Bank of Scotland takeover

By now, I would think that every Scot would know about the HBOS merger with Lloyds TSB. To me personally, this is just the final straw! The takeover of Scotland's oldest and most respected bank is a loss of a national institution. As The Scotsman put it, it is "The darkest day in Scottish Banking"!! But the worst part of all this has to be the fact that so many people now risk losing their jobs! While the exact number of possible job losses has most likely been exaggerated, it doesn't disguise the fact that any job losses are terrible and should NOT be happening! First Minister Alex Salmond, today, at First Ministers questions, was doing exactly what any First Minister should be doing and that was standing up for the Scottish national interest by doing everything he can to secure the jobs of workers at the Bank of Scotland, ensuring that as few branches as possible, if not none, are closed and making sure that the Scottish bank notes are protected! All in all, his performance in FMQ's today was true statesman like and was miles better than either Iain Gray ( who had his first FMQ's today) or Gordon Brown could ever do! And things just got even worse for Labour today after a new poll put the Tories on 52%!! A massive 28 points ahead of Labour who were on 24% while the Lib Dems were on 12%. This, alone with the loss of the Bank of Scotland today, can only increase support for Independence for Scotland!!

David Cairns resigns

Hi again. Just a wee quick post this time, as I've just heard the news that David Cairns has resigned as a minister in the Scotland office. David Cairns, who also played a big role in Labour's failed Glasgow East by-election campaign, resigned in a protest against Brown (at least it looks that way) and has now made yet another major blow to the Prime Minister, esspescially after a weekend where a total of 12 Labour MP's and ministers rebeled against Gordon Brown by asking for a leadership contest!!

Now let's be honest, I dought anyone really expects there to be a leadership contest anytime soon, but what it has shown is that even his own MP's have lost faith with him!!

This will definitly not help his chances of avoiding defeat at Glenrothes!!

Iain Gray becomes new scot labour leader

On a very dull and dreach Saturday (no change there then), there was something unusal happening - the results of the contest to be Scottish Labour Leader! It was, as expected, a rather boring & lifeless contest, always failing to grab the attention of the people. And their hustings were much quiter than ever before! In the end, however the party chose to go with Iain Gray. The man who currently stands on just 3% in the opinion polls (to be best First Minister)! In his victory speech he attempted to make a comparison between his own background and that of Alex Salmond's. This has already proved to be too much of a gamble, as it has been revealed that while he had no trouble of mentioning his time of being a teacher & working for Oxfam, he failed to also mention his time at Inverness Academy and an elitist club in Edinburgh! Not a great start, I think! And, as if that wasn't enough, it's also been another bad day for Gordon Brown after 7 Labour MP's called for a leadership contest! It's a bit ironic, as the Scottish party finishes its leadership contest, there could be about to be one at Westminster - which would without a dought trigger a general election - one which the SNP could expect to do very well in!!

I look forward to watching this weeks FMQ's

What to expect at the weekend

So it's now Friday, it's the end of another busy week and we can now look forward to the weekend! But what can we expect? Well, first of all, we have the results of the contest to be leader of the Scottish Labour Party. Cathy Jamieson, Iain Gray and Andy Kerr are all contesting for what looks like a close race! Ian Gray is apparently the front runner to succeed Wendy Alexander, but to be fair I don't think any of them could stand up to and match First Minister Alex Salmond! He is certainly enjoying a prolonged honeymoon, and rightly so! The SNP Government is proving to be, possibly, the most popular government Scotland has ever had! Saving hospital A&E departments, abolishing prescription charges along with bridge tolls and student fees, freezing council tax, cutting business rates, axing government departments and quangos such as Scottish Enterprise, rejecting nuclear power, opposing Trident, replacing PFI, and ending private involvement in the NHS are all just a few of the achievements made so far and, trust me, there are a lot more still to come! Meanwhile, compare this to the record of the 3 Labour leadership contenders - Cathy has proved that she is unable to put on a strong performance at FMQ's (as shown just this week as she resorted to party politics rather than the real issues). Iain Gray showing in the opinion polls are not great as he polled just 3% in a poll for who would make the best First Minister (Salmond scored 41%). And, as for Andy Kerr, well as the Health Minister in the previous administration, he spearheaded the very unpopular closure of the Ayr & Monklands A&E departments!

So, all in all, it will be interesting to see who wins the highly poisonous gauntlet (or Scottish Labour leader), but, to be frank, none of them are up to the job of taking on Alex Salmond!!

HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND!!!

New Scottish TV channel to be launched

I was delighted to hear the news yesterday that Scotland is to at long last get it's own TV channel. For far too long Scotland has been short changed by the BBC by having incredibly few programmed actually made in Scotland! But that now could be about to change with the new "Scottish Network" which has been recommended by the Scottish Broadcasting Commission (SBC). It will feature all the things which you would expect any decent channel to have such as news, drama, comedy etc. Blair Jenkins, who led the commission and is a former BBC executive, said that the new channel would have an annual cost of £50m - £75m, but did not say whether this would come from the television license fee.

As usual, Labour has given its objection to the proposal, which is just typical of them as anything which can remotely give Scotland its own voice is, for some reason, a bad thing. David Cairns seems to believe that this is the "breaking up of Britain" and that "Scottish broadcasting should remain as part of the UK"! This is ridiculous! For years Scotland has been looking for its own TV channel, and by opposing it, it only goes to show just how out of touch the Labour party is.

Bad news (again) for Labour

When I picked up my paper this morning I didn't really expect to read anything big, but, as if things coudn't get any worse for Labour, a new You Gov poll has put Labour a massive 16 points behind the SNP for the Scottish Parliament. And, as if that wasn't enough, the poll also gave the three contenders for the poisioned gauntlet (also known as the Scottish Labour leadership) very poor results. The question asked who would be the best First Minister. Cathy Jamieson had a dismal 8%, Andy Kerr on 5% and front runner Iain Gray on a completly useless 3%. Meanwhile, while Tory leader Annabell Goldie came second with 9%, Alex Salmond was put on an impressive 41%. That's SIX TIMES more than Cathy Jamieson!

It just goes to show who is winning the popularity battle and who is winning the hearts and minds of the Scottish People. As for Independence, the poll showed that, under a Conservative government at Westminster, support for Independence rises to 50%, while support against independence is put at 42%. This leaves me only one thing to say, 2010 - "BRING IT ON"

WELCOME

Hello and welcome to my new blog - Scottish Nationalist Voice

I'm a huge SNP supporter and supporter of Scottish Independence! So I decided to start up this blog to keep you all up to date with all the happenings of Scottish politics, events plus anything else which may be interesting from a Scottish Nationalists point of view.

Hope you'll enjoy!!