Well, it wasn’t a week to be fondly remembered in Scotland by either Dundee United fans, or by the Scottish Nationalist Party, with both sets being involved in draws that didn’t end in draws at the end of the day, if you catch my drift. United managed to keep the score level with Celtic in their CIS semi-final tie until after extra time, but succumbed to an 11-10 defeat in the penalty shootout. The Nationalists failed to get their Budget through Parliament, as the parties were level, with 64 votes for, and 64 against. This meant that the Presiding Officer, Alex Fergusson, had to cast his deciding vote against, as protocol required that he go for the status quo. If it does not go through at the second attempt, the government will be forced to resign – this prompted the quote from Alex Salmond that the normal thing then would be to have an election. Actually, it would be up to Labour, the second largest party, to try and form a coalition –if they failed to do so, then that would force a fresh election. It actually requires a two-thirds majority of the Scottish Parliament to call one.
IT hasn't been the best of weeks for Mr Salmond. He's been on about Homecoming 2009 for months now, but it was revealed last week that tourist chiefs sent unplayable DVDs across the Pond to market the event. As most people are aware, DVD players have regional restrictions, and discs made in Europe will not work in Canada or the United States. Ah well, they can always take them back, and send them to the ex-pats in Poland.
We’ve had plenty of Polish workers over here for a while now, without any major problems. That was probably partly due to the fact that their unskilled workers were willing to carry out jobs that British workers were unwilling to do for the same wage, and that their skilled workers were very good at their own trades. However, we now have a different problem, with protests and strikes across the UK, prompted by a decision to bring in hundreds of Italian and Portuguese contractors to work on a new £200m plant at the Lindsey oil refinery, in North Lincolnshire. Unions claim Britons were not given any opportunity to apply for the posts.
Gordon Brown’s spokesman said the government would hold talks with the construction industry in the next few days "to ensure they are doing all they can to support the UK economy". When asked about the growing unrest, Brown - speaking from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland - said he "understood" people's worries.
In an interview with the BBC's Politics Show the Prime Minister condemned those threatening wildcat strikes, saying "that's not the right thing to do and it's not defensible." He also said that when he had talked about British jobs for British workers (2007, in his first speech to the Labour Party as its leader) he was referring to "giving them the skills" so that they could get jobs that were going to foreigners. Whatever the rights and wrongs in this present situation, the British workers who are wanting, and willing to do, those jobs actually have the necessary skills
He (Mr Brown) is having talks today with his Chinese counterpart in order to encourage further trade links between the two countries. I would suggest that any agreement between the two will be mostly one way traffic, as China has plenty to export, but Britain has very little. Ah so!
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