Apologies for the lateness of this post but the sunshine took priority today.
The knives were out today at FMQs and in more ways than one. Ian Gray delivered his three questions in a more than usual pedestrian manner, accusing Kenny MacAskill, the justice secretary, of being the life and soul of parties in the US and Canada when he should have been attending a knife crime conference here in Scotland. This subject is quite a few months old but it seems the labour party wished to usurp the tories who had previously let it be known knife crime would be their subject today.
Alex Salmond stated the relevant minister, Fergus Ewing, had attended the conference, knife crime had reduced and there were more police on the streets. He also mentioned Mr Gray hadn't been present at the conference, which made anyone wonder why they were making such a fuss about the absence of Kenny MacAskill. Did I feel Mr Gray was just a wee bit envious of Mr MacAskill's jaunt across the pond?
Ms Goldie's subject was also knife crime and asked what further action Mr Salmond intended to undertake. His response was much the same as given to Mr Gray although he asked Ms Goldie to celebrate the increase of police on the streets.
Tavish Scott's question related to redundancies announced by BT and how they would affect the many BT jobs in Scotland. He asked Alex Salmond to intervene to ensure as many Scottish jobs would be saved. Mr Salmond detailed a number of occasions when ministers had helped in such situations but also said intervention wasn't always successful and shouldn't be thought as a solution.
Posts
10 comments:
I sat in the gallery today and Gray was worse than usual.
It is increasingly apparent that the meltdown in the Downing Street Bunker has interrupted the flow of Questions Gray is supposed to use. Today was worse than pitiful, and for the first time you could see the Labour benches doing a lot of hands-in-heads gestures.
It was rather difficult to write the post with any enthusiasm Monty, I'm sure you noticed that.
Mr Gunn from the Sunday Post, said at the end that it possibly was Gray's best effort since he came to the post. Think that dulled my mind.
I'm not sure what Alex Salmond's point was about Iain Gray not being at the summit was all about - Gray wasn't suggesting that Alex Salmond should have been there.
Was very surprised at Alex Salmond's stumbling and faltering delivery today; he's usually pretty good in that regard, but today he was all over the place.
Hope it's just all that herring and mackerel he claims to be eating on his Commons allowances and there's nothing wrong with him.
Have to admit Stuart Alex Salmond didn't seem at his best yesterday. He was well prepared as usual but his delivery seemed rather low key.
I think his point about Gray being there was why did the boss need to be there when the relevant MSP was present. All a nonsense really from Gray, he would have been a lot better questioning on the renewables job creation when we would have perhaps learned something.
Gray tried to usurp Bella's 'Soft-touch Scotland' soundbite.
Bella went ahead with it pointing out that Labour's take on knife crime came along 46 minutes after the Tories released her conference speech.
The only sensible contribution was from (gulp) Tavish Scott, who was probably most feart about an FM dig at his second home allowance and £36,000 profit.
SR,
Interesting post, Grey is clearly not up to the job, lets hope others from within scotland are inspired to move into Politics and bring renewed vigour, cogent arguements and reasoned debate so we can have balance and more accountability to The People.
Supposed to be raining here but it's proven to be a fair morning!
CD
Aye I realise that when Alex said the bit about Annabel finally reaching her punch line.
Did you see Peter Curran (Moridura) in the gallery Monty? He's written a post about it and the atmosphere.
Afternoon CD. I'm sure there are quite a few younger ones who would be good politicians within the labour party, but the old-school union types will hang on until the bitter end.
Cold and wet here today but can't complain because it's been a lovely week.
Have you ever read Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride? Crime novel set in Aberdeen. His style of writing and humour is superb. I'm reading another of his just now.
SR,
Nope, but I'll gie it a whirl, I'm a massive fan of Colin Bateman - mainly his Dan Starkey novels but his current work is also of note, he's made it into the R & J summer reading list!
Can't believe thae gall of Auntie Bella - Tories still cannot get a grip of the fact that they have not and will not rule Scotland.
Saor Alba
Crazy D
Colin Bateman, aye I've only read one. He's so popular in my library that you've to reserve his novels.
Anty Annabel does try though, full marks for effort. Pair sowl.
Post a Comment