And Another Thing…

@Stewart
I don’t think they’ve got a leg to stand on.

He should be on more often. Couldn’t be bothered to watch myself (just watched the edited highlights on the bbc website).

I think the consensus in the comments is that as a democratically elected figure (6.2% of the Vote at the EU election), his supporters have every right to see their views and representatives humiliated on question time. In fact if question time was to allocate seats on a rough share-of-the-national-vote across the 4 panel seats saved for elected politicians, then we would see Nick every 5th episode and Alex Salmond once a quarter. [Tom if you had to choose....]

Love him or loathe him Nick Griffin represents the views of 1 in 20 of the UK voting public, think of that the next time you’re in the cinema with 200 people.

How can Nick Griffin come across badly on a panel with Jack Straw and a Tory Baroness? Has the odious little man had no media training?

All he had to do was point to the Iraq and Falklands wars as unnecessary wars that leaders of the Tories and Labour got the country involved in for political reasons. True or not, enough people would have believed him given the current trust we have in politicians that any points they made about his policies would immediately be small beer compared to the charge he made.

There are also genuine concerns that people have he could have pointed out, made some populist comments about bankers and government spending (like the Lib Dems?) and come across as a sensible ‘man of the (British) people’.

He could have admitted his past views, said they were borne of recession and immigration, fuelled by a lack of opportunity and frustration at the political system refusing to listen (sound familiar?) And then gone on to say why he had abandoned these ways and wanted to give people today with similar feelings an outlet, the knowledge that someone is looking out for their interests and listening to their concerns.

Man, why am I not in media relations or politics?

You’re a child, Lara. An overgrown child.

Indy, awa’ an’ bile yer heid, ye bampot.

tom…sorry i thought it was illegal because surely killing anyone is illegal, isn’t it?

and who gives the un and security councils the right to decide the fate of innocent lifes?

must say you are a right prickly fella at times!

and tom didnt your mum tell you not to assume or presume anything in life…its makes and ass out of you and me!

but you were right this time.

Tom,

Quick question if I may ? Given the latest GWP figures, when Mr Brown said he had stopped “Boom and Bust” did he actually mean he’s stopped “boom” ?

@Arnold Friday 23 October 2009 at 8:35 am
//
Nick Griffin has much in common with David Cameron. Both have fought to sanitize their party’s tainted brand
//

What – like that nice Mr. Blair did?

@sammy

I didn’t mention anything about illegal or immoral, I simply said unnecessary. Also, at no point did I say I agreed with that view. I simply said that Nick Griffin should have said that, and he would have had a decent proportion of the British public on his side for that – certainly more than the 5-6% that gave his party support at the last election.

However, my views would have ran along the lines of: how can any modern country countenance the idea of a landed gentry never mind actually have titled people who can set legislation based solely on their parentage? How can Jack Straw call Nick Griffin a fascist or nazi when he, and latterly his party, has been responsible for the greatest reduction in civil rights since National Service was abolished (and a long time before some might say)?

Who knows what possessed Nicola Sturgeon to write such a letter. It should have been easy for Iain Gray to win this one, and he would have done if he had read the code of conduct and pointed out Alex Salmonds omission. It does not have the same effect if the omission is pointed out after the event. It’s like thinking of a witty retorton the way home hours after the initial insult. Iain Gray has to be faster on his feet, like him or not Alex Salmond gets the better of him most of the time.
Tom, you must have heard Gordon at PMQ’s, is that where you got the idea of “some kind of factory gate demagoguery”

I do not condone what was done, other than to say if I was a constituent and had admitted my guilt, I would hope that an MP or similar would write something in my defence if I was not a danger to society and had agreed to repay all funds stolen.
Rauf was caught acting in a fraudulent manner. He should be punished.

If Tom Harris was my MP and I did something wrong and was not violent or a sex offender I would ask him for my help. And hope that political expediency did not stop him doing so. In my view Brown as alocval MP was perfectly correct to write on behalf of a cannabis grower.

If genuinely sick and with 2 wee kids then after monies were repaid I might be more sympathetic.

Would that the pollies who flipped their houses and claimed far bigger sums of money were made to repay their money for what was fraud in any other domain.

I would be prepared for them not to have a custodial sentence either were that to be the outcome, with monies fully repaid.

As it stands I would like the flippers incarcerated as they are guilty in the court of public opinion if not by the rules of Westminster.

And a backdated demand that the whole parliament given a tax office audit MP by MP with the rules of the country being those that were followed, not a 1689 bill of rights based on the supposed integrity of those within its walls.

We have already seen that corrupt MP’s think they are above the law, so why should we be surprised that only 3 silly boys out of 400 have been seen as acting criminally after essentially internal investigations that cleared half the parliament of financially benefitting from the lax rules that were in and remain in place.

@Alec

Could you explain why Sturgeon, as an unmarried female politician, should be afraid?

Alex, In what context. ?

But dont worry Cameron has promised to improve relations with Salmond. I do not think he will have to do much. His first job after being elected will be to visit Mr salmond in Scotland so you can all look forward to that.

I agree that she is a numpty to do this and wee eck is being disingenous with the actualite, but, as Miss Sturgeon is a leading intellectual within the SNP wee eck will support her as he can’t afford the brain drain.

Then again, she may just be following the lead of the MPs and believe what we are being told every day by MPs.

If you’re caught and pay back the money then you don’t go to gaol.

You even get to keep your state pension and redundancy/retirment lump sum.

She may beleive that, what’s good enough for MPs is good enough for the hoi polloi and everyday fraudsters/thieves.

http://thejaggythistle.blogspot.com/2010/02/110.html

The Scotsman has a very good piece today on the affair, with perhaps the most notable bits top and bottom

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/news/Alex-Salmond-dodges-defence-of.6066575.jp

Salmond, as the paper says, dodged the question five times, and up till now – as the quotes at the end show – Ms Sturgeon has taken a zero tolerance approach to cheats and corruption.

Mike Russell is not in the clear over his wee scandal, either. I happen to think that one is a shame. Up until the blog business, I had Russell down as one of Hoyrood’s good guys. But the two fish cakes – Salmond & Sturgeon – really deserve their battering.

Incidentally, people keep on about Salmond mastering Gray in debate. Am no fan – to put it mildly – of Mr Gray, but I don’t really think the punters take any notice of such ‘skills’, any more than they did of Hague’s abilities as debater.

John Harris, in a current Guardian blog, is saying that a turnout of around 50% in a general election would mean that the winning party would have no mandate. Yet at the last Holyood election the SNP won with 32% of a 52% turnout.

Great shame that half of the Scottish electorate couldn’t be bothered to turn out, but that’s democracy for you. The turnout for the general election will certainly be higher, which strengthens my view that Scots see Westminster as where the real power lies.

You are claiming, as an SNP supporter, that it would have been against the Human Rights Act for Nicol not to have written a letter to the court asking the judge not to send her (my) constituent to jail? Seriously?

You may well have an excuse for this level of ignorance, but isn’t Nicola a lawyer?

For the umpteenth time (and this is something that Nicola – and yes, even Alex – knows), MSPs and MPs may well have a duty to listen to a constituent’s case. But they then have to decide whether or not they should act on that information. If the answer is that they should act, they should consider how to act. A constituent will not always propose a course of action that his MP or MSP thinks is appropriate. In this case, of course, Nicola assumed that doing exactly what was asked of her was entirely appropriate. That is a judgment she chose to make – not one she was obliged to make.

Googling for stuff on Ms Sturgeon, this article came up: Hands up if you agree with Nicola says the Scottish Sun:

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2850593/Hands-up-if-you-agree-with-Nicola-Sturgeon.html

Quite a good and fair-minded article. I don’t know anything about the Scottish Sun, but its political reporting seems in a different league to its sister paper in England. I wonder if they will come under pressure from high to write less critically about the SNP when we’re closer to the election? (Since the Tories are a lost cause in Scotland, the SNP are going to fill the role of useful idiots.)

If Nicola thought by her actions she might woo some Labour or LibDem Muslim voters to the SNP flag, it was astonishingly crass – very demeaning to law-abiding Muslims (ie the vast majority). The fraudster’s neighbour hits the nail on the head:
Durder Virhia, 74, said: “They are a friendly family but he has committed a crime. Votes are the only reason she can have for writing that letter.”

Iain Gray reveals his teachers background by asking for a show of hands, but rather exposes his lack of respect for procedure. There are wee buttons to press for votes and – correct me if I’m wrong – the Speaker tends to organise that bit. SNP MSPs (in fact no MSP) needs to respond to any impromptu call for a vote, and they didn’t…

Alex asks me this question.

>> Could you explain why Sturgeon, as an unmarried female politician, should be afraid?

Answer. No.

Johnny, that would be Alec…..

I’m no great fan of the SNP partly because I dislike the bombastic tactics used by its leader, although I do look forward to hearing his comments if London is not left swinging on the end of a Scottish rope after the general election.

However, I have a certain admiration for Ms Sturgeon. She appears very loyal, behaved graciously when Alec Salmond returned to be leader, therefore delaying her chance of doing so and has matured in many ways over the years. She is probably one of their greatest assets.

She made an error of judgment, for some reason. Looking at her wretched face yesterday, I think she knows that. Why on earth was she not advised to simply apologise, or express regret, or admit to naivety? Surely that would have closed the story down far quicker. Even if the opposition and press had gone for her still, the line:”She made a mistake, she apologised, it won’t happen again, that’s an end to it,” would have stood. After all, we all make mistakes, and the public often cries out for honest politicians who admit when they are wrong.

Now we have potentially two weeks of continued coverage and speculation before her statement. There will be incessant digging around to find any link between Ms Sturgeon and her law breaking constituent. It’s not her who needs to resign, it’s a couple of rather inept advisers.

By the way, did anyone else love the spirited performance by her deputy on Newsnight whose defence was that Gordon Brown did the same thing long ago for a constituent of his who had been growing cannabis at home? No matter what the question from Gordon Brewer, she managed to get that answer in every time. Impressive!

Question from Alex.

Johnny, that would be Alec…..

Answer. Yes.

This is all just waffle. Anybody can read the Official Report of the Scottish Parliament and see that.

I suggest you go back and read the actual letter again.

Nicola Sturgeon took up Mr Rauf’s case eighteen months ago, long before it came to court.

She could not possibly have rejected it on the basis that he might, eighteen months in the future, have asked her to do something inappropriate.

So that is not really an argument.

Your case – and that of the Labour Party – does not revolve around whether or not she should have supported him as a constituent. And a good thing too. I would truly hope that no MP or MSP would reject any constituent that came to a surgery on the off chance that they might prove politically troublesome in future. Political considerations should have no bearing on how you deal with constituents.

What you are saying is that it was inappropriate for her to write a letter of support for one of her constituents. He may also be one of yours but you have never met him and you know nothing about him except what you have read in the press.

under the new(made up) snp version of Holyrood’s Code of Conduct

If a convicted Felon writes a letter to the Court the msp is duty bound to sign it regardless of its content.

Even if someone has to hold their hand and guides the signature.

You have to pity the poor msp being forced by the code of conduct to do such
an onerous task.

And to think that Labour invented the Scottish Parliament…

Johnny

not a question

A statement…

>> Nicola Sturgeon took up Mr Rauf’s case eighteen months ago, long before it came to court.

Twelve years after he was convicted of the Tollcross fraud.

STOP PRESS – Abdul Rauf has been ripped off!

Peter: ‘It’s like thinking of a witty retorton the way home hours after the initial insult. Iain Gray has to be faster on his feet, like him or not Alex Salmond gets the better of him most of the time.’

L’esprit d’escalier.

Gray should do his homework.

@ Nicky:

The Scottish Sun’s political reporter is an excellent guy.

His first novel (a love story with nothing to do with politics) was a bestseller. It’s called ‘The Good Mayor’ and is well worth a read.

[...] MSPs. However, in his defence, he omits a number of qualifications written into the code, prompting Tom Harris MP to accuse the FM of misleading [...]