You'll have had your Union

Saturday, 04 February 2012 22:29

19 Comments

by Paul Kavanagh

The greatest recruiting sergeant for the cause of Scottish independence has again laid into the debate, in a move which looks likely to provoke yet another surge in SNP membership applications and drive undecideds and supporters of fiscal autonomy into the independence camp. 

David 'Respect Agenda' Cameron morphed into Little Britain's Carol "computer says no" Beer and announced last weekend that if you want more powers for the Scottish Parliament within the UK, you can forget it.  Scottish democracy is incompatible with the Union, it does not compute.  So now Scots know, Davie says: "You'll have had your Union."

Uppity Caledonian natives aren't allowed to tell Westminster what we want.  Westminster in its immense grace and favour will tell us what we can have, and we'll jolly well be grateful, tug our forelocks and defer to His Etonness and his chums.  How can we possibly know what system of government we want when we don't even understand the rules of cricket.  Scots think googlies are those dangly bits between Westminster's legs that deserve a good kicking.    

We're all terribly style conscious these days, so for your fashion convenience Tories now come in three fetching colours, traditional blue, co-dependent yellow, and a washed out red with a hint of adenoid.  Ed Miligeek came to Glasgow last week to strut his stuff on the Unionist catwalk and do an impression of Gok Wan, Scotland can look good when it's politically naked.  Like an anorexic supermodel Ed tried to convince us that half a Holyrood raisin and a ton of Wesminster laxatives was a filling and nutritious devolution meal.  

Ed told us Scots would be betraying the working classes of England and Wales by getting as far away from Westminster as our wee hairy legs can carry us.  Labour wants us to stay in the Union because they're big fans of Monty Python's Life of Brian.  In the remake they're planning, Ed Miligeek will play Brian, who's not the Messiah just a very naughty boy, and equally incapable of producing a miracle.  When Ed gets crucified by posh Roman Davidicus Cameronus and his pal Woger Osbornio, Scotland will get a bit part in the very last scene.  We're pencilled in to play the suicide squad who kill themselves in a pointless act of solidarity.  Scotland will be screwed, but at least Ed won't feel abandoned.

Ed mentioned Scotland 23 times in his speech.  He mentioned himself 51 times, so Ed's speech was more about Ed than it was about us.  Due to spending so much time talking about himself, Ed didn't give us a list of all the things the Labour Romans have done for us, like PFI, privatisation in the NHS, renewing Trident, prescription charges, charges for personal care for the elderly, Glesga cooncil becoming a by-word for corruption, university tuition fees, caps on benefits, allowing bankers to run riot, giving Fred Shred a knighthood, and allowing George Foulkes to remain in Parliament even after he was convicted of being drunk and disorderly and assaulting a polis on his way to vote in the House of Commons.  There's respect for the rule of law for you.

Ed Miligeek's problem is that he wants us to ask him to fix the country.  In reality the only thing we're likely to ask Ed is whether he could explain one of the finer points in the rules of Dungeons and Dragons.  He did get one thing right in his speech.  Most Scots have the same interests as most English folk.  But where he went spectacularly agley was claiming that Westminster is the best solution to our problems.  Westminster is the problem Ed.  

Also this week, Johann Lamont at Furst Meinister's Questions showed her firm grasp of nuance as she attempted to make political capital out of an anodyne letter His Eckness had written to Fred before he was shredded and when Westminster still thought he walked on financial water and magicked money out of thin air.  Eck said he hoped the RBS takeover of ABN Amro would be a success, which was a perfectly reasonable thing to say under the circumstances.  Had he said "Don't do it Fred it will all go terribly wrong", Labour would only have laid into him for doing down Scottish business.  

But Labour and the BBC Scotland news team have forgotten all that now.  So at FMQs we got the bold Johann going: "Nyah nyah.  You wrote a letter of support to thon banker my party gave a knighthood to.  Ya mug."  Johann didn't notice the egg yolk dripping down her face and splattering her briefing notes.  The Beeb's political correspondent, Brian Tayloring the News to Unionist Expections, marked this down as a score draw, which is a surprise, as you'd think Brian could sniff out a fried egg muffin at 1000 paces.

The politically undead in the House of Zombies were at it again.  We can't kill political zombies, they'll keep on trying to eat us however many times we've stuck a stake through their electoral hearts.  Zombie Foulkes and Zombie Forsyth threatened to reduce the powers of Holyrood because they think the Scottish government's policy of free university education is racist.  Because of European rules, students from other EU states get treated as Scottish residents, but students resident in other parts of the UK have to pay tuition fees like they do elsewhere in the UK thanks to Westminster.  Although resolving this anomaly with Brussels is a power Westminster jealously reserves for itself, Foulkes and Forsyth were only interested in consuming the flesh of the Scottish Parliament, because decisions made in Brussels are all Eck's fault and the undead dislike the taste of garlic.

Tory Zombie Strathclyde complained that the House of Zombies is handicapped in discussing Scottish affairs because there are no Scottish nationalist zombies.   Zombie Strathclyde proposed biting a few SNP people to turn them into zombies, then the interests of zombies would be better served.  Two seconds on google could have told him that it's been SNP policy since 2005 to avoid Westminster's upper house like a zombie plague, but he's unable to use the internet because his fingers fall off when he types.

Meanwhile, Michele the Moan the bra and undies wummin made her ritual threat to move south if we got independence.  The tits in Westminster need her support.*  She made the same threat in 2007 if Scotland returned an SNP government, five years on she's still here like a snapped knicker elastic around Unionist ankles.  But Michele's moan was really a publicity stunt for her new product line, incontinence pants for Glesga Labour cooncillors who're keeching themselves at the prospect of being turfed out in May.

John Currie, who tells us he not a politician, just the treasurer of the local Labour branch of everyone's favourite MP Uncle Tom Harris, posted a list of scare stories on Labourhame which he believed to be a grown up contribution to the independence debate.  After saying that it was insulting to pretend that the sky would fall in after independence, John went on to insult everyone's intelligence by claiming that post independence you'll not get a public sector job unless you speak Gaelic, so nae jobs cleaning streets unless you know the Gaelic for 'steaming pile of dog crap'.   Labourhame says so, so it must be true.  Only cybernats go in for misrepresentation.

Those of us who take a keen interest in the campaign to protect Scotland's traditional languages know that this particular myth was strung up from a lamppost around the same time that Mussolini met with a similar fate, but like the House of Zombies it keeps returning from the grave.  John Currie didn't manage to help save the Union, he just illustrated how his beloved Labour party wouldn't recognise a steaming pile of crap even when it's clearly signposted in English, as on every sign and letterheading saying "Glasgow City Council".

Former BNP reptiles crawled out from under their rock in the form of a "patriotic campaign" to save the Union.  Johann Lamont must have been thrilled to discover that the extreme right is now copying her style of language and debate, claiming that the only reason Scots want independence is because we're bigots who hate the English.  Neo-fascists are now using this meme in order to gain a foothold in Scotland.  Thanks a bunch Scottish Labour.  Must be another of those "Union benefits" they keep telling us about.

The Telegraph published a bizarre article by some Tory from North London called Graeme Archer whose knowledge of Scotland could be written on the back of a postage stamp in crayon. Graeme thinks that Tories ought demonstrate the poetry of the Union in order to defeat His Eckness.  Graeme's asking for poetry, but he's got a tin ear for Scottish politics.  We'd still not vote for them even if Michael Forsyth zombied in rhyming couplets.  

The article was the same auld tripe full of the usual stereotypes and the trope that dominates London Metrovincial coverage of the referendum: it's all about Eck.  It's always Eck they want to defeat, like he'd created the demand for Scottish independence all by himself from a detergent bottle, some tin-foil and the entrails of John Noakes and Shep.  According to the Unionists Scottish voters are too stupid to notice that you can get better playthings in the Westminster branch of Toys-R-Us - though when we last checked it was only offering a shelf-load of muppets.  Graeme could have saved everyone a whole lot of bother by starting with the sentence, "And here's a model of Mel Gibson I made earlier."

But never say that a cybernat is not obliging, here's a wee Scottish Tory poem for Mr Archer.

Ther wis a krankie young Tory cawed Ruth
scare mongerin streams oot her mooth
the defenders o Union
is keechin a broon yin
kis they're feart Scots hiz funn oot the truth

Billy Connolly flounced offstage twice this week after being heckled by audience members.  Billy cannae handle being heckled by a couple of inebriated English punters, so it's scarcely surprising that his tour of the UK doesn't include a single performance north of the Border.  In Scotland he'd be facing a lot more than a few catcalls from drunks.  Billy won't be appearing in Scotland because we'd remind him that ever since he became the favourite Caledonian court jester of the Unionist establishment he's forgotten the number one rule of the Glesga patter merchant:  if ye cannae take it, don't gie it oot.  Big Yin?  Big heid mair like.

Like the Dwindled-Yin, Westminster is also pretty good at dishing it out, but cannae take it.  Now if we could only persuade them to adopt Billy Connolly's strategy of not having anything to do with Scotland, this country would be a much better place.  

But no matter, in 2014 we can give them one almighty heckle that will drive them off the stage for good.

*  I stole this line from sneckedagain.  Ta mucho.