Abusive Lying MP Should Apologise

Letter to the press. Note how the press don't so much write stories as all copy them, often word for word, from the party/government spindoctors:

Sir,

      On Sunday Chuka Umunna got BBC airtime to say UKIP supporters are too stupid to use email. Since polls show that on our main policies as much as 70% of the British people agree with UKIP that is a sweeping claim.

      Today a whole train of separate papers have, spontaneously written, in almost exactly the same words, about how he has, allegedly, been "abused" by people he had already abused so disgracefully & dishonestly. It must be coincidence that they all spontaneously wrote in the same words, if our press is as free and independent as it claims.

    As a member of the Labour party he is a supporter war crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocide, child rape and worse actions so obscene you would not publish them, in Kosovo so perhaps more racially abusing than abused.

   The BBC's Charter legally requires them to be "balanced" so if the BBC respected law, they would give at least equal airtime to UKIP voters abused by Umanna. If the  press were attempting impartiality they also should report both sides..

   I can assure readers that I am perfectly capable of using email and take personal exception to Umanna's gratuitous and predjudiced blanket attack on us. I call on him to publicly apologise and on the media to give at least equal coverage to those attacked as  to those engaged in dishonest, gratuitous, fact free vitriol. Or if he refuses, on his party to.

Neil Craig

(by email)

 

Some of the spontaneous stories coincidentally written in similar terms

 

	Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters LondonNews24 Chuka Umunna, the Labour MP for Streatham, was branded a "spear chucker" and a "cave man" on a Facebook page after he suggested "a lot of" ... Flag as irrelevant
	London News Locker A south London MP has been targeted by racist online trolls after suggesting that Ukip supporters can't use computers. Flag as irrelevant
	Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters Got News Wire - Got News Wire Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters 'can't use computers'. A south London MP has been targeted by racist ... Flag as irrelevant
	Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters CityNewsLine.co.uk A south London MP has been targeted by racist online trolls after suggesting that Ukip supporters can't use computers.... Flag as irrelevant
	Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters News.nom.co A south London MP has been targeted by racist online trolls after suggesting that Ukip supporters can't use computers., News from standard.co.uk ... Flag as irrelevant
	Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters World - Top News Today A south London MP has been targeted by racist online trolls after suggesting that Ukip supporters can't use computers. | World | standard.co.uk. Flag as irrelevant
	Chuka Umunna targeted by racist online trolls after saying Ukip supporters World News A south London MP has been targeted by racist online trolls after suggesting that Ukip supporters can't use computers. Chuka Umunna, the Labour ...

Daily Mail Letter - Racism Smear

  This letter was in the Daily Mail yesterday. It went out to most Scottish papers. I seem to be doing very well with the Mail - or arguably doing inexplicably badly with the rest of the press.

Sir,

      UKIP gaining 1 seat out of 6 from Scotland in the EU election is actually surprisingly low.

 

     A recent poll showed that 70% of Scots people agree with UKIP's policy on immigration - limit it to 50,000 a year. On other policies we have a lead that is less but not that much less.

 

    No new party have got 70% - many people vote for parties because "our family have always voted ....." and perhaps some distrust of policy promises is justified.

 

     Nonetheless something other than honest political debate on policy has clearly been at play.

 

      This can only be the disgusting smear campaign run by the state owned ("balanced" it says so in their Charter) BBC and some followers in the media, claiming UKIP is "racist". This claim is a deliberate, untruth [and cannot be proven].

 

      I challenge any of those who made this wholly false attack on UKIP to provide proof of UKIP having done anything 1/10,000th as racist as those parties or the BBC. By definition, any honest media personality who promoted the smear, will wish to prove it, and any who did and don't are totalitarian liars.

 

       Bear in mind that UKIP opposed our illegal wars including the one that led to our police (appointed from the KLA, a NATO organised terrorist group, in turn recruited from gangsters, sex slavers, organleggers and drug lords) dissecting thousands of people, chosen on racial grounds, while still alive, in Kosovo. This was done with the support of out main parties, though UKIP opposed it, and with the censorship, racial smearing and spinning of the BBC.

 

     If not they owe an apology not just to UKIP but to every British citizen for the way something close to a media monopoly has been used to subvert democratic choice. An academic statistical study has shown that the degree of governmental corruption and incompetence is directly proportional to government ownership of broadcasting (direct control of the press is less important) and that it had "no benefits". By their dishonest censorship and smearing (which has been much worse in Scotland than across the UK) the BBC have proven their monopoly power is not compatible with a free society.

Neil Craig

 

Ref - government ownership of broadcasting report  http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/report-reveals-state-media-ownership.html

70% of Scots support UKIP immigration policy http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/seven-out-of-ten-scots-back-ukip-policy-on-immigration.24278719

 

    The stuff in italics was edited out and the rather simpler but less emphatic "and cannot be proven" substituted. Not surprised. In fact I left it in because I doubted the letter would be published in any form. The accusation of LabConDem/BBC complicity in something that makes simple genocide look clean by comparison is undisputably true but (for that reason) virtually entirely censored by our media.

Brian's Big "Debate" Today

 Was held in Townhead "Village Hall". This one was specifically about the referendum (16 weeks to go). The total audience was about 35, which is poor, though no schoolkids. On the panel were -

- Patrick Harvie, Green leader (* coincidentally on during the April edition previously described, and also previously described by me as "a permanent fixture on the BBC")
- James  Dornan, SNP

V

- Annabelle Goldie, Tory and previously party leader
- Jim Murphy, Labour (impressive - he has mastered sincerity and displays it as effectively as he did the spot of blood in the middle of his white shirt after the Clutha bar tragedy)

4 questions during which I was able to answer twice as was Robert Malyn, Glasgow branch chair.

1 "Who should we believe when the figures the Yes and No camps produce are so far apart."  Obviously everybody said me, what else can they. However Harvie somewhat weakened my question to him by getting in his admission first. Dornan had said their growth figures were credible. Harvie then said it wasn't about growth or economic success but equality, greenery etc. When I got chosen I pointed out that Harvie had said in a TV debate that "nobody should vote for independence on the grounds that it would produce growth, indeed that he didn't expect any growth" and that Nicola Sturgeon, on stage with him, hadn't disagreed. Would these 2 lie to tell us which it was, since it is difficult to accept their position until we know what it is.

Brian then took several other questions and in the shuffle mine went unanswered, which is answer enough.

2 - "Can Scotland be viable without oil" - Murphy wisely answered that of course we would be viable, just poorer. Harvie said we must stop burning oil because of "catastrophic" warming.

I put up my hand and got called & said "As a supporter of UKIP I do not believe in the catastrophic warming Mr Harvie warns us of. This is supported by the fact that there has been no warming at all, let alone catastrophic warming since 1998. However, be that as it may, because of the shale gas revolution, we must expect oil prices to fall. There is as much shale available in Britain as to match our oil. One thing we can be sure of is that if the SNP or Greens had been in power when north sea oil was found it would still be in the ground.

Robert also stated from personal experience of living in Ireland in 1990s and 2000s during the boom, that Ireland generally since Independence in 1922 has been an economic basket case and various public services e.g. health service, Public Service TV, and Transport Infrastructure roads / rail etc were pretty poor in comparison to the UK in General and Scotland in particular.

3 - "What about the pulling of cinema ads" - a light hearted bit in which people said which films they didn't like. I wanted to point out that this may show the people to be less interested in the referendum than the political classes and it would be dreadful if the vote, either way, went 51:49 on a 40% turnout. I wasn't asked.

4 - "Do we need Trident in a post cold war world" - Quite a lot of sensible points were made on all sides, mainly on the principle of keeping it. I didn't try too hard because I really don't know what the proper answer is. If I had been taken I would have said something about it being a token on both sides since there is no possibility of Britain actually using our nukes except as part of a general NATO action.

Robert got to point out the incongruity of those wanting to cancel our nukes on financial grounds while we give foreign aid to those investing in their own ones. 

Brian's Big "Debate" - Bearsden - 4th April

  On Friday I am going to be part of the Big "Debate" audience in Townhead. So here's one I did earlier:

Friday 4th April, Bearsden the panel, Patrick Harive for the Greens, David Martin, Labour MEP, Mona Siddiqui, Edinburgh Uni, formerly Glasgow Uni, Court member, Fiona McLeod, SNP MSP and Neil Baxter.

 

There were 4 questions on three of which I got to say something simply by keeping my hand up. The one I didn't was about global warming where Brian specifically said he was moving on though there were still hands up. Perhaps the email from the Head of BBC Scotland Censorship Dept saying that under no circumstances should any debate be allowed on the subject, in which the other side were allowed to participate, be allowed, had something to do with that. Siddiqui was balanced on this in that she said she knew nothing about it so Harvie was given as much time as necessary to assert that catastrophic warming was visible.

 

Childcare - all about the SNP promise to spend more on childcare after separation. It had recently been found that their promises that this would be payable for out of the extra taxes working mothers pay had no factual backing. No serious estimate had been made of how much these mothers would pay. I got to point out that childcare costs in Britain are 41% of average wages whereas in Estonia, not a country known for hating their children, it was just 6% and that the difference is entirely political regulations which, even though a member of UKIP, I couldn't blame on the EU because Estonia is a member too. Holyrood has control of most regulations so the SNP could massively reduce those costs right now if they wished.

 

Red Road Flats being blown up to celebrate the games - everybody disagreed with that. I got to say that the problem was not the blowing up but the decades spent letting them decline, when they were structurally sound - and that this was symptomatic of the way 3/4 of housing costs are actually political not technological. The blowing up was cancelled but that is just cosmetic - the real damage was done.

 

Can't remember the last question now but it gave me a chance, at the very end, to say that it was improper for the BBC to censor UKIP, particularly when it is important enough for attacks to be made (2 panel members had made such). Brian denied that UKIP was censored, citing as proof, that I was able to speak from the audience. I don't know if any listeners found that convincing

3 News Items about UKIP

   3 Interesting news items about UKIP

- Lord Tebbit's blog on the Telegraph points out:

"There were some odd features of the poll, particularly the puzzle of who was really funding the "An Independence From Europe Party" whose title put it at the top of the long ballot paper which had Ukip at the bottom. Clearly the organisers and funders could have had no hope whatsoever that it would gain enough votes to elect an MEP, so what was their motive? I can only assume it was to catch out voters intending to support Ukip and lure them into precipitately putting a cross against its name before finding Ukip right at the foot of the page. One way or another it secured 1.49 per cent of the vote and if one adds even half of that to Ukip's score it makes Mr Farage's lead even more impressive."

I commented - Thanks for pointing out that 1.49% the spoilers took from the UKIP vote - something the BBC media have been silent on. Bearing in mind that the difference between UKIP getting no Westminster seats, at least if we don't target, which we will, and winning an overall majority of Westminster seats is only 10% (25% to 35%) that is a major effect.

Running this through Electoral Calculus we get

Conservative 210 seats, Labour 278 seats, LD 20 seats, UKIP 113 seats

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- The BBC have just been reporting a ridiculous claim by the Yes campaign that, because they will achieve a marginally higher growth rate than currently, after 17 years we will all be better off. This is to counter an opinion from No that it will cost us over £2 bn to do the organisational changes of setting up new departments in every branch of government now run centrally. Yes's counter was to say it would cost £200 million. Bearing in mind that the enormously simpler job of raising or cutting Scotland's income tax alone by up to 3p has long been agreed on both sides, to cost £40-£45 million the idea that hundreds of changes of a similar order could be for £200 is ludicrous and even No's figure seems optimistic.

   Which didn't stop the BBC repeatedly saying the truth must be half way between each figures.

    This also induced me to send them this email. While it has not been answered it is now undeniable that a "balanced" BBC would have to give, at least, matching airtime and matching support for this:

"The Yes campaign's assessment of us being £1000 better off in 17 years depends entirely on the SNP being able to promise a slightly higher growth rate. That is simply an evidence free assertion. If they achieve an economic collapse we will be poorer.

 

Or if we achieve the average growth rate of the non-EU countries (5.5%) rather than our 2.5% we will, in 17 years be 65% better off (1.o3^17) or £17,000.

 

We can be much more confident we can do that with a UKIP government outside the EU. Lets see if the "balanced" BBC state propaganda organisation decides to allow, or to censor, mention of this option."

 

I have much more faith in UKIP, outside the EU, achieving non-EU average growth rates than I do in the openly Luddite SNP achieving higher growth rates, or any growth, outside the UK & inside the EU.

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- The Scotsman has a relatively friendly article about David Coburn's victory.

 

"Ukip is currently without a Scottish leader – although Mr Coburn said he was “sort of running it” as the only elected parliamentarian the party has north of the Border."

 

I assume this means that because we have not yet had this year's AGM due by the end of May, Misty Thackeray's pro-tem leadership is no longer legal. Fortunately the AGM is promised very shortly and we can clear up the leadership issue. This is vital if we are to have a full range of radical, visibly Scottish, policies before the run up to the Westminster and Holyrood elections. 

CON	36.97%	307	23.00%	4	101	210
LAB	29.66%	258	24.40%	35	15	278
LIB	23.56%	57	6.60%	0	37	20
UKIP	3.17%	0	%	113	0	113

If 70% Of Scots Support UKIP Policy Why Do Most Vote For BBC Approved Parties?

   Letter sent today. Any odds on whether it is censored, let alone whether any of the lying beeboids feel able to answer the question raised.

Sir,

      UKIP gaining 1 seat out of 6 from Scotland in the EU election is actually surprisingly low.

 

     A recent poll showed that 70% of Scots people agree with UKIP's policy on immigration - limit it to 50,000 a year. On other policies we have a lead that is less but not that much less.

 

    No way could any new party have got 70% - there are many people who vote for parties because "our family have always voted ....." and perhaps some distrust of policy promises is justified. Nonetheless something other than honest political debate on policy has clearly been at play.

 

      This can only be the disgusting smear campaign run by the state owned ("balanced" it says so in their Charter) BBC and some followers in the media, claiming UKIP is "racist". This claim is a deliberate, totalitarian lie.

 

      I challenge any of those who made this wholly false attack on UKIP to provide proof of UKIP having done anything 1/10,000th as racist as those parties or the BBC. By definition, any honest media personality who promoted the smear, will wish to prove it, and any who did and don't are totalitarian liars.

 

       Bear in mind that UKIP opposed our illegal wars including the one that led to our police (appointed from the KLA, a NATO organised terrorist group, in turn recruited from gangsters, sex slavers, organleggers and drug lords) dissecting thousands of people, chosen on racial grounds, while still alive, in Kosovo. This was done with the support of out main parties, though UKIP opposed it, and with the censorship, racial smearing and spinning of the BBC.

 

     If not they owe an apology not just to UKIP but to every British citizen for the way something close to a media monopoly has been used to subvert democratic choice. An academic statistical study has shown that the degree of governmental corruption and incompetence is directly proportional to government ownership of broadcasting (direct control of the press is less important) and that it had "no benefits". By their dishonest censorship and smearing (which has been much worse in Scotland than across the UK) the BBC have proven their monopoly power is not compatible with a free society.

Neil Craig

 

Ref - government ownership of broadcasting report  http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/report-reveals-state-media-ownership.html

70% of Scots support UKIP immigration policy http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/seven-out-of-ten-scots-back-ukip-policy-on-immigration.24278719

 

   Incidentally, just as I was writing this BBC Radio Scotland have just broadcast (12.40 today) another attack on UKIP as being "racist" - no attempt at facts made by these totalitarian fascist liars.

Scotsman Letter (2 days running) - UKIP in Referendum "Debate"

    I am gratified, not to say astonished, that the Scotsman have published a letter from me today. 2 days running is unprecedented.

Sir,

      Lesley Riddoch says Perspective (12th May) that "debates are being cancelled or abandoned because Better Together won't supply speakers". If so this is disgraceful. Also unnecessary.

 

     Better Together have always refused to work together with UKIP. However UKIP has not returned the disfavour and our current leader Arthur "Misty" Thackeray was the organiser of UKIP's campaign before his elevation. I am certain that he would make every attempt to produce a speaker where a debate is wanted.

 

     I personally regard open public debate of every political issue as a necessary and perhaps sufficient condition for democracy and assume the effective BBC ban on UKIP in the referendum debate means they do to.

 

     In 2012 I had the honour, along with our then leader Mike Scott-Hayward of debating in Glasgow City Chambers for No. Despite having only a few minutes preparation (the other parties had, at the last moment, found prior engagements)  we won easily. Partly by the expedient of mentioning a prior Green assertion that "nobody should vote Yes in the expectation of any economic growth in the next 10 years" which their partners had not disputed.

 

     The opposition were left complaining how unfair it was that they had to face us when had been expecting only the usual suspects.

 

     The exclusion of UKIP from the referendum "debate" has meant that a number of the clearest arguments against have gone unmade - those relating to the EU.

 

       Losing the opt-outs Britain has would mean losing our share of the rebate (nearly £1 bn); losing the opt outs from the social chapter would cost us 170,000 jobs; signing the Shengen agreement on immigration means border posts at Gretna; new members have to promise to someday join the euro. The SNP, uniquely among nominally separatist parties worldwide, deny us even a referendum on whether we want this union.

 

    Apart from the harm the Better Together campaign and the gatekeepers of the media have done to the No campaign, the Scottish people have, so far, been denied a genuine 2 sided debate on the issue. That can still change.

 

Neil Craig

Prospective UKIP Glasgow candidate

 

Ref - The Glasgow City Chambers debate http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/ukip-debate-independence-campaign-ukip.html

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------

 

    That is as good as I could ever have wanted. Not edited - check; party affiliation - check; dig at the other parties - check; pushing my own hobbyhorse of the importance of open debate - check; significant pressure to get us elbowing our way into the debate - check; bit of humour - check; getting to modestly imply I am a capable public speaker - check; getting to call the BBC totalitarian censors - check; putting forward a range of anti-separation and anti-EU arguments that have barely been mentioned - check; getting to use the word "censorship" in print to describe the censorship endemic to our politics - check.

Why Does BBC Scotland Need A Head Of Censorship?

This was on Andrew Montford's blog Bishop Hill some time ago (a Scottish blogger who is one of the world's leading sites on the "catastrophic global warming" fraud):

 -----------------------
In his Mail on Sunday article today (keep scrolling) David Rose reveals that the BBC - at least in Scotland - has a new policy of protecting climatologists from challenge on air.

A BBC executive in charge of editorial standards has ordered programme editors not to broadcast debates between climate scientists and global warming sceptics. 

Alasdair MacLeod claimed that such discussions amount to ‘false balance’ and breach an undertaking to the Corporation’s watchdog, the BBC Trust. 

Mr MacLeod, head of editorial standards and compliance for BBC Scotland, sent an email on  February 27 to 18 senior producers and editors, which has been obtained by The Mail on Sunday. 

It reads: ‘When covering climate change stories, we should not run debates / discussions directly between scientists and sceptics.

If dissenters from the climate consensus are not to be allowed to put their case directly, there is presumably little point in having those arguments put by BBC interviewers. So from now on the pronouncements of climatologists will be treated as holy writ and the most alarmist scientists can be allowed to scaremonger without fear of contradiction.
----------------------------------------------------------

      "Head of Editorial Standards and Compliance" can barely even be described as a euphemism for "Head of the Censorship Department".

      The BBC Charter does specifically make it a legal requirement that they report impartially and with "balance". The very existence of a Censorship Department proves that they are engaged in extensive and illegal censorship, and have no worries about being brought to account for their illegalities.

      The existence of a department large enough to require a Head, let alone a regional Head, simply to provide instructions on what must be censored means the amount of across the board censorship at the BBC must be massive.
-------------------------------------------------
     
      Another example, from the same site some days later would be the extensive BBC coverage of the possible poisoning of 6 birds (I have also heard the same news being gone over again yesterday) while the fact that windfarms in Scotland kill in the high thousands of birds a year, goes entirely censored.

     Since this is roughly 1,000 times more it would clearly be impossible for the BBC to give equal coverage to both news items unless it were no more than 1/1000th honest (ie 99.9% corrupt).

    By not reporting the windmill news at all they have clearly proven they do not aspire to even that level of integrity. Because the 28 Gate fraud became public we know that across all departments, the BBC have been aware, for a proven 7 years, that the warming story is, at least in large measure, fraudulent. There can therefore be no possible suggestion that any of these 99.9%+ corrupt totalitarian liars have any excuse or that any other state owned broadcaster anywhere in the world is as dishonest as our the BBC. 

First Farage/Clegg Debate a Success

To nobody's surprise the poll after the first (radio) Farage/Clegg debate on the EU showed Nigel winning handsomely (57:36%).

 

The next hour-long debate will be shown on BBC2 from 7pm on Wednesday, 2 April, and will be hosted by David Dimbleby.

 

This can only do us good (& to be fair will probably give the LD some good too since they are angling to take pro-EU voters from the LabCons, in which we may wish them good luck.

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The party’s main 2014 conference will be held at Doncaster Racecourse, relatively nearby, in South Yorkshire,on Friday September 26 and Saturday September 27. http://www.ukip.org/newsroom/news/1262-ukip-to-hold-it-s-biggest-ever-annual-conference-at-doncaster-racecourse-as-the-party-goes-from-strength-to-strength-in-south-Yorkshire

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BRIAN'S BIG DEBATE, for BBC radio Scotland

 

We have hopes of getting MEP candidate David Coburn on the panel here though, as always, when trying to get the BBC not to censor, it is an uphill struggle. UKIP's recent poll rating of 6% would guarantee us about 1/7th as much coverage as the SNP if the law requiring "balance" in BBC coverage were upheld.

 

WHERE:               Kilmardinny Arts Centre, Bearsden, Glasgow, G61 3NN

WHEN:                 Friday 4^th April

TIMES:                  Doors open at the venue at 11:00am the show is on air from 12pm - 1pm

BOOK ONLINE: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-15190428

 

   I will be in the audience again..

Will The Viewing Figures Of The UKIP/LD Debate On BBC2 Beat BBC1 At The Same Time?

  My reply to an opponent of both UKIP & LibDems in our forthcoming BBC 2 debate saying:

   "but the great battle of the minnows in the debate to come is going to help both parties"
-------------------------------------------------
Good point. Though, if polls are to be believed (or expectations UKIP will come 1st in the UK election) it is hardly a minnow being nearly the same size as the LabCons. But it is true that in terms of media coverage, particularly the state owned BBC with its legal duty of "balance" UKIP is virtually a sardine.

But yes it has always been that coverage in the big media has always been skewed towards 2 parties and even if the LDs do better, per capita, than UKIP they are still largely excluded from the approved 2. Both parties gain from open debate (as, even moreso, does the public since it is possible we will see some real disagreement on substantive issues which is not normally what the media do).

It will be very interesting to see what viewing figures on this BBC2 programme are compared to BBC1 at the same time or normal viewing figures at the same spot the previous week. If they are as embarrassingly good for the BBC as I suspect it will be difficult for them to censor future debates involving either these parties or the serious undiscussed issues.
----------------------------------------

    On the same subject Tim Worstall recently made the point that the UKIP court ruling, that we are entitled to as much coverage as the "main" parties is actually a win for the LDs since what the BBC "guidelines" actually said was that the 1st 3 parties were entitled to coverage but nobody else and the LDs are actually now clearly 4th.

    Technically Tim was right but in reality not since the BBC write and rewrite their "guidelines" as they please and it is obvious that (A) the current 3rd party aren't getting the coverage of the 4th (4th & 5th respectively in Scotland and (B) that the BBC will rewrite the rules again to allow whatever they want and only the possibility that a court might be stirred into some, limited, activity will hold them. 

Brian's Big Politically Approved Multi-Person Lecture

   Was on Radio Scotland today 12-1.00pm.

It's actually called "Brian's Big Debate" but a debate is something where both sides of an argument get to speak, indeed get equal time to speak & the BBC don't do debates.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vd2yh   link

5 guests from Labour, SNP, Tory & from Unite (the government employees union that, at least officially, is the main funder of the totalitarian PR group HnH) & a comedian (all comedians are actively left wing political correctitudes according to the BBC - Jim Davidson, for example, isn't a popular comedian).

While UKIP are almost entirely censored from the state owned BBC we have had an effect - the Greens, who were virtually a permanent fixture are not so blatanly supported and since Cowdenbeath made us the 4th party, the LibDems seem to be missing too. How long till we beat the Tories and approved political discussion is limited to 2 parties?

There were 4 questions, on 3 of which I got to speak. Having been in this audience several times before I guess I am getting how to get to speak. Put up your hand, HIGH AND KEEP IT UP EVEN, OR PARTICULALRY WHEN YOU ARE IGNORED AND WHEN SPEAKING KEEP SPEAKING.

Audience must have been a couple of hundred - the show was sponsored by the Glasgow Business Council and there were more business suits than normal (& no classes of schoolkids) but most of the questions came from a fairly small number of people, as normal.

-----------------------------------------

1 - About the Ukraine fighting - all panelists said the expected cliches. I was first to speak & said

"The western role in the Ukraining conflict isn't widely reported. The US assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, was caught giving the Ukrainian rebel leaders their literal marching orders - you can find the tape online but it doesn't get much coverage in the approved media.

The reason she can do this is because "non-"governmental organisations, which are all funded by western governments, are supplying the rebels with $20 million a week and a significant amount of arms.

If somebody was to pay Rangers or Celtic supporters groups a $1 million democracy awareness raising grant to occupy George Square, George Square would be occupied.(laugh)

( At this point Brian said lets move on but I kept speaking and what I said went out)

The only reason anybody in Ukraine wants to join the EU is because they could migrate. If the British people are not comfortable with 30 million Romanians and Bulgarians being able to come it unlikely they will be happier with 50 million Ukrainians."

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2 - Was about celebrity endorsements of the referendum campaign (Bowie having just done so). Which gave the panel the opportunity to work Bowie song titles into their answers. I put up my hand intending to say "Showbiz people say politics is showbiz for ugly people so I suppose that means showbiz is politics for shallow people so their endorsements aren't very important" which would have raised a laugh & makes the point that politics is important, but is hardly profound. I didn't keep my hand up and wasn't chosen to speak.

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3 - Should the SNP come up with a plan B for our currency. Brian pointed to me and said "that man at the back with his hand up", several rows behind me.

Shortly after he chose the person directly in front of me.

Then 2 places to my left.

Then the one sitting on my right hand. Then me.

"You can't become a member of a club that doesn't want you. Doesn't matter if you think you qualify. I happen to think Osbornes 4 conditions for it wise for England to share liability with us are reasonable (these 4 conditions have barely got a media mention), but either way we can't if they won't let us. The SNP are just embarrassing themselves by not saying what their alternatives are.

Incidentally I disagree with the lady who said giving a Plan B (audience member 2 minutes before) would weaken the case for plan A. If you want to negotiate you need an alternative otherwise you have nothing to negotiate with."

--------------------------------------------

4 - Asking if the panel would like to live on benefits. (near the end one of the panel said to the lady asking it "I've had dinner at your hoose, it was great" which suggests she was not simply a member of the public but an activist, and probably not living on benefits - the question is very of the unanswerable "have you stopped beating your wife" sort and indeed the lady near the end pointed out that it hadn't been answered)

Indeed I didn't answer it. I said

"A major cost to those in poverty is electricity. We have over 1 million Scots households in fuel poverty with average bills of nearly £1,500 but it is intended to raise this to £3,000 by 2020.

If ANY of the approved parties actually cared about poverty they would be working to reduce prices...... (Brian said thank you we've got to move on and this time the microphone was removed. To be fair it was near the end of the programme. This meant I didn't get the chance to say on air)....... but only UKIP want to reduce prices. Even ed Miliband, with his cynical and destructive promise of a short term freeze, is on record as saying he wants higher electricity prices. In fact we know that at least 90% of electricity prices are various sorts of government parasitism and all of these parties are actively trying to increase them."

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All in all as good as one can expect on a broadcaster that censors dissent as heavily as the BBC.