Beware Falling Buses

At my bus stop this morning I found this most disturbing grammatical error.

Apparently there will be falling services at the Bathgate end of the 417/27/28. Does this mean that buses will be falling out of the sky to their new starting point at the station rather than South Bridge Street.

Or is the falling more to do with the more than 10% hike in weekly ticket prices today, for two zones to included Edinburgh and West Lothian up from £24 to £27. Don't these bus companies realise that none of us are actually even getting inflationary pay increases and now they are hiking the fares once again.

Michael Connarty Being Curt with Non-Labour Voting Constituents #LabourFail #LEF

Strange to think that only last Thursday Michael Connarty was being as nice as pie to the people (well with the possible exception of Tam Smith) representing the votes cast by over half the constituents in Linlithgow and East Falkirk.

A concerned constituent has forwarded an email that was sent to him from Connarty over the issue of forming a coalition. Indeed he was urging him not to form a minority or rainbow coalition. The additions in red are my own corrections and comments.

Strong words Mr X,

Why should the Lib Dems be in any government when their vote fell, to 24% actually Michael this was an increase from 22% That means 76% of those who voted , voted AGAINST them, and their main platform of proportional representation So 24% vote and less that 10% seats is proportional? Also as you heard me debate three times you know there was more that that to our main platform. Indeed in our own coinstituency [sic] their vote FELL from 15% to 12%.Tsk 15.3% to 12.8% and also to your and your agents surprise, well done on that squeeze message over the last two days.

Indeed as an avowed Non Labour voter, do you not think it a bit odd and inappropriate to write to me to 'urge' me to do anything? I thought an MP was elected to represent the people not merely those that voted for him. Even Ian Paisley always represented his Catholic constituents. Would it not be more appropriate to write to the leader of the party for which you did vote to URGE them to do something. Well seeing as the Liberal Democrat representative at the election has been informed I'll leave that up to Michael as to whether I'll be passing the message on or not.

I am a graduate Economist you know that was one line I never used against Michael's constant use of it despite it being true and have been elected to various levels of representation for over 30 years. I am actually quite capable of analysing the situation for myself and assessing what would be best in the interests of the people of Linlithgow and East Falkirk. So in other words people of Linlithgow and East Falkirk if you have a concern it will fall on the deaf ears of your elected representative as he is clearly more than capable of working out all your concerns without hearing from you.

I am certain the Queen* will find it of great interest if you decide to write to her. Rather a smug sign off from someone who is an elected representative of over 30 years.

Michael Connarty MP

So there you have it folks we have elected an MP who argues that he needs two offices so that he can hear from the people he represents and serve them over two local authorities, two health trust, two police boards but he is capable of making up his own mind without hearing from you. Now that is a waste of opportunity. Something I'll be letting the people of Linlithgow and East Falkirk before we meet again, and I think we will, across a ballot paper Michael.

As I've already started answering concerns of the people of Linlithgow and East Falkirk once again it looks like I'm ready to take on the concerns of the local residents and challenge Michael when he continues to fail to meet those expectations. Maybe next time the people who turned to Labour in the dying days away from considering Liberal Democrat won't be so easily swung back.

* Actually seeing as the constituent has military experience and threatened to resign their commission and fight against an unelected Government by peaceful means shows a depth of feeling.

Tam Smith Plagarises Me and Fails on Facts #LEF

My SNP opponent Tam Smith has just posted a very familiar image on his blog.



Familiar because it is my image used on my blog on 12 April. Also wrong as Tam himself admitted in the radio debate on Thursday, which airs next week on Central FM, that three of us in our contest are opposed to wasting £100bn on replacing trident. So he is trying to gain political capital out of a deliberate distortion of the facts which he's even admitted in public.

As for Michael Connarty's letter to me yesterday, as I blogged yesterday he wrote to me that:

"As someone who has had cause to visit me at one of my regular constituent consultations or contact me by telephone within the past five years, I hope you will agree that I have done my very best to resolve the complaints or problems that you have contacted me with."

On further investigation I've checked that personal details given to the MPs on casework is not allowed to be used for political purposes unless there is some sort of disclaimer to allow their use. As a hoarder of emails going back to the last millennium I have checked that I have never signed such a disclaimer for Michael, or any other MP for that matter.

I've also just noticed that one two occasions the MP who said "I never give up until all avenues have been pursued on your behalf" failed to even acknowledge my concerns on tightening of our libel laws in 2008 or recognising Montgomery Scott Linlithgow's most famous future son. Also on prohibitive parking regulations for Livingston fans at Stirling Albion he failed to take action. As for his agreement with me when he said "I agree" he went through the wrong lobby for me and many other local voters.

Press Self Regulation Fails Time to Disband the PPC

Earlier today Mark Thompson wrote what is the point of the Press Complaints Commission in light of their ruling on Jan Moir and her Stephen Gately piece which lack cajones? Well now his view and mine are both being backed up by Peter Tatchell he says:

"The Press Complaints Commission should be disbanded. By failing to uphold its own standards and enforce its own Code of Practice, the PCC has demonstrated that it is unwilling, unable and unfit to regulate newspapers. We need a new press regulator with principles and teeth.

"Jan Moir's commentary on the death of Stephen Gately was factually inaccurate on two points. His death was not unnatural or lonely, yet the PCC has rejected a complaint concerning this inaccuracy by Stephen's civil partner, Andrew Cowles."

As I argued earlier the case for homophobia was the hardest of the three main clauses that the PCC may have had to judge on. Surely the timing of the article showed a lack of sensitivity to those close to the singer, the PPC merely said that the timing was "in questionable taste". But surely the factual accuracy should have been upheld more than anything else.

The PCC acknowledged that Jan Moir mentioned the coroners reports, that right the one that said he died of natural causes, to be precise Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome (SADS). The whole push of her article was to use unfounded, homophobic stereotypes to prove that is was "not natural".

Of course as Millennium Elephant points out the PCC is paid from by the people it regulates. Why? We have independent bodies to regulate almost everything else. This decision to even ignore the blatant things like accuracy in the face of opinion writing shows what a failure the self regulation of the press, by the press is. It really only serves to help the press.

As Dave Page wrote on today's Lib Dem Voice:

"Had Moir’s comments been made in the average workplace to a colleague who had complained, would she have been let off the hook?"

I think we all know what we hope the answer to that question would be. So in one workplace where such comments only affect a few to another where it clearly affects 25,000 who bothered to speak up, yet no action is taken.

As the PCC clearly have no cajones, there is nothing to really cut off apart from their ability to pass judgement on their own. Let's set up an independent body, with some clear standards (the current ones work for starters but could do with strengthening and broadening in some areas). Today they failed, show them the door and get somebody in that will actually do the job that is required.

READ ALSO: Of course not all Grauniad opinion is of hte abolish variety. Jonathan Heawood poses the opposite stand point. Of course I still say freedom of speech is one thing but being allowed to propagate deliberate falsehood, even in an opinion piece, is quite another.

The Pakistani Embarrassment

The UK Border Agency has made a major faux pas in banning 60 Pakistani's from a trade and cultural visit from Lahore to its twin city Glasgow.

The rejected visas of the 60 covered two groups a delegation of the District Government their failure to arrive meant that trades talks with local officials in Glasgow were called off, as only the deputy mayor was allowed a UK visa. All the delegation had been invited by Glasgow City Council.

The cultural element was the return of the Patiala Pipe Band, who for the last four years have added colour to the World Pipe Band championships. They were not able to perform in the preliminary competition yesterday following their refusal to travel.

Hanzala Malik, executive member for Glasgow City Council's international affairs group said:

"These business-people are phenomenally important to us when it comes to trade. For them to be refused entry after we invited them is hugely embarrassing

"We need to be trading with people to safeguard our businesses and we can't do that if our Foreign Office is saying it's unsafe to go to certain parts of the world and refusing people entry here."

Anne McLaughlin MSP pointed out that the band had encountered difficulties last year to attend the same event, but were eventually given visas, but said:

"For this to happen once was bad enough; to repeat it this year is a disgrace. I will be in touch with the Borders Agency to get this decision reversed.

"This kind of decision gives Scotland a bad name and shows up the shambles within the UK Border Agency."

The UK Border Agency is there to do a job of security but their failure to identify genuine people with important business, or of cultural significance right to a stay in our country is ridiculous. Having worked for a charity with international volunteers in the past I have stood behind passport control having whizzed through the UK gate anxiously as the letters of commendation have been viewed by passport officials.

The UK Border agency are staying tight lipped saying that:

"All applications for entry clearance are considered on their individual merits, taking into account all evidence submitted and in accordance with the
immigration rules."

So clearly if top local government officials, who one would expect had the necessary documentation, nous and ability to fill in immigration documentation cannot do so one wonders just what difficulty individuals without such assistance have.

The Swinney Flu

The art of Governance is often defined by the ability to Govern in a crisis.

Love them or loathe them although they got the UK into the fine mess they gotten us into over the Banks collapsing Labour did at least find a way to do something about it. While it may not be the right thing in the long term they did something.

However, with the swine flu issue the SNP are failing to display the art of Governance. The £33bn budget for the current year was only passed in February but already John Swinney is running cap in hand to the Treasury in Westminster asking for more money. Instead of looking for where the funds may be available for repatriation to the vaccination of Scottish citizenry the first reaction in the crisis is the SNP default position blame it on Westminster.

Yes there is a £11.2m health budget surely somewhere in the whole Scottish budget £100m that Nicola Sturgeon the Health Minister claims is 'owed' to deal with swine flu can be found. Having worked in the Civil Service I'm aware that while budgets have been allocated to projects for the 12 months not all of these are going to be on time, therefore there is bound to be a little surplus in some departments budgets. I also know that even if there is this will find some way of getting spent at the end of the budget cycle.

Put another way John Swinney claims that out of all the department budgets under the SNP control it is impossible for him to find 0.0003% of savings from his budget*, with half the year still to come to be able to find the £100,000 required for the inoculation of Scotland against Swine flu. That sounds like lousy, slipshod and poor financial management to me.

*You can tell I work with stats can't you?

Not So "Quick"-witted of the Yard

Less haste more heed may well be the lesson learnt by Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick today. This morning he exited a car in Downing Street carry plans for an anti-terrorism raid. This evening, after the top sheet was photographed clearly giving far too much information, 10 suspects were arrested in raids.

The obvious conclusion to be drawn was that Quick was entering Downing Street to brief on the plans that were captured. However, as the details on the agency photograph were zoomed across the world the raid and arrests were moved up in Liverpool, Manchester and Lancashire. Evening raids of this sort are unusual so it is highly likely that as a result of the slow-wittedness and hasty exit of Quick from that car this operation was put under risk if it wasn't proceeded with immediately.

Whether the police were ready to make these arrests at this time we will no doubt find out if the suspects are in fact held. If they were still gathering information in preparation for it and were maybe waiting for some final piece to slot into place before going in, may well mean that what they could take is what had to be taken.

In a bad few days for the police this failure to protect operationally sensitive data is just another sign that our "police state" is simply not competent to deal with such sensitive data. Whether that is their own operational plans or our DNA or whatever they want to keep neither the police nor this Government seem capable to handling things with the trust they would want, which we should be unwilling to give them anyway.

****Breaking News**** Channel 4 News have just announced that the officer seen beating and flooring Ian Tomlinson, shortly before he died of a heart attack when he wasn't protesting at G20, has voluntarily come forward.

****Breaking Comment**** Still on Channel 4 News Shami Chakrabarti is right that is doesn't look good. Brain Paddick whilst trying to defend the enquiry and the process is not coming across strong enough against the evidence from the three cameras that captured the final minutes of Ian Tomlinson's existance.

No Time for Final 'Brick for Brick'

Whoops another SNP pledge has already run out of time to be completed.

Having promised to match the Labour/Lib Dem executive school building programme 'brick for brick', having scraped PPP/PFI whilst dithering over Scottish Futures Trust (SFT), there is no time left. The school building has stalled since May 2007 when the Nats took control but the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (Spice) says that the minimum time from commission to completion of a new school was 3 years in East Lothian but the average was three and a half.

The Nationalist Government has promised to commission its first new schools by later this year but as of yet with no SFT the question has to be where is this funding coming from. So when will they be able to go ahead with laying its first brick before it even thinks it can match as promised?

Therefore there is not enough time for the SNP to get any new school commissioned and built before the next elections in 2011. So we have another SNP fail.

Buildings Fail to Green Up to Expectations

Many of the Scottish Government buildings have failed to come up to the expected standards for their Energy Performance Certificates it has been revealed. Many including the Scottish Parliament had also failed to meet the deadline of yesterday to display their certificate.



St Andrew's House and Victoria Quay in Edinburgh were found to be massively energy inefficient and creating a far larger carbon footprint than they should. On the scale of A for best and G for worst the Scottish Government set out to get its buildings audited by the start of this year but many have fallen short of their expectations. While the scale goes from bad to worse it must also be noted that different building types based on possible achievable energy saving and restrictions of building face different levels of which they are deemed to be good.


Victoria Quay which has only been open for 12 years and the older St. Andrews House both achieved an E+ rating well below the C rating that would have been considered good. The Scottish Parliament Building itself at Holyrood was only displaying its draft certificate of a B yesterday, to be considered good the modern building required a B+.

However, some public buildings did meet the deadlines for displaying their certificates they include Edinburgh city council's chambers, which scored an E+, and Glasgow city council's chambers, which achieved an E. The National Museum of Rural Life near East Kilbride scored an E, while the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh was given an F+.

Where the Eck?

Last night the SNP raised a motion in the House of Commons opposed to the HBOS take over by Lloyds TSB. Only on Sunday their leader, the First Minister, MSP for Gordon, MP for Banff and Buchan was calling for a rethink on the scenario.
He said there were "highly legitimate" questions to the raised. He went so far as to say:

"With so much at stake and so much public money involved, I think we have theright to ask, is this in the public interest of Scotland?"

Well last night the SNP had their chance vote over some of those questions on competition. To look out for the public interest of Scotland. Last night the House voted on:

That the Enterprise Act 2002 (Specification of Additional Section 58Consideration) Order 2008 (S.I., 2008, No. 2645), dated 6th October, a copy ofwhich was laid before this House on 7th October, be approved.

It was passed 424 to 64 those against were a mish mash of Lib Dems and Nationalists, protecting against super banks and their ilk. One notable SNP MP was missing from the division lobbies, indeed the chamber or anywhere else in the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. Salmond, Salmond who, where were you?

Alex Salmond will say he do anything for you. Providing he doesn't have to turn up in London to use his vote, which the people of Banff and Buchan graciously extent to him.

All of Edinburgh's Labour members voted for.

The following Scottish MPs voted against:

Alexander, Danny
Barrett, John
Campbell, Sir Menzies
Carmichael, Mr. Alistair
Hosie, Stewart
Kennedy, Mr. Charles
MacNeil, Mr. Angus
Mason, John
Moore, Mr. Michael
Reid, Mr. Alan
Rennie, Willie
Smith, Sir Robert
Swinson, Jo
Thurso, John
Weir, Mr. Mike
Wishart, Pete

Home Office Not Fit to Deliver Passports

Oh dear another bad new s day for the Home Office and their computerisation. This time is is the online application of passports that they are unable to deliver. 5000 people are still awaiting for their passports which are still being processed out of a mere 18,000 applications.

The system was only begun on 18 May and was withdrawn on 20 June with the promise that all applications would be delivered within three week. So we have 5,000 still waiting 5 weeks after the system was shut down which suggests that a sizeable number of the other 13,000 also fell outside the anticipated turnaround times for processing.

This system is being run by the same organisation that will have control of the government's ID card scheme. If they are having problems processing a mere 18,000 how on earth are they going to cope with the government's big brotheresque dream of compulsory ID cards? The answer is simple they can't and they won't.

But at least the Home Office are continuing to live up to the Home Secretary's appraisal of them shortly after he took office that they are no fit for purpose.

Home Office Not Fit to Deliver ID Cards

Well as Charles Clarke has already told us his department is not fit for purpose it appears from leaks that they are messing up Ton'y Blair's ID card agenda very well.

As many people pointed out before implimentation not a single large scale government computer system has been fully operation by the time scheduled. IN the leaked e-mails David Foord, the ID card project director at the Office of Government Commerce said it was "a project continuing to be driven by an arbitrary end-date rather than reality". The government's timetable and the structure of the massive IT project means "we are setting ourselves up to fail."

And Peter Smith, the acting commercial director of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) at the Home Office, which is responsible for the ID card scheme, said he had no argument with those conclusions but also in an even more damaging email to Labour revealed his staff were planning for the possibility ministers will scrap the ID card plan altogether. Because of that, he told Mr Foord that the Home Office was making sure contracts for projects linked to the ID card scheme were being designed to survive if the bigger scheme is dropped.

So with Tony Blair being the big advocate for ID cards is the heir apparent Gordon Brown less in favour? Therefore as a result is he liable to scrap the costly and irrelevant project once he takes over at a date, largely expected to be, before the implimentation date of the government's 'voluntary' ID card scheme?

Should He Stay or Should He Go?

The media circus is round on John Prescott again and Prezza is doing his best impression of US General George Armstrong Custer. His relief from colleagues seems far away and not going to reach Mr Prescott's personal Little Big Horn any time soon.

His denial that he is going to resign following the latest allegations over what he did or didn't say with Dome owner Philip Anschutz over 7 different converstaions is just the latest in a long line of instances that cast doubts over his suitablitiy for his current role.

He is obviously a flustered man as his appearance on the Today programme this morning shows. Another sad sign that Prescott may be facing his onwn last sign came at the end of the John Humphries interview. The BBC were bold enough to proach the subject which has been circulating around the blogosphere that Prescott has had more affairs. A simple no would have put the matter to rest. After referring to Iain Dale's appearance on Newsnight and telling that these romours about other affairs appeared online Prescott then said:

There's no truth in much of the stories that are made in the papers...

Now his muddling over technology didn't hide the fact that Prezza is au fait enough to separate the press from the internet and bloggers. Dispite how he tried to look like a technophobe, there is clear demarkation in his comments. However, his answer only addresses one area, but make to denial on eight separate occasions to the allegation.

In desparation he asks Humphries if this is going to be edited. It wasn't and the transcript is fully available on the BBC Website. They obviously feel it is an important enough event to make this publically accessable for scrutiny to cover their own backs maybe following the Jonathan Ross interview, but also to show the public the extent to which the Deputy Prime Minister is in a corner.

I hope his friends are advising John Prescott to make a exit through the kitchen door, because we all know the fate that befell George Armstrong Custer in Montana in 1876.