Japanese Beach Girls

Otachimisaki beach, Kyushu Japan. Too racy for Youtube apparently?! Catch all the action here!

Edinburgh labour MP starts the Cheating

The cheating has started in the general election in Edinburgh. Long time Labour MP and Minister Nigel Griffiths started putting his election placards up last night and the Edinburgh poll-tax payers have picked up the bill to take them down.

This morning, cleansing department workers were despatched throughout the city to take the illegal placards down. Todays print edition of the Evening News quotes the dodgy Mr. Griffiths saying "I am aware of the discussions.... The placards will be coming down faster than they were put up. The council are happy with this". Maybe the council are happy, are the taxpayers happy that they will be paying for this MP breaking the law.

Griffiths, you will remember, is the very same MP who back in 2001 faced mounting pressure to resign over reports that he claimed £40,000 in allowances to cover the cost of renting an office he already owns. Mr Griffiths bought his Edinburgh office in 1997 with money from a legacy and is said to have claimed up to £10,000 in rent allowance every year since then from the Commons authorities.

Come on Griffiths - Pay the council's costs for removing the illegal placards. You have been in politics for decades and you know the rules. Don't make the poor of Edinburgh pay for your cheating.

8 Politicians in NY - Bill £101,000

That's right. £101,000 to send the 8 politicians to New York for Tartan Week. A quick check of British Airways website gives me a round trip business class ticket (that's assuming they need to go business class) at only £ 3,835.80 - What happened to the other £70,000.

Scottish Nationalist MSP Alex Neil said: "I think it is bordering on becoming a big jolly. We have not really seen the tangible benefits we should have seen from previous Tartan weeks."

More info:Hell of a check to pay for Tartan Day trip

Councillors put head downas rubbish piles up

Yet again the ruling councillors of Edinburgh have put their heads down and when their is bad news sent in the spokeswoman to explain to the taxpayers of Edinburgh that the £1.13 million the council paid for four of the vehicles may well have been wasted.

According to the Evening News, engineers were brought in to fix the problems, but the council had warned they did not know how long repairs would take.

John Stevenson, city of Edinburgh branch secretary for Unison, the public sector union, said: "Unison members are working hard to make up for this problem. Budgets are tight enough without being wasted on vehicles which are obviously not fit for the job."

More Info:Bin lorry breakdowns cause bags of trouble

The Leader and red tape rocks the city council

Jenny Hjul has a nice return to reality piece in today's Scotsman for Donald "The Leader" Anderson.

The story of Historic Scotland not allowing various concerts ahead this summer at the Castle is a disappointment to me and many other concert-goers, especially since Regular Music who are behind these concerts have done an amazing job in organisation for decades. It has been bubbling for the last few days.

The line which gave the city a collective howl of laughter was the line when Coonsillar Andursin said "It is completely unacceptable that this has happened for no good reason other than red tape."

Talk of the pot calling the kettle black here cannot be more underestimated. The Leader and his reich have ruled over Edinburgh with an iron fist for years, they have thrown red tape in the face of most of the citizens of the city for years.

As Ms. Hujl points out:

In the recent road-toll referendum, council red tape was the reason why thousands of voters could not vote. It was also the reason why thousands of illegal fly-posters were not removed. And it is usually the reason given when desperate motorists appeal to the council over some new parking-warden outrage.

Parking regulations in the capital "combat dangerous and inconsiderate parking", said a council official this week. But when a road is closed for "essential" works, such as mine is, and residents ask for parking restrictions to be lifted for the duration, such as I did, they are told there is far too much "red tape" to allow for discretions.

It is about time Anderson (who still believes that the city is clean because he has the Cleansing Department constantly cleaning the streets he regularly walks down) woke up smelled the coffee and started realising the amount of red tape us citizens have to put up with because his personal actions.
It is interesting that in the words of Historic Scotland, this red tape (as The Leader calls it) is:

"The main concern we had was over the lack of space on the Esplanade and worries about the health and safety of people queuing up for tickets.

Now, I'm not saying that these could not have been worked out between the Council, Regular Music and Historic Scotland, but for Anderson to call the health and safety of people red tape is a bloody cheek.

More info here:It's a high note as a touch of red tape rocks the city council
and here: Castle rock shows are off

City leader calls for tax on tourists

It seems as though Donald 'The Leader' Anderson and his part-time finance chief, Maureen '3 Houses' Child are at loggerheads over whether they should get more money out of tourists to help pay for their eight million pound cock-ups.

It is a nice thought from 'the leader', maybe even he is feeling the pinch with the double inflation poll tax rises. Of course the part-time Child could just put more time in on her other job or get rid of one of the houses.

And Councillor Anderson’s view seemingly contradicts his own finance leader, Maureen Child, who recently said she was not convinced of the need for a tourist tax.

More info: City leaders call for tax on tourists

The "Bumbling Andy" crew defend tram plans

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committe (PAC) have issued a scathing report into tram schemes throught the country.

Common sense is no reason to hold back "Bumbling Andy" Burns who has already wasted millions of the City money including the eight million on the referendum.

"we have taken a fundamentally different approach to areas such as financing, the form of operator engagement, and the integration of local bus services with trams."

This is the typical response from an idiot who doesn't have the intelligence to at least take it into consideration.

According to the Evening News, city leaders have already scrapped plans for a third tram line however in this article here it says:

It is ironic that Line 3, the only route not to receive Executive cash, is the only one that seems to meet the bulk of the preferred criteria set out in today’s report.

Let's hope that somehow, somebody sorts this mess out before Edinburgh goes down the same route as Manchester where costs rose from £282 million in July 2000 to £900m last year.

See: Edinburgh transport chiefs defend tram plans
and Too much competition

Truck plant cancer timebomb

Former workers at the British Leyland plant in Bathgate are urged to have health checks because four workers have been diagnosed with mesothelioma.

Workers said they were shocked to find out they may have developed the disease while working at the former truck, tractor and van assembly factory, which employed more than 6000 people before it closed in 1986.

It could lead to a flood of compensation claims from ex-British Leyland staff and their families. It is understood lawyers are looking for around £50,000 in compensation for each sufferer.

More info: Truck plant cancer timebomb

SSP attack their own, it seems.

An interesting thread on the SSY (Scottish Socialist Youth) forums brings to wider attention what seems like the SSP attacking some of their own factions.

last night though i heard in the pub that an SSP stall in buchanan street was physically attacked, table broken, leaflets and papers scattered etc does anyone know about it and if so was it the BNP or other nazis involved?

only to be met with

I was there, it was not the BNP who attacked the stall on buchanan street. Its a touchy subject which will be dealt with inside the party, but let's just say it wasn't even an SSP stall, a certain platform of the party were out selling their own paper and recruiting for their sect.

It seems as though the SSP (Scottish Socialist Party) don't have enought people to fight, they want to fight their own. It is also interesting that it is not to be spoken about in public. That's not what I would expect of a comrade, unless of course it was a Stalinist Comrade.

More in this thread: attack on stall if you have difficulty getting to this URL, follow these instructions
Go to http://www.ssy.org.uk/Forum/YaBB.cgi
Click on the "News" board
Click on "attack on stall"

MSP on CCTV in sex act with aide

One of our MSPs who has been unfortunate enough to be caught having a sex act performed on him by a male aide in the grounds of the £430m Parliament building and one of his colleagues alleges that he is currently involved in a hetrosexual relationship.

Hasn't he heard of toilets, or maybe even under the photocopier? How stupid can you get? The still anonymous MSP deserves to be fired, if for nothing else, blatant stupidity. If you have his name, feel free to email me for him to be named and shamed.

It is still unknown if charges for lewd and libidinous behaviour will be brought.

More info: MSP seen on CCTV in sex act with aide
365Gay.com has also covered it here: Member Of Parliament Caught On Camera Having Gay Sex
SpyBlog covers it here:
CCTV, sex, voyeurism and security at the Scottish Parliament
Also made the Rabble Board in Canada: "Straight" Scottish MP caught on camera having gay sex

Executive's PE targets have failed

When our children are getting heavier and heavier through among other things, lack of exercise, our leaders are again failing us:

"Peter Peacock, the education minister, has admitted the Executive will fail to hit its target of recruiting 400 new PE teachers into Scottish schools by 2007 under current teacher training programmes.

More Info: Executive's PE targets have failed to shape up:

Frugal councils letlisted buildings crumble

Landmark buildings in Scotland are becoming wrecks as people walking round the city notice every day. Strange the politicians don't notice this, or do they and just ignore or heritage:

Last night, local authority chiefs acknowledged that, unless buildings were deemed to pose a risk to the public, they were unlikely to be considered a priority.

But it seems the buildings have to fall over and hurt someone before the move into action to save our heritage.

More info: Frugal councils let listed buildings crumble

Poor get even poorer

According to today's Scotland on Sunday the truth about what the current government are doing to the poor of not only Edinburgh, but the whole of the country:

Chancellor Gordon Brown's tax-and-spend agenda is hurting Middle Britain while failing to help the most vulnerable. The poorest 5.8 million Britons are the only group whose take-home incomes are falling, according to figures buried in a 357-page Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) document.

This highlights Gordon Brown's lie last week when he called the Institute for Fiscal Studies report (more info here) "misleading". Who's misleading who Gordon?

From Scotland on Sunday: Poor get even poorer in Brown's Britain

Postcode lottery for Scotland's childless couples

The Scotsman run a story today showing how it is a postcode lottery in Scotland for childless couples who are seeking IVF treatment.

"A major investigation by The Scotsman has found that patients in Grampian are waiting up to five years while those in Forth Valley gain access to in vitro fertilisation or other assisted conception treatments within six months."

Postcode lottery for IVF treatment spells agony for Scotland's childless couples
See Also: Five Year Wait for Fertility Treatment