That Gateway to Hades Known as a Mouth

Two dodgy smears make up this Sunday's post. The first comes from Aviemore, where five minutes after Nicol Stephen said that the LibDems wouldn't indulge in personal, negative campaigning (obviously he wasn't listening to Sir Menzies Campbell's speech), Jamie Stone called the SNP xenophobic. Well, a xenophobic party wouldn't be pro-EU, or broadly supportive of the Euro. Nor would it publish leaflets in Polish. So all Jamie Stone has done is annoy the SNP, who are now refusing to have anything to do with the LibDems until they apologise. Which on reflection might be what the LibDems want: in the event that the SNP are the largest party following the Election, the LibDems can excuse any attempt they make to deal with Labour by saying that they would deal with the SNP if the SNP wanted to deal with them. On the other hand, Jack McConnell is looking at ways in which he can govern without the LibDems, so unless he (or the SNP) can secure a less formal arrangement, the LibDems now risk being frozen out by the two main parties, a possibility I flagged up at the start of the year.

The next comes as part of Terrywatch, where TelKel has gone for that ancient footballing tactic of playing the opponent and not the ball. He has mentioned an award given to local heroine Margaret Canning, but he won't tell us (or at least, he won't tell Right For Scotland) as we 'would like nothing better than to pour scorn on how people like her and others in the Ferguslie area work for each other and the neighbourhood.' As the argument rages on, TelKel asserts that RFS would fail a disclosure check. This had led to the suggestion that TelKel has just accused RFS of paedophilia, and lawyers are coming into view. Kelly asserts that he didn't mention paedophilia, but it's RFS's blog that would cause the problem.

Either way, Kelly has, to continue the footballing metaphor, scored an own goal. If he IS accusing RFS of paedophilia, then the phrase 'Welcome to Defammation Country, Population: You' springs to mind. He's also told another porky. If it was just the blog, then remember that Kelly's main beef with RFS is that he disagrees with RFS's opinions, so he's saying that anyone whose politics don't match up to the Councillor's standards should be barred from public life. This strikes me as ever so slightly Stalinist, and is political discrimination. But wait! Doesn't TelKel oppose all forms of discrimination? Apparently not...