Northern Crocked

Now, I must preface this post by saying that I am not Alistair Darling's place-man in the SNP but why so much stooshie over the nationalisation of Northern Rock? I can understand why people on the left would be unhappy that the laissez-faire macro economic policies of Gordon Brown's treasury allowed the whole thing to happen, but the slating poor Alisdair has been getting is almost making me feel sorry for him. It actually makes me wonder if Gordon put a Scot in as Chancellor, knowing full well that he'd have to deal with all the crap caused by himself, and so put all the 'Scottish Raj' rumours to bed...

Despite the fact that I am of course an anglophobic little Scotlander, I do actually get on quite well with people from the North East, and even live with one. It was interesting to go out to dinner with her (Old Labour) family before Christmas, and hear of their exasperation of the way the Tyne-to-Tees was being slated in the media at that time. If you remember these couple of weeks, it was the time of the undead canoeist (from Hartlepool), the lost disks (which I did read somewhere probably weren't lost after all, I'll need to find that link), and of course Northern Rock. Most folk who live in that part of the world bank with the Rock, and have been to concerts or events sponsored by it. If it should fall, the supposeed rebirth of the North East as a science and cultural hub will too, and who knows what the consequenses would be for the hundreds of thousands of normal families in the North East who bank with the Rock.

Yes, string up Adam Applegarth and all of his cronies, and give all of you who thought that Gordon Brown's 'years of continuous growth' would come without a price a slap o the wrist. But spare a thought for Alisdair Darling and his family, and how all this bad press will affect the fee he'll be able to command as an after-dinner speaker when he is eventually thrown to the sharks.