A parcel of rogues

When you arrive at Edinburgh airport there are dozens of posters and signs proclaiming it to be “the home of RBS”.

It’s a bit of a surprise they want to boast about an organisation which received a £45 billion bailout but there you go. The Act of Union was only signed in the first place because the Scots made such a hash of trying to create their own little overseas empire in Panama and had to be bailed out by the English. As Robbie Burns said:

We're bought and sold for English Gold,

Sic a Parcel of Rogues in a Nation.

So, as the nationalists launch their marathon campaign to win independence, we must remind them they will immediately become responsible for their own debts – starting with the £45 billion owed to the British taxpayer by the Royal Bank of Scotland.

As a matter of fact, it's all dark

Get out of Europe now, while you still can. That should be the advice for business in the Black Country. If you export to the Eurozone, start looking for new markets before it’s too late and if you’ve got money tied up in euros, rescue it now. And if you’re going to the Eurozone for your summer holiday, wait until the last minute before you buy any currency – it’ll be getting cheaper by the day and you never know whether you might need pesetas or drachmas again.

*****

If the Government really wants to reduce the number of public school boys (and girls) in positions of power, the answer is very simple: Start re-opening grammar schools. Meanwhile they’re trying to ban mobile phones from school – and about time too according to local teachers in despair over the breakdown in discipline in some Black Country schools.

*****

Why are we allowing the Olympics to over-ride petty considerations like civil liberties and the freedom of the citizen? Special lanes for the IOC bigwigs, with their own traffic light system designed to inconvenience everybody else. Abandoned immigration controls. Anti-aircraft missiles on buildings, protected by armed guards. £200 million being spent on security. Massive CCTV surveillance everywhere. Non-sponsor logos banned. Indeed, the use of the Olympic logo at a summer garden party would be the subject of a law suit. And some American technology designed to make us go deaf. What an incredible price to pay to watch (on TV as all the best seats go to the officials) a few people you’ve never heard of compete in events you have no interest in and, in many cases, didn’t even know existed.

*****

The real scandal of the child sex abuse case in Rochdale is not that it was perpetrated by Moslem men, it’s that the local council did nothing to protect the kids in its so-called care.

*****

It was set up as a way of “uniting” the whole of Europe. But the system has grown corrupt with factions, in-fighting and nobody actually listening to the voice of reason. Yes, it’s the Eurovision Song Contest from that well-known tourist destination Baku in that famous European country Azerbaijan.

*****

A City analyst has exposed what has actually been perfectly plain all along (though nobody wants to admit it) – that there are no real Government spending cuts. It’s all smoke and mirrors. And the tragedy is that, as a result, the economy is going nowhere.

*****

David Cameron says his favourite album is The Dark Side of the Moon. Is this wonderful but depressing piece of work a sign of how he’s feeling about his job? So much for Mr Bring-Me-Sunshine.