Hamish Hardie says

Eh?!  Popular MP?  With whom?  Not pensioners, relatives of soldiers, anyone who had to go to hospital, anyone who wanted to employ someone who'd been through our dumbed down education system, anyone who's disgusted with the waste in our bloated public services.................and never said sorry!   May he enjoy a long and happy retirement from politics!

Modhail Ainm says

Popular however, with the low paid (National Minimum Wage), those who have children (Child Tax credits), cancer patients (deaths and treatment waiting times down).

For your information, Police Officer numbers have risen by 17,000 in the last 13 years and reduced heart attacks (if Scottish figures are to be taken as similar to the UK as a whole) by introducing a smoking ban.

As for your comment on the "dumbed down education system", I feel that is an insult to anyone who has ever sat a Standard Grade, Higher or Advanced Higher examination.

I know they say that journalists don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, but in this case it's simply not true!

Hamish Hardie says

I'll give you the National Minimum Wage!   But tax credits going to people who earn up to £60,000 a year (waste of our money) when they should have been targeted on the lower paid (as the new coalition intends to do), cancer deaths down yes but perhaps something to do with improved treatments, waiting times reduced - think that has got something to do with manipulating statistics.  It's quite easy to reduce waiting times if you don't let people make an appointment until the day they attend!    More money spent on the NHS - yes but mostly wasted (more managers driving the real medical staff to meet meaningless targets, dirtier hospitals, GP's being paid much more money for NOT supplying out of hours cover, the aweful NHS24 telling everyone to go to bed and take a few aspirins............)    Yep - lots more police officers,NOT patrolling our streets and making them safer, filling in forms to produce even more meaningless statistics, being more concerned with being social workers than law officers (just listen to the head of ACPOS' latest nonsense).     Ask anyone in industry who tries to employ youngsters today whether the education system is failing them.  In no way do I suggest that as an insult to the poor kids who sit the exams, just to the minnows who set the standards.   Also I'll give you the smoking ban as one of the few good Labour measures, but as usual dithering Gordon/Tony waited to see how it would go down in Scotland before having the courage to introduce it in the rest of the country.

PS who sold off half the country's gold reserves at its lowest price for 30 odd years (just another little fact that might get in the way of your good story!).  No wonder "there's no money left" as one of Gordon's Ministers put it as one of the last ones to leave the Treasury.   I'm just amazed that they didn't have to switch the lights off too!

Modhail Ainm says

Well, if anyone fiddled the statistics - it's the NHS itsself. Secondly, I have found NHS24 to reccommend the correct course of action every time they have been called. I'd like to know where you're getting this information from, it seems to be more speculative and opinionated than fact.

About the Police, I can guarantee not all the 13,000 Police went straight into offices. Could it be that the proportion of Police on beat/in office stayed the same, while the actual numbers increased?

On Qualifications, SQA qualifications (pretty much all exams taken in Scottish Schools) are recognised throughout Europe, so if Scottish standards were declining it would only be a matter of time before the fact that people highlighted that our standards were decling in relation to Europe, surely?

Health is a devolved matter, so Tony/Gordon using Scotland as "lab-rats" doesn't wash. Now, Thatcher on the other hand....

And honestly, Gold Reserves? We sold off far more valuable assets during the 80s and 90s, BT, British Gas, British Rail and British Steel.

Hamish Hardie says

Well, if anyone fiddled the statistics - it's the NHS itsself (Under whose instructions or pressure I wonder!). Secondly, I have found NHS24 to reccommend the correct course of action every time they have been called. I'd like to know where you're getting this information from, it seems to be more speculative and opinionated than fact. (Eh how often have you called them personally compared with the published accounts I quoted?)

About the Police, I can guarantee not all the 13,000 Police went straight into offices. Could it be that the proportion of Police on beat/in office stayed the same, while the actual numbers increased?  (I refer you back to the quote from the Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway who stated that middle class communities would have to fend for themselves while he carried out his social Work duties in the poorer areas).

On Qualifications, SQA qualifications (pretty much all exams taken in Scottish Schools) are recognised throughout Europe, so if Scottish standards were declining it would only be a matter of time before the fact that people highlighted that our standards were decling in relation to Europe, surely? (I think you'll find that quite a lot of surveys have shown that our standards are declining with respect to Europe - and even more worrying in relation to the emerging economies)

Health is a devolved matter, so Tony/Gordon using Scotland as "lab-rats" doesn't wash. ( Tony/Gordon's puppets in the early Scottish Parliament might have been more accurate- I give you that).  Now, Thatcher on the other hand....

And honestly, Gold Reserves? We sold off far more valuable assets during the 80s and 90s, BT, British Gas, British Rail and British Steel. ( Yep - and got a pretty good price for all the small shareholders who benefited from the sales and have been making a huge profit for the taxpayer from all the corporation taxes these profitable privatised industries have been paying ever since!  Where did the money from the gold reserves go?  Funding an illegal war, bloating the public service, paying for labour spin-doctors...............!!!

I think you should go back and study what has actually been happening over the last 13 years, not repeating the Guardian view of events!   If they had been that good, perhaps they would have been re-elected - but fortunately Joe/Jill Public isn't always as stupid as the politicians take him/her for!

Modhail Ainm says

I'm loving this! Having never read the Guardian with any sort of regularity in my life, I'm assuming that you're saying that my points are irrelevant because you have judged me to be a Labour supporter (and I know there aren't many in Aberdour!)

NHS 24 - Without going to details, since NHS 24 opened members of my close family have phoned NHS 24 and in each case, the correct course of action was taken (and yes, I was in one case told to take a painkiller and go back to bed - because there was entirely no need for a doctor)

Police - Crime statistics show that middle class areas have lower crime rates than working class areas. Sounds like the police being where they are required to me.

SQA - Which surveys? I haven't come across any, post a link to them.

"Puppets" - Given it was a Labour/Lib Dem administration that seems unlikely.

"Spin Doctors" - Well, we can all rest safe in the knowledge that the Tories or Lib Dems have never had spin doctors, can't we? I mean, it's not as if they had teams working on slogans designed to scare the public into getting votes for them.

At least we know the money saved is being put to good use, in the last 6 weeks - the coalition spent £17,500 of taxpayer's money on wine.

I really have to ask, have you been on a train recently?! Privitisation is the worst thing possible this country's businesses! "Corporate" images and shareholders have come before customer service and their own staff! We've got to the point where former nationalised businesses are so desperate for cash, that they'll hire teams of lawyers to find loopholes in the law to strip employees of their basic right to strike.

Alasdair McFarlane says

OK he lost the election as PM. On £64,000 a year isn't it about time he went back to Westminster ? Sulking in North Queensferry is no good for his constituents.

Hamish Hardie says

Hear hear!  It's disgraceful the way he has just disappeared.  Probably scared to go back to Westminster and happy to leave his former minions to take all the flack for the mess he left behind.   But if he's not prepared to do his job as a backbench MP for us, he should clear off and make way for someone who is.

Modhail Ainm says

From what I can gather, having spoken with Mr Brown and attented a function of the local Labour party, he is most definitely still MP and intends to do so. (sic) "When people ask, 'What's he doing now?', I say to them: 'I am the MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, I am working for my constituents' "

Backbench MPs rarely make the news, how do you know he's not back in Westminster?

Hamish Hardie says

I think such a momentous event as the worst ex-prime minister in living memory re-appearing in Westminster might have drawn a comment from the new PM and got 10 seconds on the left-leaning BBC!     However, after Mandelson's disgraceful revelations, I suspect none of the out-going self-serving incompetents who were "new labour" will want to show their faces again.    And don't just take my word for that - just listen to the "new new labour" young pretenders and how their opinions of their previous leaders have changed recently to suit THEIR self-serving ambition!    We're well rid of all of them.  

Modhail Ainm says

Well that's me stuffed. I was going to ask which Milliband you were backing.

Hamish Hardie says

I think you can guess that it would be neither!  As a confirmed whisky drinker, it's Abbot's Choice for me!    At least she's not tarred with the Blair/Brown brush.   However, it's pretty irrelevant really as I suspect they will have got through a few leaders before they get back into power again.   Fun to watch though!

Hamish Hardie says

Well well!  After 4 months I see that our MP has graciously decided to (eventually) earn his salary (excuse the split infinitive!) and return to Westminster to represent his constituents and paymasters.   About time!   And now he thinks he can solve the education system of the world - having signally failed to improve the system at home despite throwing many billions of our money at it.   I suppose that he believes this just as he believes he saved the world financial system.   Is there no end to the ego of these people?  Having briefly read his self-serving memoirs, all I can say is that Blair was even worse than Brown.   All that energy expended waging war on each other when there was so much to do to improve the country - no wonder we are in the worst mess in the last 100 years.  They deserved each other - but unfortunately the country did not deserve either of them.  Perhaps it would be better if they, Mandelson, Campbell et all just faded away and left Milliband 1 or 2 to save us (I jest of course).   Here's to the next chapter in this sorry saga!

Mr L says

To be honest, I cant see the direction of your worthless ranting Hamish.

You seem to exaggerate your points in a way that resembles a bumbling old man "the worst mess in the last 100 years" I'm pretty sure that the WWII was worse for economical strain.

The last government may not have been perfect but neither is this one, I have a feeling your views are too clouded with bias towards the conservative party? David Cameron has not messed up yet, which means that I reserve judgment to his abilities as PM, however the fact that the conservatives have shunned the ideas of the Lib Dems shows their weakness in power and failure to cooperate with the decision of the public.