Month: September 2015

Lying Track

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / Leave a comment

Ian Murray, Scotland’s sole Labour MP, lied to the people of Scotland today.

This morning, 14th September 2015, he was interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland primarily on the extent of his agreement with his party’s political realignment in the wake of their most recent leadership changeover.

In one segment he makes the statement that the Scottish Government appeared to favour awarding the Scotrail contract to the Dutch Government owned Abelio rather than renationalising Scotland’s railways.

The relevant comment beings at 5.50.

He appears to forget that under the Railways Act 1993 enacted by the Tories and never repealed under Labour, the Scottish Government is currently barred from either renationalising the railways or forming a company in which they own a controlling stake to bid for contracts and tenders.

Indeed, under this bill any government on the planet could potentially own and operate our railways except our own.

I’m sure that rather than this being a lie, personal or political, today’s comment was merely a slip of the mind and that Mr Murray will be submitting a bill to repeal this clause in the near future.

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Unweaving Tangled Skeins

/ Dr Craig Dalzell / 2 Comments
The Old Clock Square in Hom, Syria. Left - Before the war. Right - The ruins of the war.

The Old Clock Square in Homs, Syria. Left – Before the war. Right – The ruins of the war.

 It seems certain now that within the next few days or weeks the House of Commons will, for the second time in as many years, be asked to vote to go to war in Syria. I have no doubt that the picture painted will be one of us plucky Brits bravely defending ourselves against an utterly inhuman, utterly irredeemable, utterly evil and, most importantly, completely monolithic force and that after a short, sharp military action peace will be restored and reign supreme. The difference between this time and last is that last time the evil monolith was the Assad Regime. This time, it’s ISIS.

 We always seem to be sold war on such simple terms. Often, we seem to buy it because of them. But the world out there beyond the red-top tabloids is rarely so black-and-white. The conflict in Syria is less so than most.

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