I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

ursus arctos wrote: Tubbs, I know the whole subject makes you verklempt, but the US deficit just recorded an eight year low and continues to shrink as a percentage of GDP.

Not to mention the fact that the President doesn't control the budget.

Bit literal.

Scotland doesn't have any deficit of its own. Her pals are doing their best to create one though via Full Fiscal Autonomy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

I'm using verklemt though. Like that.

[Calvert]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Tubbs, I know the whole subject makes you verklempt, but the US deficit just recorded an eight year low and continues to shrink as a percentage of GDP.

Not to mention the fact that the President doesn't control the budget.

Bit literal.

Scotland doesn't have any deficit of its own. Her pals are doing their best to create one though via Full Fiscal Autonomy.

Yeah, best left to English patricians to create a deficit for your country.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

They get a share of that as well. Though Pete Wishart didn't know.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

Tubby Isaacs wrote: Are the people who beat Sheila Gilmore and Anne Begg any good? They're being really missed at the moment.

Tommy Sheppard; a former deputy leader of loony-left Hackney Council - beat Gilmore.

Don't know much about him (and don't follow parliamentary politics that closely) but his maiden speech was certainly good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2wSGjjHXfQ

[Duncan Gardner]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

Calvert wrote: She's fucking brilliant.

Stick that up your bollocks, Tory filth

Agreed. if I had a grand-daughter, i'd want her to be Proud Mhairi (and her Army).

Nesta Arantes do Nascimento wrote:
Do we think Harriet Harman just forgot that there are Scottish parliament elections in ten months time that Labour desperately needs to make a halfway respectable showing in?

My fave set-piece from the May campaign was HH being interviewed along with a SNP Holyrood minister, possibly Hosie. He was chirping along happily about the Unionists this, Unionists that. Harman winced as if Nigel Dodds had dropped a particularly noxious fart (as English politicians always do when dealing with the DUP). Then suddenly the penny dropped- he meant her- and her face crumpled into near-tears

Tommy Sheppard is from the not-quite Nationalist stronghold of Coleraine. He went to the same school as those posh Orange Order rowers from the Olympics.

I got concussed there once in a school rugby match. As I wandered groggily around the in-goal area, their coach (a whiote-bearded ancient known to all as Daniel Boone) shouted "Tell him he's Willy John McBride and stick him in the lineout".

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

Bizarre Löw Triangle wrote:

Are the people who beat Sheila Gilmore and Anne Begg any good? They're being really missed at the moment.

Tommy Sheppard; a former deputy leader of loony-left Hackney Council - beat Gilmore.

Don't know much about him (and don't follow parliamentary politics that closely) but his maiden speech was certainly good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2wSGjjHXfQ

Cheers.

He seems to have got a new lease of life out of Scottish Nationalism. Still, shame about Gilmore.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

Met someone tonight has been involved in radical politics in Govan for many years who insisted that Nicola Sturgeon was a decent sort. Which is nice.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

She's got a few followers in London.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/17/surge-english-snp-members-scottish-nationalist-party

[François dan un fez]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

Bloody hell Tommy Sheppard bloody hell. I knew him from back in the day when I was in the Labour Party.

Not famed as a man of principle.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

He seems to have joined the SNP after the Indy Ref, which is fair enough for a lefty. More respect for him than those giving it large about Red Tories who before were moaning about Gordo overregulating banks and charging too much corporation tax.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

On the other hand it doesn't exactly dispel the impression that the Yes campaign was basically an SNP front.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

One for Mhairi and all.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/leaders-new-ideas-needed-on-university-access-1-3815230

Around 15 per cent of 18-year-olds from Scotland’s most deprived communities had made a university application by the January 2014 deadline – a 108 per cent rise from 2004, when the application rate was just 7.2 per cent. But across the UK as a whole just over one in five youngsters (20.5 per cent) from the most disadvantaged areas had applied, and in Northern Ireland the application rate was 25.7 per cent.

The England figure there is out of date. It's actually 23%. It went up for 13% in 2006.

Well done the outward looking social democratic SNP.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

You might have noticed Gove making noises about removing automatic early release for prisoners.

He's playing catch up with the SNP:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-31109682

The experts mentioned here are correct. It'll mean that prisoners are released at the end of their sentence, with no obligations at all to work with eg probation.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/26/second-scottish-referendum-inevitable-alex-salmond

Second Scottish referendum inevitable, says Alex Salmond
SNP MP says only timing of independence vote is in question, and failure to deliver sufficient devolution, the EU issue, and austerity make it more likely

So two out of three things that make another referendum more likely are basically down to the Tories getting elected.

And some people still think these chancers wanted a Labour government.

[N est à?]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

In other news, SNP leader, Alex Salmond has accused MI5 of sabotaging the referendum.

"There was a break-in at SNP HQ the night before my debate with Alistair Darling. The burglars took nothing except my plans for iScotland's currency. I hadn't saved a copy on the system and nobody could remember what they were, so I had to wing it for the rest of the campaign", he added.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

SNP baaahd.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

The tide's turning, I'm telling ya.

Me and the two other unionists on CiF are now only outnumbered by about ten to one.

[Diable Rouge]

I, for one, salute our new Caledonian masters

Turns out most of OTF is fluent in another language without even knowing it - granted, convergent evolution and all that, but still ...