Cairns ‘out of step’ with Labour in Scotland

the senior member of Ms Alexander's Holyrood team told The Herald the majority of Labour members in Scotland backed greater powers for the parliament and accused party chiefs in London of looking at the matter "from the wrong end of the telescope".

Duns Scotus wrote:
Appeal before I go to bed - please bloggers - cut out the abuse!

Guid nicht.

LibDem MSP Robert Brown, yesterday accused Mr Cairns of living in a "Whitehall bubble".

For David Cairns to dismiss the people of Scotland as the McChattering classes' is foolish and insulting, and speaks volumes for why Labour lost the election.

Brian Blessed wrote:
NEW AT WESTMINSTER MCDONALDS The Big McChattering © ■ 100% pure mince ■ Smothered in Cairnsy's special sauce ■ Served by limp vegetables (surely 'with'? Ed.) ■ Delivers greasier palms than our competitors ■ 'Wendy-size' your burger for only £950 ■ Out of your budget? Just abstain! Pick yours up today!

Agents provocateurs are also used against political opponents. Here, it has been documented that provocateurs deliberately carry out or seek to incite counter-productive and/or ineffective acts, in order to foster public disdain for the group and provide a pretext for aggression against the group; and to worsen the punishments its members are liable for.
Historically, Agents provocateurs activities have been one operational tactic of labour spies who may also be hired to infiltrate, monitor, disrupt, and/or subvert union activities.

Alex Porter wrote:
Amazing how you can fall out with your bosses when you need to distract the population from a sleaze story. You might even think Cairn was doing this to make you look like a hero Wendy..?

Wullie wrote:
I wish I was a ''dog of war '' like Greyfriars Bobby in real life. Then under the cover of darkness I would sneak up to David Cairn's , bite him on the arse, urinate down his leg. Then bark at him in a kinda dog laugh kind of a way . Then scurry off down the street with my tail wagging between my legs before the dog warden catches me. woof.

Cairns after Wendy's job? Oh please let that be true.

pehman wrote:
I should add this snr spokesperson is afraid carins is after wendy's job as well. So there is a civil war going on inside slab

Los Angeles wrote:
Nouveaxscum

Cairns after Wendy's job? Oh please let that be true.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition! (He's an ex-Jesuit trained priest) As for his nemesis: even the most fervent nationalist knows and acknowledges that there are honourable Labour party members desperately keen to get more equitable powers for the Scottish government, but they also know those same people are slaves to their party allegiance and risk everythking bucking the status quo. We should encourage the best of them for they might, one day, be able to remove the perverse direction of their party from the grip of its myopic leadership. It will be an uphill struggle and a lonely one - all help for it from all quarters appreciated.

You are even more of a dreamer than I my friend.

He also took a swipe at what he described as "the McChattering classes" for focusing on more powers for Holyrood rather than on improving the lives of ordinary Scots.

Labour spin doctor said '' Scotland is narrow minded, racist and presybterian. Now that is a bigoted and offensive remark to 5 million Scots and presybterians. The media and press said nothing .

Los Angeles wrote:
Nouveauxscum

You are even more of a dreamer than I my friend.

Aye, there might be something in that observation, NS, but there mere existence of a Labour spokesperson able to contradict a Labour placeman presupposes Westminster's grip is loose somewhere between London and Glasgow.

From the article ;-

A senior figure in Wendy Alexander's back-room team yesterday accused Scotland Office Minister David Cairns of being "out of step" with Labour

And then this--

A spokesman for Labour in Scotland sought to play down the significance of Mr Cairns's remarks by insisting the minister was outlining his opposition to independence rather than further powers for the Scottish Parliament.

Find this snr spokesperson, and you'll find the person who wants alexanders job !

Clare wrote:
Nite all

Wullie wrote:
This was written by Glasgow writer Andrew O'Hagan in the Telegraph a week before the Scottish election in 2007. This is why I dont like Glaswegians . They hate Scotland but love Ireland. SNP are a 'parcel of rogues' By Andrew O'Hagan Last Updated: 12:01am BST 01/05/20 07  Have your say      Read comments As a Scottish person, I have lived my whole life surrounded by the petulant noise of Scottish nationalism. It was a ludicrous sound in my childhood, a bit like the bagpipes, produced by wind and sentiment, and it has played on through the years in spite of its ugliness. The United Kingdom is essentially a small pack of land and islands, with much to bind it in terms of weather and custom, history and economics, but there have alway complaint s been those who would prefer to see it broken down and Balkanised, as if a mean sense of historical injury should be allowed to dictate the terms of our government. Today we celebrate the United Kingdom's 300th birthday, but what about this childish Scottish dream, this persistent of ours? that precisely is the Scottish Cause? Alex Salmond can't possibly be trying to tell the denizens of modern Scotland that they are not doing well out of the Union. They are doing better than anyone else and better than they ever have. Not only do they enjoy a mighty presence in two parliaments, but the UK is about to have its second Scottish Prime Minister in a row. Scots have a powerful presence in every area of public life and so what is the "cause" that brings, on a good day, tears so readily to the eyes of Mr Salmond and his weak-minded supporters? It is a dream, dear reader. An old dream. And, like most dreams, it feasts on bad faith. Scotland has never been a colony, an occupied territory, a township, or a captive slave: it has instead been a partner with England in some of history's greatest triumphs of empire and at the cutting edge of the world's economy. But this experience does not suit the nationalists, so they rub it out. They never speak of what Scotland and England did together, only about what England did "to" Scotland, and what England did to the world. Nationalists claim to hate Scotland's underdog position, but they cynically rely on that notion to justify the country's historical innocence and its claim to sovereignty. This has been true through the whole story of Scottish nationalism's development. Every time it fails, it rises again, emboldened as always by its sense of defeat, to try, try again. The movement pretends not to resent England, though voters know that has always been part of its appeal. It pretends not to have been in league with England as Britannia ruled the waves, though people in Canada, Australia and India have not forgotten it. One look at any street in central Glasgow will tell you what we were: half the buildings came from cotton or tobacco money, or from shipbuilding. The Scottish nationalists press their bad faith into service every time: as if we didn't fight two world wars side by side with England; as if our Scottish Enlightenment didn't happen after we formed the United Kingdom. The facts speak against the nationalists, but they don't deal in facts because the facts have a tendency to bankrupt Scottish nationalism's case before it gets goingScotland has benefited from the Union in ways too numerous to name, and it continues to do so in a style that would have wiser small nations staying shtum and counting their blessings. A generation is coming into being in Britain that understands itself to be in an essentially post-nationalist time, yet the mad anachronism of Scottish nationalism might, this week, find itself providing a safe harbour to voters angry with Tony Blair and his war. It would be madness for Scotland to follow the nationalists - they offer not a safe harbour but an isolationist trap, and Scotland will mourn at its leisure if it falls into it. The Scottish "cause" is nothing but a romantic fantasy. It is a piece of self-pitying nonsens