The rush to the right
I was going to be flippant about UK politics, but I find I can't. It's too scary for that. There aren't enough Jeremy rhyming-slang jokes to make it possible to keep the fun going.
Remember the good old days of politics in the UK? Like in 2010 when the Liberal Democrats went into coalition with the Tories, did their best to act as a brake on the more outrageous Tory ideas but still got the blame for everything that went wrong - and, as a result, have taken years to recover in the polls.
We knew where we were with that brand of politics. You might not like it, but you knew what you were getting.
But somewhere around the end of the coalition, politics changed. Trump had appeared in the USA and went from being the joke candidate for the presidency to the next president of the United States.
It soon became clear what his campaign tactics were: appeal to the section of the population that thinks it's been left out (especially the most politically unaware), tell lies, blame the opposition (and the Russians) for fake news, say anything you like and bluster your way out of it when you're challenged. And above all else, make sure you have the media onside.
Sadly, it looks to me as if the Conservatives were watching and taking all this in and are now applying what they learned from Trump and his advisers to the UK.
Of course, some of us think the Tories have always been liars.
In Scotland we saw this in action in the run-up to the independence referendum, when unionist politicians could and did say anything and got away with the most amazing lies, without ever being called to account by the media, which seemed to be only too happy to let their lies go unchallenged.
So we heard that independence would mean losing our UK pensions. It wasn't true, although nobody mentioned that staying in the UK meant the pension age would keep on rising. Independence would mean leaving the EU and those areas of Scotland that had been able to count on EU help for roads, piers, bridges, causeways, village halls, etc, because of rural poverty and isolation would lose out. That's working out well, isn't it? Independence would mean Scots would be poorer. No mention that UK 'austerity' would be bleeding us dry for nearly 10 years. And, best of all, if we stayed in the UK, the UK government vowed we would played a greater role in the future of the UK. We're still waiting for that one.
The other thing that happened in and after the independence referendum was the number of smear campaigns against individual politicians on the independence side. Starting with Tommy Sheridan, it began to look like sticking your head up was the fastest way to get it chopped off. Since 2014, at least 5 SNP politicians have been accused of misconduct. It's always high profile and effective SNP politicians that feature but such accusations have only been proven once and the former MP in question is now in jail (quite unjustly, in my opinion, but that's another story). But mud sticks.
None of that bothered most people in the UK. It wasn't their problem. But then, the Labour opposition found itself with a new leader. And he didn't fit the profile some Labour members thought the party needed in its leader. He isn't a Blairite. He's an unreformed old-fashioned Labour politician. Labour supporters found out in no time that the party could easily be divided along ideological lines and there were Labour politicians quite happy to help keep the rifts open. That let in the Tories: Corbyn was ridiculed by a whole slew of Conservative politicians, in and out of the house of commons.
When that didn't work, two things happened: more and more bizarre anti-Corbyn stories began to appear. About his marriages, his clothes, his past political beliefs - heavens, it seems he has an allotment and makes jam - how crazy is that? Just last week, we had a story about Corbyn being 'frail' and too weak to lead the party. And there rarely seems to be an opportunity for Labour to reply to these stories.
But it's anti-semitism that is causing most damage to the Labour party. And in this, the media must take a bow: mainly, but not exclusively, the BBC.
You know where you are with Sky News. This was one of their headlines yesterday:
Jeremy Hunt fails to land knockout blow on
gaffe-free Boris Johnson in TV debate
No subtlety there - just following the Murdoch line. ITV News doesn't figure here. Do they even employ journalists now? C4 News mostly deals with world news and does it well.
The BBC is paid for by us, the taxpayers, and it has a charter that requires them to be impartial. But this week the BBC has put up some of the most biased and openly anti-Labour programmes ever seen. They have appeared on BBC1, BBC2 and Radio 4 - Panorama, Newsnight, Politics on Sunday, the Today programme. It even made its way on to the unreliable BBC Scotland News. It's been going on all week and it's all focussed on anti-semitism. Presented by people like the loathsome John McTernan and Andrew Neil, these programmes have rarely given Labour politicians the chance to answer the claims of anti-semitism they've spouted. It's all one-sided and it is utterly disgraceful.
And I have to ask: is it a coincidence that so many BBC journalists come from the same background as people like Johnson, Hunt and the other Tory grandees? Private school, followed by Oxford or Cambridge, then a job in 'Fleet Street' or the BBC and then into politics?
Never forget what Robert Verkaik told us in his book 'Posh Boys':
Remember the good old days of politics in the UK? Like in 2010 when the Liberal Democrats went into coalition with the Tories, did their best to act as a brake on the more outrageous Tory ideas but still got the blame for everything that went wrong - and, as a result, have taken years to recover in the polls.
We knew where we were with that brand of politics. You might not like it, but you knew what you were getting.
But somewhere around the end of the coalition, politics changed. Trump had appeared in the USA and went from being the joke candidate for the presidency to the next president of the United States.
It soon became clear what his campaign tactics were: appeal to the section of the population that thinks it's been left out (especially the most politically unaware), tell lies, blame the opposition (and the Russians) for fake news, say anything you like and bluster your way out of it when you're challenged. And above all else, make sure you have the media onside.
Sadly, it looks to me as if the Conservatives were watching and taking all this in and are now applying what they learned from Trump and his advisers to the UK.
Of course, some of us think the Tories have always been liars.
In Scotland we saw this in action in the run-up to the independence referendum, when unionist politicians could and did say anything and got away with the most amazing lies, without ever being called to account by the media, which seemed to be only too happy to let their lies go unchallenged.
So we heard that independence would mean losing our UK pensions. It wasn't true, although nobody mentioned that staying in the UK meant the pension age would keep on rising. Independence would mean leaving the EU and those areas of Scotland that had been able to count on EU help for roads, piers, bridges, causeways, village halls, etc, because of rural poverty and isolation would lose out. That's working out well, isn't it? Independence would mean Scots would be poorer. No mention that UK 'austerity' would be bleeding us dry for nearly 10 years. And, best of all, if we stayed in the UK, the UK government vowed we would played a greater role in the future of the UK. We're still waiting for that one.
The other thing that happened in and after the independence referendum was the number of smear campaigns against individual politicians on the independence side. Starting with Tommy Sheridan, it began to look like sticking your head up was the fastest way to get it chopped off. Since 2014, at least 5 SNP politicians have been accused of misconduct. It's always high profile and effective SNP politicians that feature but such accusations have only been proven once and the former MP in question is now in jail (quite unjustly, in my opinion, but that's another story). But mud sticks.
None of that bothered most people in the UK. It wasn't their problem. But then, the Labour opposition found itself with a new leader. And he didn't fit the profile some Labour members thought the party needed in its leader. He isn't a Blairite. He's an unreformed old-fashioned Labour politician. Labour supporters found out in no time that the party could easily be divided along ideological lines and there were Labour politicians quite happy to help keep the rifts open. That let in the Tories: Corbyn was ridiculed by a whole slew of Conservative politicians, in and out of the house of commons.
When that didn't work, two things happened: more and more bizarre anti-Corbyn stories began to appear. About his marriages, his clothes, his past political beliefs - heavens, it seems he has an allotment and makes jam - how crazy is that? Just last week, we had a story about Corbyn being 'frail' and too weak to lead the party. And there rarely seems to be an opportunity for Labour to reply to these stories.
But it's anti-semitism that is causing most damage to the Labour party. And in this, the media must take a bow: mainly, but not exclusively, the BBC.
You know where you are with Sky News. This was one of their headlines yesterday:
Jeremy Hunt fails to land knockout blow on
gaffe-free Boris Johnson in TV debate
No subtlety there - just following the Murdoch line. ITV News doesn't figure here. Do they even employ journalists now? C4 News mostly deals with world news and does it well.
The BBC is paid for by us, the taxpayers, and it has a charter that requires them to be impartial. But this week the BBC has put up some of the most biased and openly anti-Labour programmes ever seen. They have appeared on BBC1, BBC2 and Radio 4 - Panorama, Newsnight, Politics on Sunday, the Today programme. It even made its way on to the unreliable BBC Scotland News. It's been going on all week and it's all focussed on anti-semitism. Presented by people like the loathsome John McTernan and Andrew Neil, these programmes have rarely given Labour politicians the chance to answer the claims of anti-semitism they've spouted. It's all one-sided and it is utterly disgraceful.
And I have to ask: is it a coincidence that so many BBC journalists come from the same background as people like Johnson, Hunt and the other Tory grandees? Private school, followed by Oxford or Cambridge, then a job in 'Fleet Street' or the BBC and then into politics?
Never forget what Robert Verkaik told us in his book 'Posh Boys':
Only 7% of the total population is educated privately but these people provide:
74% of senior judges
71% of senior officers in the armed forces
71% of senior officers in the armed forces
54% of BBC managers and journalists
55% of permanent secretaries in Whitehall
50% of cabinet ministers and members of the house of lords 33% of Russell-group university vice-chancellors
44% of captains of industry, businessmen and women on the Sunday Times rich list
43% of newspaper columnists
36% of cabinet ministers
33% of MPs
22% of shadow cabinet members
50% of cabinet ministers and members of the house of lords 33% of Russell-group university vice-chancellors
44% of captains of industry, businessmen and women on the Sunday Times rich list
43% of newspaper columnists
36% of cabinet ministers
33% of MPs
22% of shadow cabinet members
If there's a single belief these people share, it's their right to rule.
Now that there's a head of steam building in Scotland for a second Independence referendum, we've found ourselves wondering what anti-independence politicians will tell us now that we see through the lies that were told in 2014 - and we're not likely to fall for them again.
And here it is: as far as I can see, in the minds of Westminster politicians, devolution is over. Northern Ireland has already lost its devolved assembly. Wales is looking pretty fragile, with the Labour party there under attack from internal strife - and Plaid Cymru. And, as for Scotland, we can look forward to a lot of Scottish money being transferred into the Secretary of State's budget, so we are constantly reminded who's really running the show.
Are we ready for this? Northern Ireland and Wales will go where Scotland leads. We've had so much encouragement from the EU but their hands are tied now. Are we going to watch the Scottish Parliament being dismantled? Power handed back to politicians in Westminster that we didn't vote for - and haven't done for a long time now?
Do we want a government that reflects our wishes and hopes? We're used now to seeing the saltires flying as people walk in the streets, led by our uniformed Saor Alba pipes and drums (paid for by us, let me add - bet nobody ever thought we'd see that). But what's coming is going to be a lot more testing.
As the song says: Get ready!
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