The World This week from Mennies

Trump, Brexit, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon.

Well here we are, another week in, and a busy one at that, with a few new ventures in mind, the Coach side of the business holding up well, in what is normally a quiet time of the year, and the repair and maintenance side getting busier by the day.  Never a dull moment.

So, that takes care of Dundee but elsewhere in the World. Well let’s start with our friends across the pond.We still have this crazy situation with the president of America refusing to sign over the authority to finalise the budget causing millions of federal employees to go without wages and the people of America to go without necessary public services. The rest of the sane World look on with dismay, and of course I do not include the Uk in that category of “the sane World” as we are the laughing stock of the world also, with our problems with Brexit.

OK so let’s look at solutions to both problems and let’s start with the US. Now Donald has two problem’s at present. Well to be accurate he has more than two but let’s leave out the mental health issues he so obviously has and focus on the ones that are shutting down the government. Now he wants a wall built along the border between the US and Mexico and he originally said that Mexico would be paying for this wall. This last week he has been trying to say he didn’t say this, but he did, many hundreds of times. He is attempting to persuade Congress to back his plan to spend 5.,5 Billion on the wall.

Ok so here is the solution.The biggest factor in building a wall is the labour costs, so Trump persuades Congress to pass a much lesser amount, say 2 billion and he buys a few million concrete blocks, sand and cement and has the materials deposited along the border. He then offers Mexicans or south Americans the opportunity to build a section of the wall without wages, in place of wages he allows them to bring their close family to America . This way Mexico, in a way, pays towards the wall, congress gets off the hook by passing a much lesser amount, Donald gets his wall, and everybody lives happily ever after. Job done.

Now let’s turn to Brexit,this is actually easier to remedy but needs some explanation. Right, firstly we had a referendum with a simple question. Do you wish to leave the EU, Yes orNo. Scotland voted by a huge majority to remain, Northern Ireland also voted to remain England and wales voted by a small majority to leave but because of the population difference the overall vote for the UK was a small majority to leave. Now the British government stated that Brexit means Brexit and promptly started to conduct negotiations emanating in an agreement to not quite leave. So from “Brexit means Brexit” the British government have went to Brexit doesn’t quite mean Brexit and taking into consideration that only something like 36.5% of then, eligible voting public actually voted to leave therefore leaving 63.55% of the voting eligible population not voting to leave, and also taking into consideration that people have now realised they were misled by the leave campaign and every poll taken lately shows a large majority to stay, then it doesn’t take a genius to realise that there needs to be a rethink and quick. Add to that the comedy of this Government going from one disaster to the next and making a laughing stock of themselves in the process and it seems obvious that something needs changing and it is this.

We simply need to cancel Brexit and we will have everything this government are trying to negotiate and more,much more, what is the bloody problem?

Right, now that I have solved two of the World’s most pressing problems let me now go to an issue that is far more important than any of these crazy situations.

This week Alex Salmond won a case of Judicial review against the Scottish Government, or to be exact the Scottish government capitulated when their case threatened to be exposed for what it always was and that was a blatant attempt to smear Alex. Now the person nominally responsible was Leslie Evans who is the Scottish government permanent secretary. She was responsible for implementing a policy decision made by Nicola Sturgeon on openness and accountability for harassment.

Now I have been reading all week from ardent Nicola Sturgeon fans about Leslie Evans position which is as apart of the Civil service of the UK, which is correct and she was put forward as a candidate for the position as part of a chosen and vetted group by the UK commissioner for the civil service., The point missing from all of these outpourings of anger was that it was Nicola sturgeon as Scotland’s first minister who actually appointed Evans and Evans was responsible for implementing Nicola Sturgeon’s policy on harassment. The policy and implementation that the high court Judge remarked was contrary to law on several points.

now there has been criticism of Sturgeon for not immediately sacking Evens and indeed Mc Kinnen who was the person responsible for the investigation into the Salmond allegations.

I feel the reason for this unwillingness to sack Evans is because if she did then the whole house of cards would tumble down.

Just before the story of the Salmond accusations became public and coincidently, I was standing in Mennies when I received a message with one sentence, “Sturgeon has stabbed Salmond in the back” This came from a friend of mine well dug into the Holyrood political establishment. Two days later it was all over the papers and on every news outlet. The allegation was that Salmond had sexually assaulted two women in 2013 when he was first Minister.I had suspected for some time that relations between Salmond and Sturgeon had been strained and several incidents such as the comments Sturgeon made when Salmond took on a show on RT. She was openly critical of him instead of simply saying nothing.

So, taking all that had happened, I formed the opinion at the time that the message I received was in all probability correct and the revelations this week have done nothing to change my mind. It has been known that Salmond would prefer a more direct approach to independence than Sturgeon in fact any approach to independence would have to be better than Sturgeons approach which has been a succession of marching her troops up to the top of the hill and down again that many times that it would have made the Grand Old Duke of York dizzy.

I have also been of the opinion that Sturgeon is a liability to the independence movement and this Alex Salmond case has done nothing to change my mind on that.

I feel there is quite a way to go and quite a few revelations to surface surrounding this case. We will have to wait and see, but it is the Scottish government who are on the ropes at the moment not Alex Salmond.

OK so, it is Saturday night, there are refreshments to be had and discussions aplenty no doubt, so I raise my glass to all my friends the World over and I am planning a cruise towards the end of the month which will leave from Fort Lauderdale so might catch up with one or two of them.

Slainte