HOW SALMOND KILLED ANGELIKA! EXCLUSIVE TO THE RECORD!
A couple of days ago, watching the four Holyrood kingpins dodge questions from yet another farrago of Nationalists, Trots and Tories, congealed into one seething anti-Labour audience, I was surprised to feel pity for our pretendy premier. The consensus, repeated loudly and often over the last few weeks, is that McConnell is a laughing stock, a nano-pygmy who was over-promoted on leaving the womb. "Joke McDonnell". "The best wee numpty in the world". As the host ended the programme with a gag about the kilt incident, the "ha ha I'm not afraid to laugh at myself" grin on McConnell's face was haunting.
It's not very fair. He's probably been the best FM so far - certainly better than Donald Three-Millions, the Fucker of the Nation, whose praises Smug Eck now disingenuously sings. But no statues will be defaced in McConnell's memory. It's comforting to realise, however, that even this sub-Bonar Law footnote in history lasted, at the very least, twice as long as Gordon Brown will.
The stars are aligned so perfectly for the SNP that it's surreal. It appears that Labour's support has been stripped to its two core demographics: those who are unaware that other parties exist, and employees of the Labour Party. They can't even find non-apparatchiks willing to appear in their PPBs, whose full-screen marquees of "£5000 SNP TAX: HOW WILL YOUR FAMILY COPE?!?!?", repeated at ten-second intervals, don't just kill satire, they skin it alive, immerse it in salt and vinegar, and force-feed the remains to its children. One of the more honest, not to say optimistic, Labour spokesmen predicts that "in this campaign, after ten years in government, it is fear, not hope, that will win". A hated Chancellor, attempting to outdo Kissinger, tells the electorate that he will only cooperate with them if they vote the right way, before going on to accuse the Nats of being wreckers. Meanwhile, his multifarious enemies have at last united, more or less, under one banner. The SNP leader even has a name beginning with A, for fuck's sake, enabling them to place him at a stategic position at the top of the regional ballot. To the Martian of cliche, it must seem that the gig really is up.
And yet, I think Labour are going to edge this, and I retain some small suspicion that the SNP have been played all along. The media brutality they used to receive is now being meted out to Labour (with the Daily Pravda, of course, the exception that proves the rule). The Sunday Herald rounds off an interview with a trusting McConnell by declaring that he deserves to lose his seat. We're told that Andy Kerr and Gordon Jackson are preparing to do just that, and that even, deliriously, Wendy Alexander may succumb to the yellow tide in Paisley. A number of broadsheets have endorsed the SNP. Certainly if they're heading for a fall now, the breathless hype will make it the harder. One wonders if our masters are enacting the Jimmy Cliff stratagem: campaign so that you stand to lose nothing, and your enemies everything.
The last poll showed the SNP only one and two points ahead on the regional and constituency votes. A single stake of £12,000 was placed on Labour yesterday, which indicates strongly that someone knows something. The hope now for the self-proclaimed forces of fear is that Labour's soft vote, temporarily seduced by the SNP, will ultimately jilt them at the altar, at the polling booth, and decide to stick with the Satan that they think they know. Such last-minute cold feet will save it for Labour, I think. This election isn't primarily about independence, the council tax, Iraq, or Trident (though I'd rate the latter as the most important of the "issues"). It's about whether Scotland will become, like other liberal western democracies, a two-party state. It's the first time in living memory that this has been a possibility, it may be the last for decades, and there's only one way to realise it.
Anyway, here's a fun wee clip for you Mensheviks out there.
It's not very fair. He's probably been the best FM so far - certainly better than Donald Three-Millions, the Fucker of the Nation, whose praises Smug Eck now disingenuously sings. But no statues will be defaced in McConnell's memory. It's comforting to realise, however, that even this sub-Bonar Law footnote in history lasted, at the very least, twice as long as Gordon Brown will.
The stars are aligned so perfectly for the SNP that it's surreal. It appears that Labour's support has been stripped to its two core demographics: those who are unaware that other parties exist, and employees of the Labour Party. They can't even find non-apparatchiks willing to appear in their PPBs, whose full-screen marquees of "£5000 SNP TAX: HOW WILL YOUR FAMILY COPE?!?!?", repeated at ten-second intervals, don't just kill satire, they skin it alive, immerse it in salt and vinegar, and force-feed the remains to its children. One of the more honest, not to say optimistic, Labour spokesmen predicts that "in this campaign, after ten years in government, it is fear, not hope, that will win". A hated Chancellor, attempting to outdo Kissinger, tells the electorate that he will only cooperate with them if they vote the right way, before going on to accuse the Nats of being wreckers. Meanwhile, his multifarious enemies have at last united, more or less, under one banner. The SNP leader even has a name beginning with A, for fuck's sake, enabling them to place him at a stategic position at the top of the regional ballot. To the Martian of cliche, it must seem that the gig really is up.
And yet, I think Labour are going to edge this, and I retain some small suspicion that the SNP have been played all along. The media brutality they used to receive is now being meted out to Labour (with the Daily Pravda, of course, the exception that proves the rule). The Sunday Herald rounds off an interview with a trusting McConnell by declaring that he deserves to lose his seat. We're told that Andy Kerr and Gordon Jackson are preparing to do just that, and that even, deliriously, Wendy Alexander may succumb to the yellow tide in Paisley. A number of broadsheets have endorsed the SNP. Certainly if they're heading for a fall now, the breathless hype will make it the harder. One wonders if our masters are enacting the Jimmy Cliff stratagem: campaign so that you stand to lose nothing, and your enemies everything.
The last poll showed the SNP only one and two points ahead on the regional and constituency votes. A single stake of £12,000 was placed on Labour yesterday, which indicates strongly that someone knows something. The hope now for the self-proclaimed forces of fear is that Labour's soft vote, temporarily seduced by the SNP, will ultimately jilt them at the altar, at the polling booth, and decide to stick with the Satan that they think they know. Such last-minute cold feet will save it for Labour, I think. This election isn't primarily about independence, the council tax, Iraq, or Trident (though I'd rate the latter as the most important of the "issues"). It's about whether Scotland will become, like other liberal western democracies, a two-party state. It's the first time in living memory that this has been a possibility, it may be the last for decades, and there's only one way to realise it.
Anyway, here's a fun wee clip for you Mensheviks out there.