Quote from DavidFullard on April 19, 2024, 9:26 pm

1. Mrs Murrell aka Nicola Sturgeon cut a sorry figure on today’s news. Looking drawn and tired she is clearly a very worried former First Minister. Her glee at the downfall of Boris,  who epitomised the pinnacle of hatred Sturgeon harbours for Westminster, the Tories and himself  in particular,  is now not even a distant shadow in her memory bank.
The re-arrest and charging of her husband Peter and his resignation from the SNP, coupled to her own resignation as FM, signals an ignominious end to Scotland’s super couple. Despite Sturgeon’s protestations of no knowledge of the missing £600k, many may struggle to believe Murrell never once mentioned it to her in a post coital pillow talk moment. The £200k battle bus they kept hidden in plain sight at her mother’s home is a matter yet to be explained.
Sturgeon strived for Scottish independence at all costs. Her mismanagement of Scotland’s internal affairs, public services etc was somewhat masked by her strong oratory skills and a strong party wide shared hatred of Westminster. The alleged corruption within a party in which she and her husband held the 2 highest posts for so many years will serve only to further decrease support for her dream of an independent Scotland. Sad? Not really!

2.Angela Raynor is another prominent female politician in the news for all the wrong reasons. Well wrong for her and her party. The saga of her 2 homes, her declared principal residence and her tax affairs are now the ‘intellectual property’ of HMRC and GMP.
Raynor’s recent appearance at PMQs was clearly designed to demonstrate party unity.  But this wasn’t the ‘Ange’ we know and hate, no smugness, no smirks no finger wagging and….notably no cries of scum! I actually think she will squirm her way out of this mess surrounding her 2 homes despite the testimony of her erstwhile neighbours. Smarmy Starmer likewise clearly thinks there is a good chance of her escaping any charges. His M&S clad fat posterior is positively glued to the fence he is currently perched on. If Raynor IS charged he hasn’t seen her secret evidence [ as a KC he would be expected to recognise the veracity of it] and will have played no part in her downfall. If she does escape  he can breathe easy and not face accusations of hanging her out to dry….or even worse her animosity.

 

3. The Rwanda Bill is still in the ping pong stage twixt upper and lower house. The bloated Labour Lords are standing firm on their amendments to the Bill and are united in their negation of the Bill in its present form.The game is almost over and pretty soon the Government will be able to enact the Bill. But what then?
I read the airline the Govt was contracting with to transport the immigrants is no longer prepared to do so. I believe RAF passenger transport aircraft are being readied. The Bill is meant to be a deterrent. There is no other even halfway viable plan to deter the boat people influx ergo I guess we have to try it. The issue that strikes me as perverse is; well over 90% of the illegal immigrants stem from Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. All countries from which those fleeing are designated refugees by the UN. That means the vast majority of them will sooner or later be assessed and granted legal entry in the UK. Wouldn’t it be far cheaper AND put the people traffickers out of business if Border Force or whatever they call themselves these days set up a HQ in Calais with a holding camp and processed the immigrants/refugees there?
I’m sure my simplistic solution would fall at the first fence of bureaucracy for any number of reasons.

4. The PO. This is a scandal of such epic proportions that it eclipses all others. Well maybe not the contaminated blood scandal albeit both scandals seemingly involve active or passive Government actions. I watched the head legal advisor to the PO, a man who currently sits on the panel overseeing compensation to the wrongly convicted sub postmasters, admit he was party to perjured evidence being used to convict folk including a jailed pregnant mother et al. . His blustering, stuttering answers were reminiscent of a man who knows his downfall is only a matter of time and were almost childish in their inaneness. He is still employed by the PO!

5. Talking of scandals, finally some good news. The 15 soldiers facing court over alleged perjured evidence arising from the Bloody Sunday fiasco will now NOT face charges.Only in the UK could a PM [Blair] give ‘get out of jail free’ amnesty letters to terrorists but not protect the soldiers sent by his Government to risk their lives fighting those same terrorists.

6. And finally, the media seems to have failed to grasp the subtle but deadly message of Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran.After destroying 99+% of Iranian missiles fired into Israel, many before they left Iran itself, Israeli rockets and drones straddled an Iranian nuclear site in the country’s central region. Of greater concern in some western countries is Israel’s pointed dismissal of the advice of the USA, its biggest financial supporter by a country mile. Biden is, in the American vernacular, reportedly ‘pissed’ by it all!

ps How many more MPs will the Tories lose before the next GE?