There's a stench of misogyny in political circles and not only in Holyrood !

The dictionary definition of Misogyny is;

 "A Hatred of, aversion to, or prejudice against women"

Why in the 21st century is there still an old fashioned male attitude that women have their place in domesticity and nowhere else !

Tell that to Angela Merkel, Christine Lagarde, Kamala Harris and Jacinda Ardern if you dare !

Democratic countries where human rights are respected and where women are able to reach top positions in society are also the countries that are the best-equipped to handle crises by Covid-19. 

I deliberately include Scotland in this category since, under the leadership of Nicola Sturgeon (who by the way appears at No 59 on the Forbes 200 list of the worlds most influential and powerful women) the country has progressed better than our neighbour under her aegis with dealing with the pandemic and the vagaries of access to PPE initially, since it/they (the contracts) were being dished out amongst the Tory Party faithful. 

No other woman in the United (?) Kingdom Government appears on the Forbes List of the world's most influential and powerful women.  

Could it be that Boris Johnson has a misogynistic attitude towards women since the only one of any importance in his cabinet is the previously fired/sacked  Priti Patel?  His past life with those of the opposite gender is chequered to say the least, but enough of him!

In Scotland we too have had a dominant former First Minister who, were it not for (by his own admission) his not being a Saint, would have been as important to the Scots as it is possible to be without actually fighting a war against England! This weakness on his part led to his downfall whether he likes to admit it or not. 

His downfall led to our having a female First Minister who is head and shoulders above her counterparts in the UK and that includes the feelings of our neighbours in England.  Why then is there a metaphoric witch hunt for the most capable political leader of our (and previous) generations?

It is precisely this popularity and confidence by the vast majority of people in her ability and honesty (anathema in politics) that has set the machinations of Westminster and their lackeys north of the border to combine to try and chop her down. The muppets purporting to be the Scottish Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats parties, really are pathetic and I don't say that lightly.  It is embarrassing that these puppets of Westminster actually get paid for their pathetic attempts at political posturing.

THE FACT REMAINS THAT WOMEN ARE MUCH BETTER AT RUNNING THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT THAN MEN !!  (EXCEPT PRITI PATEL & ARCH SCOTS CLOWN RUTH DAVIDSON)

The "Utter Madness" of a PM and the slow death of the Tories.

 My genuine Tory friends (I actually have some!) in England will no doubt disagree with the premise that the buffoon who presently resides in No 10 Downing Street is to any objective standard, the worst in the history of the United Kingdom if not democracy itself globally.

Despite the "buffoonery" and comic bluster from the former participant in "Have I got News for You"; this man is the epitome of narcissism, misogynism and self centred greed which is endemic in his world, a world that excludes anyone who doesn't have the requisite wealth to smooth the path that everyone else has to clamber over.

It is his clowning which allows him to get away with the brazen right wing policies that he has espoused. The great British public see him as a harmless joker who bumbles around looking slightly shoddy in his hairstyle and bluster. The pandemic is Global but in the Tory heartland of England, he and his cronies have overseen spending in the order of £37 Billion on a system called "Track and Trace" and it has to be said the only thing it has traced is the distribution of the various contracts disbursed by his inner circle to their friends and financial backers. The fact that Dido Harding a.k.a. "Baroness" Diana Mary Harding of Winscombe to give her the title she carries from one financial cock-up to the next, is marginally more useful than a fart in a space-suit.

The latest financial cock-up proposed by the clown Boris is; despite having signed up to a non-proliferation treaty on Nuclear Weapons, he intends increasing the stock of the self same weapons by circa 40%. Britain's word is not worth the paper it is written on !!

In a world that is increasingly dangerous in terms of war, pestilence, global warming, famine and mass unemployment this absolute buffoon persists in a policy which is idiosyncratic to say the least.  

From my own knowledge, the Ministry of Defence couldn't buy sex in a brothel with £200 in one hand and a Doctor's certificate in the other. Yet Blundering Boris commits the UK to spending at least £167 Billion (though their track record of budgeting will probably be nearer £220 Billion by the time it ends up) in renewing a system that could destroy the entire globe on its own!

I could go on and on ad infinitum about their gross profligacy with the UK's finances but since we have never had a Tory Government in 65 years in Scotland, there is a better than even chance that we will get Independence while the less fortunate neighbours south of Hadrian's Wall can watch them (the Tories) fail miserably.

Politics and Football are a poisonous cocktail !

Holyrood 

The Scottish Parliament

Parlamaid na h-Alba

There are times in life when utter despair overwhelms you! This despair I hasten to add has nothing really to do with my personal life. In that respect things could not be better! 

• I have the love of my life in Wilma.
• I have a beautiful house without a mortgage in a city and region which I truly adore!
• We're comfortable enough financially, so won't starve.
• We're not too physically constrained despite being Septuagenarians.

So why the angst I hear you ask?  There are literally millions in the UK who are not a tenth so lucky as Bunty and I are.

The answer is politics in SCOTLAND !! 

For some 65 years Scotland has avoided a Tory Government here, yet have been anchored/manacled to various blends of them in Westminster and I include the form of Labour that has been in effect Tory Light with a form of socialism that Keir Hardy most assuredly would not recognise !

A couple of years or so ago it was looking like a "shoo-in" for Independence ! We had a defeat in 2014 but only on the basis of "Project Fear" from Westminster telling the electorate that their pensions were at risk if they voted to leave the UK, but events subsequently had shown this to be absolute nonsense and to be frank about it; lies, damned lies and bent statistics!

Where does football come into this? A fair question were it not for the lunacy that pervades Scottish Football especially in the largest city Glasgow.  There are two clubs in Glasgow that frankly exude mutual hatred and is based on religion.

Celtic           equals Roman Catholicism with hints of Irish extraction.

Rangers       equals Orange Protestantism with loyalist inclinations.

To the central point of this blog !  

The tribal nonsense emanating from both sides in Glasgow is endangering freedom for Scotland by the vast majority of Rangers fans clinging to so called "Loyalism" to the crown and the Union Jack whilst declaring themselves to be anti-Independence despite the fact that their livelihoods' are most assuredly not going to be enhanced by the likes of Boris Johnson and his right  wing band of crooks.  

Whilst at the same time the Celtic fans are adamant that Nicola Sturgeon is tacitly supporting Rangers by not hammering them for the crowd scenes last weekend and as such they won't be voting for her on that basis. 

It beggars belief that working class fans of both sides are so blind to the impact of control by a frankly obscenely biased Tory Party that they'd prefer to metaphorically "Cut off their noses to spite their faces"

At 74 years of age I'm unlikely to see past another decade or so, but this has an impact on all of their futures and those of their off-spring's .

Leave the football crap on the football pitch this is about your future !

Dildo Harding spaffs more money on Test & Trace £37 Billion is more than the entire Scottish annual budget £34 Billion on her failed system!

"Baroness" Diane Mary Harding of Winscombe (Dido) to her cronies, with her husband John Penrose a Conservative M.P.  (Quelle surprise!).  

The redoubtable Dido has form in terms of spending public cash on flogging "Dead Horses"  and that ironically since she was a Champion jockey, and that her biggest gaff to date (prior to this "Test & Trace" fiasco) was Talk Talk mobile phones which rumbled up a bill for £60+ million. 

One of her other "attributes" considering where it is thought the UK dropped the ball at the start of the Covid 19 crisis in 2020 was allowing the Cheltenham Racing Festival to proceed at a time when social distancing was a dilemma for Sage!  

Surprise, surprise ! Who has a board position at the Jockey Club responsible for the festival?  Yes you guessed it "Dido" Harding!

Not that I'm suggesting that her rise to prominence had anything to do with links to the Tory Party or that her appointments were down to that allied to having studied at Magdalen College alongside David Cameron. 

          Aye Right you are Dido !!!

For those "Unionists"  here in Scotland, I am suggesting that this is a glaring example of Tory "Chumocracy" and the very idea that this "Union" is one of equality based on fairness is ludicrous bordering on insanity !  The choice is yours in May and it is more about your children than yourselves.

The "Demise of a Leader" and the rise of his Replacement

The whole sorry saga over Alex Salmond and his "alleged" behaviour towards women who worked for him has been a potentially enormous banana skin for the SNP and the present leadership.

That banana skin provided the Scottish opposition parties with the ammunition they so desperately needed as the inexorable rise of Scotland's desire for Independence gathered with 20 + successive polls showing a lead for the SNP.

Alex Salmond's resignation from the leadership of the party in 2014 and he was replaced by Nicola Sturgeon, but continued as an MP in Westminster until he lost his Gordon seat to of all people, a Tory of whom nothing is known, Colin Clark !  This pillar of Conservatism (Clark) lasted a whole two years before disappearing from public view.  

In truth, I thought myself fairly up to date with politics in Scotland until this came up!  In the Scottish world of political movement to have unseated what was a metaphoric giant of the political sphere north of the border and then to disappear after a mere two years in politics takes some doing. 

In August 2018, he (Salmond) resigned from the SNP in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct in 2013 while he was First Minister. In a statement he said that he wanted to avoid internal division within the party and intended to apply to re-join the SNP once he had an opportunity to clear his name.

There's an "oxymoron" if ever there was one! 

"Alex wants to avoid internal division within the party"

This is precisely what he has caused and to greater effect than all the opposition representation combined.

My opinion (for what it's worth) is that having admitted and apologised for his behaviour to one woman, and acquitted on numerous other charges (?) there is no doubt that his attitude towards women under his power/influence is that of someone who thinks that he can behave in a chauvinistic and frankly misogynistic fashion towards them. My heartfelt sympathies lie with his wife, an innocent in this moral debacle. He truly has done more damage to Independence than the entire Westminster cabal and if it results in the loss of Independence then he would be well advised to emigrate.

A Whitehall "Farce" without Brian Rix or the Theatre of that name!!

 Those of us who are of a certain age remember fondly the "Whitehall Farces" in the 50's and 60's in the Whitehall Theatre, London. These plays were fairly innocent comedy sketches highlighting the vagaries of Government, the Armed Forces and mainstream life in the UK at the time! 

As an aside, Brian Rix also made a series of television "farces" which dominated the theatrical ones insofar that they had a wider audience via the new medium of television ! This popularity of his ninety T.V. farces made Rix the highest paid actor on the only television medium at the time, the BBC.

  

This then is the history of "Whitehall Farces" and in truth they were an absolutely innocent, joy to watch.

Sixty + years later and the public have a new form of "Whitehall Farce", the only difference is that, this farce has nothing to do with the Theatre of that name! Nor do we have the benefit of the redoubtable Brian Rix scripting this farce.

In London, the ‘White Hall’ of Henry VIII was associated with rather more serious aspects of government and was the building before which Charles I was later executed on 30 January 1649. A scaffold was constructed in front of the building and the execution party stepped out on to it from a first floor window.

A massive palace, it had more than 1,500 rooms and featured an indoor tennis court, a bowling green and a cock-fighting pit, all put in by Henry VIII. In 1698, the palace of Whitehall was gutted by fire and never rebuilt. 

Whitehall becoming the site for key administrative offices such as the Treasury and 10 Downing Street. Military buildings also surround the site, including Horse Guards. The term ‘Whitehall’ refers not just to the site of the former Palace of Whitehall, but to the bureaucratic institutions of the government in general.

The "Den of Iniquity" or "Farce H.Q." if you want!

The present occupant of No 10 has apparently had upwards of £100,000 spent on decorating the flat in No 11 Downing Street in the taste of his latest flame Ms Carrie Symonds;

Obviously Ms Symonds is at the forefront of the colour blind and technicolour nightmare movement.  What is "farcical" in this particular decorative sin against humanity is that both she and her erstwhile fiancé Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson have appealed for a charity to be set up to pay for this cultural monstrosity.