Blue Blood for the NHS

Instead of ranting on about who invented or voted for the NHS Annabel Goldie has done something simple and effective to back the 60th anniversary of the NHS, she has given blood.

This marking of the anniversary, is typical of the understated and very effective way, that Annabel has led the Tories in the past 18 months.

Mind you as one of the comments on the site says

Why not, she gave blood at the opening of the NHS.

Goldie bringing blue blood to ordinary Scotsman(or woman).

Goldie gives NHS something back - Scotsman.com News

Cameron's Auntie

Nice to see Annabel getting some praise during this election.

She has been back to her best and is doing a good job, even if this is not showing up in the Scottish Polls. I expect the Tories to do much better than the current polls show, particularly at the council level, as Scotland is notoriously difficult to poll in. The only real and accurate poll will be the elections.

The main problem at the moment is the amount of voters who are supporting the SNP to ensure that Labour and the Lib Dems do not get back into power. Many people want change and are willing to back the SNP to achieve this. The problem, though, may come in 2-3 years when the SNP hold their referendum and it fails. The SNP will then be left to pick up the pieces and work out what their "raison d'etre" is and how they will go forward.

Looking at the other party leaders and how they are getting on, we see, that the Lib Dems Nicol Stephen has shown his true ability and is fading quickly. Jack McConnell is struggling to cope and has had to call in the B team from London to hinderhelp him. The only other major leader doing OK is Alex Salmond and he faces a bit of a battering today from all sides about the SNP's tax policy.

Oh, and just remember to vote to get rid of Labour and their pointless poodles the Lib Dems.

Cameron's 'Scottish auntie' steals the show

Monteith and the Tory Party

Earlier this week I blogged, how, under the leadership of Annabel Goldie the Tories are now the only major party with a realistic cash plan for the Scottish Elections, according to Professor Midwinter.

Well I thought I'd just contrast that with how well the last cash plan shaped under Brian Monteith, who appears, to be as usual trying to put a spanner in the works. Under Mr Monteith's budget Professor Midwinter was scathing as he concluded

"The Conservatives’ budgetary arithmetic does not add up, with a shortfall in their planned savings of around £670 million.

"This DIY approach to public accounting is not good enough.

"The Conservatives need to master the basics of the financial system they aspire to manage. This is a poorly costed programme, which will be difficult to implement without further cuts in public spending, to compensate for the missing £856 million in the current calculations."

Contrast that with what Midwinter had to say about the current plan.

The Tories are the only party to give "modest, fully costed proposals", rather than making "fiscally irresponsible" assumptions. Despite being a vociferous critic of the fiscal policies of the Thatcher government, Prof Midwinter praises the party for setting realistic goals for efficiency savings and costing promises made on issues like crime and education.

He wrote: "This is quite simply the most transparent and realistic set of policy and financial proposals I have read in the lead-up to the current election and far superior to the creative accounting and rosy assumptions in the policy statements of the other major opposition party, the SNP."

So what is Monteith doing now.

According to Scottish Tory Boy, he is briefing, again, against his own party. Have a look here or here.

He also has tried to undermine the Tories at ContinuityIDS, both under his own name and a few others as required.

One wonders if he is not a tad upset about the fact that he got found out when he was cheating us on Taxi Fares after ratting on his leader as the Scotsman said at the time

"I doubt there will be anyone within the group shedding tears over this. We all knew Brian had an enormous taxi bill while he was attacking David over his taxi use and accounts, so perhaps he should have been a little more circumspect - but that's never been Brian's strong suit." - SOURCE WITHIN TORY PARTY

Scotsman.com News - Conservative Party - £850m 'black hole' in Tories' finance