probably more to do with the fact that you can’t take our votes for granted anymore. Scotland has a genuine left of centre alternative who have demonstrated that they CAN deliver (despite Labour claims that the sky would fall in if we ever had a non-Labour Scottish government) and who remain relatively popular despite Labour’s desperate smears.

We’re not stupid. Chucking about slurs about “hate fests” only serves to highlight how out of touch and out of ideas you are.

Perhaps you should apologise to the members of the SNP. Members of a party to the left of yours whose only “crime” is to desire an independent, equal Scotland.

While you’re at it perhaps you can try to convince us why we should vote for you without resorting to slagging off the other parties.

@Morus

Canvassing is, as far as I’m aware, the act of seeking to persuade people by talking to them or asking their opinion on issues.

The asking of opinions cannot be forbidden by the act, otherwise all polling firms would be breaking the law.

It also, cannot cover delivering party literature as long as the person delivering the leaflets doesn’t personally seek to persuade the recipient one way or another.
If this wasn’t the case then the delivery of party literature by mail would be illegal.

So as long as those employed to deliver these leaflets don’t engage with the electors, in a politically partisan way, I can’t see a problem in using them instead of Royal Mail, DHL, FedEx etc

@ Old Holborn Haha too true. But as has already been mentioned, this ain’t exactly legit. Heard through the student politics grapevine that a certain Lib Dem candidate for the next general election has gotten into trouble with their constituency party for handing out leaflets which also had a form which entered people into a raffle. Don’t want to be on the sharp end of a libel case so I won’t name names. The crazy things politicians do for votes!

@ Fraser: from what I’ve heard about the SNP’s modus operandi, they are adept at morphing into whatever they think will push the right buttons depending on where they’re canvassing. So if their main rivals are Labour, then they’re the only true socialists, and yet elsewhere they pose as centre-right patriots.

The LibDems are good at this sort of shape-shifting as well.

Richard,

I don’t consider it an unfair distortion of the market to extract coal from British mines in preference to importing it.

Some of the mines may have been ‘uneconomic’ in the eyes of the stone cold Thatcherite because they didn’t take into account either the human cost of their closure or the national interest in keeping as many open as possible.

If we have become so decadent that we can’t be bothered digging for our very own natural treasures then we’re doomed.

One of the few in the constituency to have a job. If only the people of Springburn had voted, over the last few generations for a party that tried to end poverty & unemployment.

@Chris Wills That list of degree %age per constituency only covers a part of the UK – there are no NI seats. Fail.

>> If leaflet dropping using a paid service is illegal, then surely using the post office to deliver leaflets is also illegal?

Not if there’s an explicit provision for the use of the Royal Mail, which is a not unlikely scenario.

>> Indeed – as I pointed out on this very blog back in June.

And, right on cue, there’s an armchair fascist appeaser who’s got him and his mates mixed-up with the majority of the world, blaming you for Muslim-on-Muslim violence.

PS Do your detractors on this thread realize just how low the turn-out was in the Euro elections?

@ Stewart Cowen
Union power was, and is, an abomination and represents one of the last bastions of unelected and undemocratic power.

A brief quote from Lord Forsyth’s recent speech, if I may..

-=-=-

“Margaret Thatcher’s historic achievements: “We are here to celebrate a famous victory and to pay tribute to a great Lady who not only saved Britain but together with Ronald Reagan, ended the cold war, tore down the iron curtain, and enabled millions to escape the tyranny of communism.”

Margaret Thatcher’s work ethic: “My abiding memory of being in Margaret’s Government was of relentless work and pace. David Davis then a new member of Parliament stopped me as I was rushing through the member’s lobby and said, ‘ Slow down, Michael, Rome was not built in a day’. ‘Margaret Thatcher was not the shop steward on that job’ I said hurrying on.”

Margaret Thatcher’s personal ethics: “When Margaret wanted to redecorate the study in no 10 she paid for it herself. She always paid cash and never signed the bill in the members dining room and many of her colleagues who did so were given stern lectures on the dangers of debt and credit.”

Margaret Thatcher’s inheritance: “When Cecil Parkinson went to the Soviet Union as the new Trade minister his Communist opposite number told him they were no longer prepared to buy from Britain because of the poor quality of goods and the unreliability of deliveries.”

Margaret Thatcher’s economic revolution: “Breaking state monopolies, encouraging competition, lowering taxes and returning control of the trade unions to their members unleashed a new age of enterprise and wealth creation. Council House sales meant thousands of families were given the chance to have capital for the first time in their lives and freed from municipal controls that even decided the colour of their front door. Workers in privatised companies were given shares in the business as she set about achieving her vision of a meritocratic property owning democracry.”

Margaret Thatcher’s victory over Arthur Scargill: “By 1984 we had prepared for the day when Scargill would confront the Government. The miners strike was a disaster for the coal industry and was scarred by violence and intimidation as the leadership sought to defy the laws of the land and the laws of economics. The miners were lions led by donkeys. They deserved better and I shall never forget the courage shown by the working miners. One of them is now our chief whip in the House of Commons , Patrick McLoughlin. I would not advise any rebels to take him on! Ted Heath had asked the question in 1974 Who Governs Britain? And he had lost. But 10 years later the Conservative Government was ready to answer- resoundingly.”

Margaret Thatcher’s Iron quality during the Falklands War: “Enoch Powell speaking in Parliament which was recalled to sit on a Saturday referred to the Russians calling you an Iron lady. In the next week or two this house, the nation and the Rt Hon Lady herself will learn of what metal she is made’… After Victory was declared Enoch Powell asked the Prime Minister another question in Parliament: “Is the Rt Hon Lady aware that the report has been received from the public analyst on a certain substance recently subjected to analysis and that I have obtained a copy of the report. It shows that the substance under test consisted of ferrous mater of the highest quality and that it is of exceptional tensile strength, is highly resistant to wear and tear and to stress and may be used to advantage for all national purposes.”

Margaret Thatcher’s relevance to today: “She changed the way people thought about wealth creation, enterprise and the role of the state. Part of her legacy was the destruction of socialism and the creation of New Labour. Today we are back to the 70s in a Britain on the brink of bankruptcy thanks to the meddling excesses of Gordon Brown, the irresponsibility of some bankers and the searing incompetence of the regulators and monetary authorities here and in the United States. Old Labour is back. Margaret’s fixed ropes of sound money, living within our means, controlling public expenditure and smaller Government to release the enterprise of the British people are still in place. We know that we can climb this mountain and we have in David Cameron and Annabel Goldie a formidable summit party. In truth my mountaineering days are over but I am willing to be a Sherpa on this expedition as should everyone who cares about our country. We can succeed in putting Britain back on top of the world. It will take time, hardship, sacrifice and determination. Our inspiration lies in the victory in 1979 and the example of this great lady who saved our country.”

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/files/forsyth-thatcher-speech.pdf

@richard

“Union power was, and is, an abomination and represents one of the last bastions of unelected and undemocratic power.”

Not at all like the democratically elected private sector then?

@John Adams

I do admit to not searching the complete list to check that all areas of the UK & NI had been included.

Though if you want to object about the non inclusion of NI perhaps writing to those who prepared it might be more productive than saying Fail.

Mea culpa.

That should be GB & NI not UK & NI

Tom

Nice to see you congratulate Iain Dale on his third failure to jump on the gravy train.

Baron Ashcroft, his boss, is gutted.

Hello Tom!

Richard,

I seem to take a longer term view than most people – backwards and forwards.

Once upon a time, there were some very rich people who employed everyone else, but paid them next-to-nowt, so they were always incredibly poor.

The unions’ influence gradually made more people’s lives bearable and rich people were still rich.

Eventually, some of the Union leaders became the thing they hated most.

You say, Reagan and Thatcher “tore down the iron curtain, and enabled millions to escape the tyranny of communism.”

You’re just looking at a teeny time frame. In order to create a united Europe, the old order had to be dismantled for a New World Order to emerge.

It would have happened anyway.

Vaclav Klaus who sadly can’t hang on now “has drawn comparisons between post-Lisbon Europe and the grim life of Czechs during Soviet rule, likening distant diktats from Brussels to those from Communist apparatchiks in Moscow.” acc. to the Telegraph.

Don’t worry, Richard, whatever happens, the proles will always be proles. Millions more go to university, but they are leaving up to their eyeballs in debt and struggle to find a job. They are still slaves to the system and will be for decades thanks to tuition fees, etc.

Council House sales, Richard?

Selling them off has meant there are huge long waiting lists in most, if not all, areas. Communities have become less close-knit.

As for Thatcher giving the British people the opportunity to buy the utilities they already owned, well that just shows our greed and stupidity to fall for it.

As for the Falklands War, as far as I recall, Britain had all but abandoned the area, despite the fact that we control the Falkland Islands and Dependencies and claimed a huge chunk of Antarctica. Then the Argies invaded because they thought we didn’t really care about the area anymore and so we sunk the Belgrano and yomped overland from San Carlos to liberate Stanley and the hugely unpopular Thatcher became a sainted freedom fighter.

“Self determination for the Falkland Islanders” was the cry.

Coming on 28 years later and now the British are calling for freedom from the EU.

No self-determination for us, though.

Maastricht was after her tenure, but she allowed Britain to be slowly pushed towards the blades of the EU shredder of nations and freedom.

If David Cameron was likely to be any better than New Labour, he’d be talking about a Lisbon referendum.

If the Tories of today were like your idol, then maybe they’d be calling for self-determination for the British people!

Stewart Cowan
Some of the mines may have been ‘uneconomic’ in the eyes of the stone cold Thatcherite because they didn’t take into account either the human cost of their closure…
*******************************************

I *do* feel sorry for pretend lefties doomed as they are to spending the rest of their lives trapped in a Ken Loach/Alan Bleasdale fantasy where horny-handed sons of toil live out a noble existence down a mineshaft with lives untouched by Black Lung Disease, Silicosis, COPD, explosions, collapses, methane gas poisoning, crushings, drownings, hypertensions, kidney diseases, and skeletal disorders.

Get the other fellow to work down a mine – fine.

Show *them* a mine and they’d run a mile.

Richard @ 9:50pm

“What’s the Scottish equivalent to the word Cojones?”

That would be “baws”.

Tom

how does it feel to be on the same side of the argument and the Orange Order.

According to the Scotsman, they have allready prepared thousands of leaflets ready to hand out for the unionist parties.

You must be so proud that you have British extremists in your ranks

@ Ross

Unless the Unionist parties take up that offer, then no, they don’t have them in their ranks.

As much as I hate the OO and the anti-referendum stance of some ardent pro-Union politicians, that’s an incredibly spurious argument to make.

Ross, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. ‘Unionism’ is a catch-all terms which includes a variety of different political views – both Tom and Anabelle Goldie are ‘Unionists’, but only a blithering idiot would link them semantically together… oh, wait.

Plus, d’you have a link?

@ Nicky

As a voter in an SNP – Tory marginal I can tell you that you are wrong. The SNP makes it clear to all they are a social democratic party and proud of it. It might not go down well with all the folk here but at least they stick to their principles. Unlike New Labour.

“The picture was taken before their annual hate-fest started.”

Oh dear, Tom. I’m afraid you have just disqualified any future comments you make on the SNP from being taken remotely seriously.

The simple answer is that we are paying to get leaflets delivered so we can get as many of our activists as possible to concentrate on voter ID.

Michty, ‘hate-fest’, no doubt you’ll be suggesting those nasty Nats should book Nuremburg for their next hate fest, as their numbers grow.

1,500 people of differing nationalities and skin tones at Inversnecky, how did Labour do?

Ah, plenty of good old English hatred and prejudice toward the Scots hereabouts, I see.

And then they whinge on and on about why on earth do we want to get out of a union with them.

The Labour Party conference was, of course, a love in….?

http://joanmcalpine.typepad.com/joan_mcalpine/2009/10/hate-speak-the-snp-and-labour.html

Are you honestly telling us that Labour didn’t use paid leaflet distributions in any of the recent elections in Scotland?

I’ve delivered a fair few SNP leaflets in my time, and I’ve yet to see any that weren’t yellow and black. So how do we know that this guy is delivering SNP literature? Would it not have been an idea to include on the blog, a photograph of the leaflet in the hands of the lad?