I’m watching with slack-jawed astonishment the level of corruption in ‘House of Saud: A Family at War’ on BBC 2 and must admit my headline is a bit over-the-top. I’m having a bit of a laugh not that I need one after watching Scottish Labour’s launch of their budget plans:
https://twitter.com/nonideefixe/status/953787304845377537
The story is that a lobbyist for Carillion and firms involved in blacklisting construction workers is sitting on its governing body! Former MSP, Cara Hilton has been the policy and public affairs manager for the construction sector’s trade body since December 2016. Only two months after starting the job she was elected to the Scottish Executive Committee and she has the backing of, don’t laugh, the Campaign for Socialism.
You couldn’t make it, or them, up.
Footnote: did she get the job because her name kind of sounds like a variant of Carillion? Cara Illion? Spooky?
Footnote 2: ‘Building Scotland’s Future and Blacklisting Workers since 1895?’
Talking-up Scotland 
In reply to Footnote 2 may I suggest that the “Closed shop” was a form of Blacklist?
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Was it?
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Hi John – Just to keep things fair and balanced here’s a couple of wee charmers from Theresa’s revamped Tory team. Probably could also find a wee niche somewhere in House of Saud? The story regarding the fragrant Harriet Baldwin MP broke on RT – maybe demonstrating that it is RT’s willingness to cover stories you don’t see much elsewhere that persuaded Alex to take his Current Affairs venture there?
British MP Harriett Baldwin is facing calls to stand down, having made a charitable donation to a hospice which she then attempted to claim back on her expenses.
The Tory MP for West Worcestershire has come under fire after trying to claw back a £50 gift to St Richard’s Hospice on the taxpayer’s tab.
Baldwin was made Minister of State for Africa in Prime Minister Theresa May’s cabinet reshuffle last week, but is already facing calls to step away from the post.
The scandal involves a £50 ticket to an award ceremony at the Worcester-based hospice, a freedom of information request shows. The claim was rejected by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority.
Baldwin was first elected in 2010. Since then she has claimed a huge £1.1 million in expenses, including 60 payments of under £2, one of which was 45p for a one-mile car journey. (Remember – this political giant has been submitting these expenses claims in the Parliamentary terms FOLLOWING the ‘Expenses Scandal’ – did it ever really happen – or was that scandal just a figment of our collective imagination?)
The second story is in The National – this Tory hot-shot has managed to ‘make friends and influence people’ twice in the past couple of days by the rigorous intellectual arguments and standards applied in his personal blogging (given his novel approach to encouraging ‘..Police brutality..’ can it be long before he is appointed Theresa’s personal envoy to Catalunya?):
TORY vice chairman Ben Bradley has been forced to issue a further apology after further offensive comments he made online in the past have emerged.
His latest remarks to have surfaced encouraged police brutality and were written in a blog in 2011 about the riots in London happening at the time.
He wrote: “We need to come down hard on these morons before somebody gets killed!..”If we have any sense as a nation we’ll stay home tonight and make it easy for the police to find the ones hanging around town centres with their faces covered.
“For once I think police brutality should be encouraged!”
These comments come just days after comments came to light in which he suggested men who are out of work should have vasectomies.
He said these procedures would prevent Britain “drowning in a vast sea of unemployed wasters”.
Number 10 has backed the Mansfield MP, saying he would not be removed from his new role as Conservative vice chairman for youth.
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Good stuff, thanks
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Hope this snippet copies OK – cut it from the Press Gazette. Shows the new circulation figs for a few of the ‘Scottish’ papers. Still the long, slow death of the print side of Scottish MSM goes on. This is really very sad. I would love to see Scotland with a thriving and diverse print media. All I ask is that it be fair and balanced. However, since the overwhelming bulk of the Scottish print media have thrown in their lot with Project Fear with (sadly) an apparently wanton gusto – then I am afraid I have to view these papers’ onward decline as a ‘positive’ factor in building the new and better Scotland. (I wish it were not so – I really do. I used to spend an absolute fortune buying various papers to read through).
Publication Dec-17 Year-on-year % change Dec-16 Month-on-month % change Bulks
Sunday Mail 143,788 -16.65 172,513 -1.35
Daily Record 139,237 -13.28 160,557 0.49
Sunday Post 127,370 -10.84 142,863 0.08 538
The year-on-year declines are pretty hefty all things consisdered.
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Wow, freefall?
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In answer to both our questions I tend to think to a certain extent the closed shop and the construction industry blacklist are different sides of the same coin. In the former not being a paid up member of an approved trade union prevented people from being employed whereas in the latter being a member of a trade union could have the same effect.Becoming a member of a trade union was not guaranteed depending on the circumstances but had better prospects of overcoming the obstacle than being on a secret blacklist.
In both cases there is an infringement on peoples’ human rights possibly more sinister in the case of the topical blacklist as the security services were involved.
Regardless of my opinions Ms.Hilton does seem an odd choice for such a position.
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Thanks. I see what your’e saying now.
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“I’m from the BBC”
The Donald ” . . . . . . There’s a beauty”
Gaun yer sel’ Donald !
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