Best Of

The last PB post by TSE was 'Will this bug John Swinney and the SNP until election day?', and here is the thing while TSE used a humourous play on the latest SNP scandal, it should have been a far bigger story here with far more scrutiny because of the implications for the Holyrood Parliament. But it won't be because frustratingly it involves a really shocking scandal that involves one of our devolved governments...

So the PB thread like the UK main stream media totally ignored it, literal tumble weed here and elsewhere, special shout out to SkyNews for mentioning it but doing sod all else to investigate it. Now just imagine if this had been a governing party at Westminster where now THREE female elected MPs had been reported to have had their offices bugged by party staffers?! I have no doubt that the Westminster Lobby would have been all over the story and it would have been wall to wall coverage in the 24/7 News channels, especially when the original breaking story reported that the male aid who bugged one female MSP had since moved to work for an SNP MP?!

Sorry TSE but I was really annoyed when you almost affectionately made fun of and dismissed this shocking scandal, and it is incredible serious story that should have resulted in not only a Parliamentary investigation, but a Police investigation too. I said early yesterday that Holyrood was not only broken, it really is not fit for purpose and that matters with a big election looming there in May next year and I stand by that claim today more than ever. But again I was just so saddened and frustrated at the lack of response here or in the media, not even the most basic questions asked. And to say this scandal stinks is an understatement, no one has asked why or to what end these female SNP MSPs who remain anonymous were bugged, but the Scottish Sun is reporting it suggests internal SNP infighting.

But the cynic in me after 18 eighteen years of this appalling SNP Government did have one question, why did it take until yesterday for this breaking story to finally see the light of day just as Holyrood went into Christmas recess and both politicians and political journalists departed to go on their festive holidays until the New Year.. Its almost as if this story finally having to break was stage managed so it would hopefully get the least attention or any proper scrutiny by the Holyrood Parliament, the local media or the public. This is how the SNP operate, totally secretive and utterly ruthless in their media management and so cynically in their media operation but they get away with it time and time again because Scotland is deemed a side show despite the fact that they control so much of our public services up here and including taxation when it comes to budgets but we like Wales and NI are totally failed by the UK media!

And the PB crew fell for it yet again yesterday because they were not even interested.... Oh to be a female MSP in the work place at Holyrood right now!

The government that claims it is cutting out national debt is no borrowing more than ever

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/19/uk-government-borrowing-november-rachel-reeves-budget-economy

You surprise me Alan

This lot truly are a bunch of crooks.

They dosh up their mates and make the rest of us foot the bill.

This may be true Alan, but in which respects does this differ from their predecessors?

So their position is they are as bad as the Tories.

Im sure that will inspire support.

Werent they meant to be better, cleaner the adults in the room ?

I'd have settled for less corrupt and incompetent.

They are certainly the former, and probably the latter too , but it's still early days. Give it another twelve years or so and I'll let you know.

This from Peter Punter is a post of wisdom and maturity. The single biggest positive development in politics would be if the public were to revise down their expectations of how much any government can realistically improve the UK's living standards and public services except over quite a long period (certainly several years). The gap between expectations and what is feasible is creating a fertile environment for the types of politicians who we can only hope are revealed to be unfit for power before they get their mitts on it.

Chances of this occurring though? Slim to non-existent. Why should unrealistic expectations of politicians be relinquished when politicians themselves do nothing but fuel them. Which is perfectly rational behaviour by them. Prospects of election are boosted if you exaggerate the positive impact you will make. Otherwise you'll fail to inspire the voters and they will reciprocate by failing to vote for you. Why that risk if you don't have to?

Fresh in memory, Labour last year, my party, I actually sent an email to Morgan McSweeney saying we should not be running on that crude CHANGE slogan, as if the morning after a Labour win people would look out to see lakes of milk and honey. Instead I recommended posters, lecterns and tee-shirts saying 'Incremental improvement in key areas that you will start to feel after a while (if alert) but subject to various factors outside of governmental control!'. Compromising with cheap populism with that exclamation mark. And guess what Morgan wrote back? Not even anything polite and considered. Just "LOL". That says it all.

The government that claims it is cutting out national debt is no borrowing more than ever

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/dec/19/uk-government-borrowing-november-rachel-reeves-budget-economy

You surprise me Alan

This lot truly are a bunch of crooks.

They dosh up their mates and make the rest of us foot the bill.

This may be true Alan, but in which respects does this differ from their predecessors?

So their position is they are as bad as the Tories.

Im sure that will inspire support.

Werent they meant to be better, cleaner the adults in the room ?

I'd have settled for less corrupt and incompetent.

They are certainly the former, and probably the latter too , but it's still early days. Give it another twelve years or so and I'll let you know.

This from Peter Punter is a post of wisdom and maturity. The single biggest positive development in politics would be if the public were to revise down their expectations of how much any government can realistically improve the UK's living standards and public services except over quite a long period (certainly several years). The gap between expectations and what is feasible is creating a fertile environment for the types of politicians who we can only hope are revealed to be unfit for power before they get their mitts on it.

Chances of this occurring though? Slim to non-existent. Why should unrealistic expectations of politicians be relinquished when politicians themselves do nothing but fuel them. Which is perfectly rational behaviour by them. Prospects of election are boosted if you exaggerate the positive impact you will make. Otherwise you'll fail to inspire the voters and they will reciprocate by failing to vote for you. Why that risk if you don't have to?

Fresh in memory, Labour last year, my party, I actually sent an email to Morgan McSweeney saying we should not be running on that crude CHANGE slogan, as if the morning after a Labour win people would look out to see lakes of milk and honey. Instead I recommended posters, lecterns and tee-shirts saying 'Incremental improvement in key areas that you will start to feel after a while (if alert) but subject to various factors outside of governmental control!'. Compromising with cheap populism with that exclamation mark. And guess what Morgan wrote back? Not even anything polite and considered. Just "LOL". That says it all.

As with Dom C, you can sort of see why he chose to get close to power by the tradesmans' entrance, rather than running for office himself.

Found out something about Morgan Sweeney where it all suddenly made sense. He was campaign director for Liz Kendall in the 2015 Labour Leader election. He took an OK candidate - certainly better than Corbyn the eventual leader - with significant parliamentary support, and delivered a STATISTICALLY ZERO vote. Literally more people believe the moon landings were fake than voted for his candidate.

The secret of success in politics is often just hanging around because the PPE mob remember the ups more than the downs. This goes for both sides.

Peter Mandelson was an expert in the dark arts, the genius behind New Labour who drove Neil Kinnock to a surprising defeat, and had to resign from every job he has held before coming back for more. Tory election guru Lynton Crosby masterminded Are you thinking what we're thinking? before turning Cameron's poll leads into a hung parliament and losing Theresa May's majority. And so for Dominic Cummings (who made his name campaigning successfully against joining the euro, starting two years after Gordon Brown had already ruled it out) and now Morgan McSweeney, the titan whose Ming vase strategy brought victory against a blue team that barely troubled the scorers.

Not sure if this has been discussed yet so apologgies if repeating earlier posts (I did look back to lunchtime and saw no mention)

So the Police will not invetsgate the claims that Farage overspent to get elected at the GE because of statute of limitations.

Two questions that this raises for me.

1. Why is the statute of limitations so short for this potential crime? We are only 18 months after the election so I would have thought anything this serious should still be prosecutable.

2. If the police can't do anything, is there any other body with legal powers that can investigate? They may not be able to prosecute but could they demand a by-election if he is found to have cheated. Does this fall under the remit of the Electoral Commission or the Commons authorities?

As you all know I was and still am very pro-Brexit. I also recognise we would never have got the referendum without Farage's many years of work for it. But that doesn't mean he should be treated any differently to anyone else who has broken electoral law. If elections are not fair and honest then they count for nothing.

I seem to recall that my council keeps expense returns for 2 years so the statute of limitations line may be bogus?

Fucking hell. It’s easy to determine if the line is bogus. It took me two minutes and the answer is “no” -

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/2/section/176

The capacity of people to suspect bad faith is a lot of the reason we’re in the shit we’re in as a society.

It's very amusing to here all the advise for the Tories from non-tories. Anyone would think the panic about Reform was growing. Yet only the other day some were posting that Reform had peaked. Indeed I doubt they can get much beyond 33/5% and probably less. However, it's also quite possibly true tha the Labour bottom is not yet there. All very funny.

Gavin Barwell is a particularly unappealing lib dem adjacent entryist. He may deserve tactical votes from Lib Dem, Labour and Green voters - he sure as heck doesn't deserve any from Tories.

Worked for Conservative Central Office from age of 21 to 38 before becoming a councillor and MP on the right/centre right of the party at the time. And yet somehow he is the entryist......

Not sure if this has been discussed yet so apologgies if repeating earlier posts (I did look back to lunchtime and saw no mention)

So the Police will not invetsgate the claims that Farage overspent to get elected at the GE because of statute of limitations.

Two questions that this raises for me.

1. Why is the statute of limitations so short for this potential crime? We are only 18 months after the election so I would have thought anything this serious should still be prosecutable.

2. If the police can't do anything, is there any other body with legal powers that can investigate? They may not be able to prosecute but could they demand a by-election if he is found to have cheated. Does this fall under the remit of the Electoral Commission or the Commons authorities?

As you all know I was and still am very pro-Brexit. I also recognise we would never have got the referendum without Farage's many years of work for it. But that doesn't mean he should be treated any differently to anyone else who has broken electoral law. If elections are not fair and honest then they count for nothing.