New definition of Brass Neck.

I was going to tweet this but the sheer wrong-headedness of it, the brazen incongruity - the logic-defying, sense-denying, two-faced, obviously opportunistic, epoch-busting craven effrontery of it, means a tweet could never do it justice.

Fergus Ewing today announced there would be a moratorium on fracking in Scotland via the planning system. A UK wide moratorium was rejected at Westminster the day before yesterday with all but three Scottish Labour MP's abstaining (including Margaret Curran who claimed to have voted against.)

Brace yourself...

I'm surprised Duncan manages to tweet anything at all, his synapses no longer believe anything his neurons are peddling.

Through the vehicle of keepie-uppies (and a severe Vitamin D deficiency - the legs Jim, put them away) - Jim Murphy and his 'Scottish' Labour chums saved Scotland again.

While the vote on a moratorium on fracking took place at Westminster, Jim was dressing up as a footballer in Aberdeen. If only Scottish law makers knew this was a more effective method of changing government policy...

Well, according to some anyway...

Sometimes we stare agog at tweets & comments coming from Labour flunkies - but we forget; the only way a person could truly support 'Scottish' Labour is if they have similar values & syllogisms to 'Scottish' Labour.

I'm not sure why we're surprised.

Fracking for Normal People.

People may have been reading over the past few days about something called the Infrastructure Bill - it just had its third reading in the House of Commons yesterday (26th January.) Consequently, there is a lot of commentary going on about who voted for what. It was made more complicated because there were two votes last night.

Licences to frack are covered by the Petroleum Act 1998, I don't want to go into the details of fracking or whether its good or bad except perhaps to posit the notion; if you don't know about something its probably best left alone until you do. Currently, powers over licencing sit with the Department of Energy and Climate Change - this is a Westminster Government department so has nothing to do with Holyrood.

So what happened last night with this Infrastructure Bill? First of all, what is it. This isn't as easy to ascertain as you might think, I mean, fracking is quite important - since we don't know for sure what the ramifications are (although some accounts involve flaming taps and earthquakes) you'd think they'd make it a bit clearer.

Here's the preamble from the bill:

Make provision for strategic highways companies and the funding of transport services by land; to make provision for the control of invasive non-native species; to make provision about nationally significant infrastructure projects; to make provision about town and country planning; to make provision about the Homes and Communities Agency and Mayoral development corporations; to make provision about the Greater London Authority so far as it exercises functions for the purposes of housing and regeneration; to make provision about Her Majesty’s Land Registry and local land charges; to make provision to enable building regulations to provide for off-site carbon abatement measures; to make provision for giving members of communities the right to buy stakes in local renewable electricity generation facilities; to make provision about maximising economic recovery of petroleum in the United Kingdom; to provide for a levy to be charged on holders of certain energy licences; to enable Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to exercise functions in connection with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative; to make provision for underground access to deep-level land for the purposes of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy; to make provision about renewable heat incentives; to make provision about the reimbursement of persons who have paid for electricity connections; to make provision to enable the Public Works Loan Commissioners to be abolished; to make provision about the electronic communications code; and for connected purposes.

This is the bit about fracking:

Make provision for strategic highways companies and the funding of transport services by land; to make provision for the control of invasive non-native species; to make provision about nationally significant infrastructure projects; to make provision about town and country planning; to make provision about the Homes and Communities Agency and Mayoral development corporations; to make provision about the Greater London Authority so far as it exercises functions for the purposes of housing and regeneration; to make provision about Her Majesty’s Land Registry and local land charges; to make provision to enable building regulations to provide for off-site carbon abatement measures; to make provision for giving members of communities the right to buy stakes in local renewable electricity generation facilities; to make provision about maximising economic recovery of petroleum in the United Kingdom; to provide for a levy to be charged on holders of certain energy licences; to enable Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to exercise functions in connection with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative; to make provision for underground access to deep-level land for the purposes of exploiting petroleum or deep geothermal energy; to make provision about renewable heat incentives; to make provision about the reimbursement of persons who have paid for electricity connections; to make provision to enable the Public Works Loan Commissioners to be abolished; to make provision about the electronic communications code; and for connected purposes. 

I'm still not sure about the 'Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative' - I'm just assuming its to do with fracking. In its entirety, the bill goes on for some 109 pages but last night's activity in the House of Commons consisted of a debate then two votes.

One was to do with devolving licences to frack to the Scottish Parliament, the other concerned a (Lib Dem proposed) moratorium on fracking across the entire UK. (Point to note, Northern Ireland already has the power to licence onshore petroleum recovery, including fracking. Off shore exploration/extraction still sits at Westminster.)

The upshot was put most succinctly in this morning's edition of The National:

So much of what goes on by politicians is calculated, while we can't say if Labour's attempts to devolve licencing around fracking to the Scottish Government was calculated to fail, given their very public opposition to just about any powers (actual powers, not responsibilities) being devolved to the Scottish Government - you'd be forgiven for being suspicious.

To be clear, Labour MP's like Curran & Nash voted for licencing being devolved, the problem is, they abstained from voting on a moratorium on fracking across the UK. What can one read in to that? Labour themselves are frozen by indecision but don't mind passing the buck onto others. They are the political equivalent of the classroom clype - worse than that, they'll happily line up others to carry the can while they hide in the sandpit.

To carry the analogy further, its a game of pass the parcel with the prize being a turd wrapped in several layers of very bad newspaper coverage. Ineos who own the Grangemouth refinery are currently importing Shale Gas (which is what you get from fracking) from Pennsylvania - this costs money and they (oddly) argue it adds to the carbon footprint of the process. They want to secure domestic supplies of Shale Gas which means fracking around the central belt, Fife, the Lothians - you've seen the map...

Ineos (and others) have already been awarded licences to frack in the central belt, last night's vote would have suspended the award of further licences.

Currently, the Scottish Government has no powers over licensing but could block Hydraulic Fracturing through the planning process. That puts them in an invidious position: on the one hand they'll have the anti-fracking pressure groups with their concerns and on the other Ineos and all those jobs. As we know, when it comes to jobs, Ineos play very hard indeed.

Labour on the other hand are free and clear - or they seem to think so. Their duty has been discharged, they wanted (to be seen wanting) licencing devolved but their motion was defeated. We shouldn't forget though, they abstained from voting on a moratorium across the UK which arguably would've achieved the same thing.

While all this was going on, the Scottish Labour Leader - who will 'not allow Scotland to be a Guinea Pig' for fracking' - was engaged in serious business north of the border.

Jim Murphy: "Have you seen my football?". 

He's not a unionist, he's a very naughty boy.

The latest shtick from 'Scottish' Labour's Sales Manager (Northern Region) is that he's not actually a unionist.

Sold to the mug in the back row.

Jim has been telling us all the last couple of years were just a horrible dream - it seems he emerged dripping from the shower this morning just like Bobby Ewing did in Dallas, totally perplexed as to why any one ever thought he was a unionist. In the same way Pam Ewing, J.R. and Miss Ellie lived Dallas Series 9 as if Bobby was dead - we lived the past two years as if Jim was an outspoken crate-abusing British Establishment fanboy. Only none of it is true, its not him - its us. We've all been living a nightmare, we've been existing in an alternate reality where George Foulkes talks a lot of shit, bears do shit in the woods and Jim Murphy has been terrorising old folk into voting for a union that disadvantages them.

Instead, he's been explaining:

“I have never been a unionist... It’s never been my political tradition...
As a family of Irish Catholic immigrants we’re not unionists."

He went on to say: 

"I grew up in a family of trade-unionists, but we’re not political unionists.”

This is the bizarre bit, its even dafter than the Dallas plot device:

“A Conservative & Unionist tradition inside the Conservative Party and elements of the Liberal Democrats, and you had a trade-unionist and socialist solidarity tradition inside the Labour Party. For a moment there was an alignment for different reasons of political culture and history, but that moment is gone.”

Even the Daily Record - a paper that revels in a good bit of misrepresentation - adopted a tone of incredulity while reporting Jim's revelation; a revelation shared while Jim could have been at Westminster voting against yet more austerity which harms the poorest for whom he claims to be a champion.

We should read between the lines and take Jim's peculiar epiphany for what it actually is - an admission that the Union and anything associated with it is now toxic in Scotland. Even people who were at the vanguard of the No Campaign accept the referendum was won with fear - its that and an increasingly slender tendril of emotional attachment, mostly among old folk, that currently keeps the crumbling edifice from collapsing entirely.

Jim wants Scottish voters to believe he's taking a stand against interference in Scottish affairs from Westminster 'unionist' parties - including his own. What he's really doing is trying to distance himself and 'Scottish' Labour from the Union entirely because he knows its septic.

Unfortunately, he seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that he can deploy the same plot device staff writers on Dallas did with Bobby Ewing. Which begs the question; how stupid does he think Scottish voters are?

The moment Pam Ewing realises she's been dreaming all along and Jim Murphy isn't a Unio- Sorry, Bobby isn't dead.

Its probably only a matter of time before Jim tells us he's actually in the SNP.

"The fact is, I've never been in the Labour party..." - Jim Murphy, March 2015. 

The Oily Jackie Baillie.

Cards on table; I cannot stand this woman. Her politics are multi-faced, superciliously dishonest and corrosive - I have no idea why any one votes for her. I'm currently working my way through Will Black's Psychopathic Cultures and Toxic Empires and I've previously read Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test. While the latter is light hearted in places, the former is a more academic - although still easily accessible read - that paints a very dark and thoroughly credible picture of the Establishment in the UK.

While I don't imagine Jackie Baillie is a psychopath, Will Black postulates the notion that organisations can become psychopathic; in the beginning, someone with psychopathic traits might set the tone - but quite normal people are drawn in and compelled to behave like psychopaths without any of the psychiatric or physiological components.

Since some important markers of psychopathy are a superficial veneer of charm, a manipulative character and a complete inability to empathise or truly care about others - you begin to see why I've gone off on this particular tangent. I also wanted to recommend Will Black's book; in the same way that its fun to follow on Google Earth the route of a travelogue you might be reading, (such as - ahem - I have for sale*.) It is also fascinating (and thoroughly disturbing) to apply some of the knowledge gleaned from Will Black's book about psychopathy to well known Establishment figures - it puts a lot of things into a worrying perspective we all absolutely need to be aware of.

* Its the two previous short travelogues edited slightly and rolled into one, don't buy it if you already bought those. Please share the link though, proceeds still go to Scouts.

Anyway, back to Jackie Baillie. 

We all know her's are the politics of spin, indeed, it is a little known fact that when Jackie speaks, she has to be anchored to the ground - much like a helicopter in a strong breeze - lest she accidentally takes to the skies. In some regards, she's exactly the sort of person you want in politics, hold on now - bare with me... Honesty in a politician is subjective and always in doubt; when they speak, there is a small worm (or a huge alien space-monster) of doubt when it comes to the truth. However with Jackie Baillie; if she's communicating in any way, shape or form - she's lying. No ifs, buts or probably's - as Jimmy Nail sang in his 1992 smash hit Ain't No Doubt - "shes lying."

A huge alien space-monster

Jackie Baillie

You may be aware, the price of a barrel of oil has fallen to below $50 - the lowest price since 2009. While car drivers leap in to automobiles and recklessly drive hundreds of miles for no reason - Jackie Baillie; presumably at the behest of new boss John Murphy (snigger) took to twitter to say...

Meanwhile, not a million years ago...

Mmm; beware the giant space-monster.

For clarity; the SNP and wider Yes Campaign lost the referendum. While we're still periodically told to get over it by the 'winners' - that they think we're not, doesn't mean they can demand the Scottish Government bails out an industry it wanted to manage directly while the London exchequer continues to profit from. Its the same self-serving logic that applied to so-called Scottish banks who paid all their tax income to London pre-crash but miraculously became a Scottish responsibility post-crash.

Baillie is a no-mark politician ignored by most except me right now and the Daily Record more generally, but her comments tell a story. They shine a light on a renewed & reinforced Scottish economic reality since the referendum. In the same way Westminster socialised the ruinous loses made by banks while privatising profits - via Baillie, they now suggest offsetting the stagnation of economic activity within the oil industry by socialising the costs of a so-called 'resilience fund' (which is exactly the same thing as an oil fund) to the Scottish Government.

Deep breath...

Jackie wants the Scottish Government to shore up a UK-wide industry with money from a diminishing block grant which is already a sum far less than Scotland's total tax income - to the cost of Scottish services (the quality of which she complains about incessantly) - by creating and using a 'resilience fund' (A.K.A an oil fund) which is a thing she strongly disagreed with having seven months ago.

And relax.

Jackie Baillie must have a double garage to store all of her faces.

Reading that back, there's some serious opinion and commentary above. I fully expect it to appear in the sidebar on the letters page of The National and to be invited to offer my opinion during the end slot of Scotland 2015 with Duncan Hothersal or some other unionist lick-spittle...

No?

Oh well.

You Get What You Pay For...

What's worse than replacing Trident with another really expensive nuclear deterrent?

Replacing it with a really cheap one.

Similar to Ed Miliband's own ambitions to depose Dish Face Cameron and be prime minister; he wants to replace something incredibly expensive, not fit for purpose and crap for something incredibly cheap, not fit for purpose and crap.

link

Similar to VW's current TV ad campaign; the blundering cretin Miliband would prefer to have cheap nuclear bombs parked on the Clyde as opposed to expensive ones.

But wait, because that's not all. UK Labour with Ed at the controls is matching his policies with the entirely separate, stand-alone, nothing-to-do-with-us-no-sirree Scottish Labour - and pledging 1000 more budget nuclear warheads than, well, ummm, ANYONE ELSE.

Giddy readers might want to know how Ed is funding UK Labour's budget nuclear arsenal - he's going to instigate a 'hovel tax' because apparently; we don't have any fucking mansions in Scotland.

All aboard the Rocket Ship UK Labour. Your pilot today is Captain Ed Miliband. Refreshments will be served by our cabin boy Jim. Now; for your comfort, here's the lovely Kezia with some vital safety notices...