Liveblog round 2: Who the fuck are these people?
Posted by Jack in Uncategorized, tags: elections, Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Tories
Are you watching the Scottish Leaders’ Election debate tonight?
We thought not. But SSY plans to repeat our feat of last week by bringing you LIVEBLOGGING action of ‘Scotland Debates,’ and in the process doubling STV’s viewing figures!
Why are we so sure that there’ll be so few watching? Well let’s start the fact that all those taking part are absolute fucking mystery men.
Don’t get us wrong, the people who write this blog are nerdy about politics. But we literally have not heard of most of the people representing the “major” parties on STV tonight. You’d think that if you were pitching for people’s vote you would put up a face they know, like Alex Salmond. But no, all the Scottish party leaders are MSPs, and are not standing in this Westminster election. Quite why they still aren’t allowed to come and represent their parties policies is beyond us.
What this farce does illustrate though is the growing political gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK. Last week we watched Brown, Cameron and Clegg say they’d do a bunch of stuff they have no power to do in Scotland. We look forward to seeing wtf all these Westminster MPs are going to debate tonight, given they only have power over things like foreign affairs, broadcasting or drugs (as if they’d have a debate about that.) All the big domestic issues, like health and education, are run by the Scottish Parliament, so the government that’ll be elected in May has no power over them here.
So who the fuck are these nonentities. As we wait with feverish excitement (not) for the debate to begin, we bring you a quick profile of the participants.
-Jim Murphy, the Secretary for State for Scotland in Her Majesty’s Government. Otherwise known as a completely pointless job since the Scottish Parliament was invented. In fact what Jim Murphy does is act as the member of the government responsible for campaigning for Labour in Scotland. He takes this job so seriously he often confuses the city of Glasgow with the Labour Party, something Leftfield has commented on before. He’s a former student bureaucrat for the NUS, and a former chair of Labour Friends of Israel.
-Angus Robertson, the leader of the SNP at Westminster. OK, we’re on shakier territory here, I know pretty much nothing about him though. Some swift googling however reveals that in the expenses scandal he claimed £1, 119 for a TV, £400 for a Home Cinema System, £500 for a bed and £2,324 for a sofa bed. So we’re guessing he likes to relax with a movie. At your expense.
-David Mundell, the ONLY Scottish Tory MP, and therefore the Shadow Scottish Secretary, by virtue of having literally no competition. Apparently a couple of years ago he wrote a memo which got leaked to the Record denouncing the leadership of the Scottish Tories, saying there was “a simple lack of thinkers” and that they were incapable of coming up with new policies. We wonder what leader of the Scottish Tories Annabel Goldie will be thinking as she watches him on the “leaders” debate.
-Alistair Carmichael, who is allegedly a Lib Dem MP for Orkney and Shetland. Why we are seeing this man is a total mystery to us. Apparently he was once part of a successful campaign to ban a book which slagged off islanders. Maybe he burned the author in a Wicker man, we don’t know, we’re speculating at this point.
So, are you thrilled and exciting yet?!?! Below are pictures of the mystery men. If you know which one is which you officially need to get a life.
21.03-”All these questions will be directly relevant to Scotland.” Unfortunately, they will be answered by completely irrelevant people.
21.06-Murphy “A perfect storm has scunnered Scotland.” The man from the government said that twice.
21.07-Angus Robertson is going on about expenses. See above about his really expensive telly.
21.08-The mystery Lib Dem man has been a mystery Lib Dem man since he was 14 and has never been this excited! Clegg-mania!
21.09-The Tory looks like a creepy, surprised owl. He’s keen to stress it’s a British election, otherwise he’d be completely irrelevant.
21.12-Nasal Murphy wants to cut the cost of dole scum! “We’re committed to raising the national minimum wage”, an impressive promise of something that happens every year anyway.
21.13-David Mundell has waste in his system that needs to come out now. He should eat more fibre.
21.19-David Mundell sez that no other party on the planet apart from the SNP pretends there doesn’t need to be cuts. Erm, actually the SSP does! And we’ve actually got a way we could do it! Take the money off ur banker pals!
21.21-Shouty man is shouting at “the guy in the red tie”. Even the audience don’t know who these fuckers are. He wants the old jobs back, not new ones. Murphy is not however promising to employ him as a town crier or jester tho.
21.25-Lib Dem man says we forget 9/11 too easily. 9 a what now? “It would be foolish to set a timetable for withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan.” Yeah, cos there’s no real timescale to an unwinnable war really is there?
21.27-Murphy says that we either fight the Taliban in Afghanistan or we fight them here. Meanwhile, Afghan warlords are massing for an assault on the Piping Centre, because of all the anti-war traitors that didn’t want to fight them over there.
21.29-Is Angus Robertson chewing a sweet?
21.30-Jim Murphy has a war planning diary, but he will NEVER write retreat in it. Nor will he ever ring the Taliban to say he’s leaving. Presumably he wouldn’t need to cos as soon as our troops left Afghanistan the Taliban would take power in Scotland, like wot he said.
21.33-Mundell “If you have an independent review, you should stick by what it says”, especially if it means I get to keep my lovely lovely expenses cash.
21.34-Could a devious individual invent a new species of flipping? What will flipper the dolphin say about this new species and the MP scientist responsible?
21.38-Woman in the audience-”I understand what expenses are for, but the system is a joke. It needs to get sorted out. WOW, insightful.
21.39-Mundell is like a fat version of Ben from Lost. He answers questions in the same evasive way, with an undertone of menace. Or there would be menace if he wasn’t so unscary (personally, not politically.)
21.42-In a poll, what’s the difference between being undecided and not having an opinion. Were some people militant about not having an opinion, and didn’t dare want to be lumped with the people who haven’t decided if they have an opinion yet?
21.44-Murphy: “There’s too much squabbling in politics.” Maybe we should have some kind of bizarre electoral system where no matter what happens Labour will always get elected to most of the seats in Scotland, but it doesn’t really matter because all the main parties agree we need cuts and to give big business whatever they want. Oh, wait. . .
21.48-Lib Dem man gets excited: “HOW DARE YOU DENY PEOPLE THEIR RIGHT TO LOVELY CLEGG! THERE’S A THIRD CHOICE AND IT’S AWESOME!”
21.49-Insightful woman with the earrings strikes again. “If everyone just worked together we could have a brilliant Britain.” People like you elected Hitler, lol.
21.52-Did you notice how Angus Robertson had a funny tone when he said “Northern. . .Irish representation” to allude he’s going to be pally with the crazy DUP?
21.53-While they drone on, news reaches us by text. Apparently Murphy used to be kind of involved with the RCP, and thought the militant tendency were not left wing enough. We hear he was a hardline vegetarian with pro-Palestine views. . . Then he became a right wing hack chair of Friends of Israel. What a twat.
Is that it? God, nothing makes you feel like you live in a diddy country than some pish like that nonsense, or watching the televisual tranquiliser Newsnight Scotland.
Our reactions:
Sarah: “THAT WAS PISH.”
TheWorstWitch: “That was the worst TV I’ve ever watched.” (Please note, her favourite TV shows include You Are What You Eat and Snog, Marry Avoid, so she has low standards for telly, and even she hated it.)
Liam T: “Why wasn’t Nick Clegg on it? He’s the BEST! I wish he’d buy Arran so I could call him ‘Your Lordship.’”
Entries (RSS)
Jim Murphy was scandalous!
What are we gonna cut? Welfare, welfare, let’s cut welfare! All these slackers on benefits are getting more money than our hard working families, blah blah.
“It should be the rule in this country that you’re never better off on benefits than if you’re working.” …? Yeah, like now. Being on benefits is really fucking hard, Jim! Try it!
This is an embarrassing farce.
Well that was shite.
Murphy is a vegetarian who took a trip to the World Cup in 2006 paid for by McDonald’s, a pro-Palestinian demonstrater who is now in Labour Friends of Israel and a former member of Militant that is now in New Labour. With a track record like this, I have no doubt that he is in fact a benefits fraudster who finds that going on TV to denounce scroungers is a great way of keeping the social off his back.
How misleading were the opening credits by the way!! They featured Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Alex Salmond – were they trying to trick us into watching by pretending that there would be people we’ve heard of on it?
Someone should do Snog, Marry, Avoid with the leaders of all 3 major political parties.
Snog, Marry, Avoid is just a weak telly version of Shag, Marry, Kill that does not answer the vital questions.
In fact I remember an epic sambuca fuelled game of the latter at my old flat with Ewan and Sarah. I recall it got disgusting.
Murphy wasnt a member of Militant he was on the fringes of the RCP and was heavily involved in an Irish republican solidarity group they ran which was more or less open house for Mi5. I wonder when he was recruited by mi5? 1st or 2nd year?