Friday 26 March 2021

Leader of the Free World

 

No, don't laugh - this is rather sad. Time someone applied to the Courts for a Guardianship Order - or a Rescue Order - or whatever equivalent the Americans have for the protection of frail elderly citizens with "memory issues".

thanks to mr verge for identifying it - chapeau

4 comments:

mongoose said...

Meanwhile the leader of Free Scotland has launched his new party so split the SNP vote and become indispensable... and the Kingmaker in the coming showdown.

Poor old Sleepy Joe. He seems quite lucid but will then blink his eyes two or three times and his train of thought is gone. Poor lad. As we said, if he was a proper human being you'd feel sorry for the old boy.

Rejoice, mrs i. Spring is springing forward.

mrs ishmael said...

Well, you can't say Scottish politics is boring when we've got wee fat Alec stirring things up.
This latest maneuver of his is based on manipulating the Scottish voting system. Proportional representation was introduced at the inception of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 in order to deny any single political party an overwhelming majority. This was done with the intention of producing coalition governments.
Each voter has two votes, a constituency vote and a regional vote. There are 73 constituencies, in which the Member of the Scottish Parliament for each constituency is elected by a simple majority of votes cast, with all other votes counting for nothing.
The second vote, the regional vote, is used to elect a further 56 regional MSPs, seven from each of eight regions. In the regional selection, voters elect the political party of their choice rather than a named individual. Political parties compile a list of preferred candidates in order, so that the first seat won goes to their first candidate and so on, as deemed by the number of seats that they win.
So, in practice, when I go along to the polling station, I will vote for Liam - good lad, local, Lib Dem, had the job since 2007. No point in voting for anyone else, Orkney being Liberal since God was a boy, and might as well give Liam a stonking majority to see off the SNP candidate. I will then vote strategically with my second vote, for one of the Unionist political parties.
Alec Salmond has set out his fish stall thusly - Alba will not field any constituency candidates. The nationalist voter will use his or her first vote to vote for the SNP candidate, and use his or her second vote for Alba, thus stuffing Parliament with pro-independence MSPs and subverting the original concept of having a range of political opinions in Holyrood to promote Democratic debate. Doubtless he is hoping that Alba will secure sufficient MSPs to give him massive leverage against Sturgeon. Not Kingmaker, but King, if he can sufficiently discredit Sturgeon. No doubt he is relying on his notoriety to make Alba a popular choice for the regional vote. He has an infinitely higher profile than bisexual, Weegie Patrick Harvie, leader of the Scottish Greens, which is also a nationalist party.
Sturgeon must be seething.
If this manouvre works, and Holyrood is stuffed with pro-independence MSPs, then the Union is, as they say, fucked, the SNPs having declared their intention of UDI if they secure a convincing majority for indyref2.
Do you remember Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965? That didn't turn out well. For anyone - apart from Mugabe, of course.

mongoose said...

I think, mrs i, that in order to kill the Union Mr and Mrs McFish have to make the beast with two backs. And they won't, will they? So this is an internal fight. Goodness me, Scotland is an economic and strategic irrelevance. The Romans worked this out almost two thousand years ago.

mrs ishmael said...

Well, they are both hungry for power, mr mongoose, and if it looks like the only way to achieve it is to kiss and make up, I think Gnasher would go for it. Alec, though - he wants the whole pie and he's hell bent on revenge. And every day that passes, it seems, there's another of the SNP camp joining him. Not to mention the other scaff and raff nationalists. Tommy Sheridan, FFS.