Posted on 01/19/2008 4:19:58 PM PST by Stoat
DES BROWNE, the Scottish and defence secretary, was under pressure this weekend to sack one of his top aides for describing Scotland as a “narrow, Presbyterian and racist” country. John McTernan, a special adviser to Browne and former Downing Street aide to Tony Blair, made the comments in a personal e-mail to a Labour politician.
The document was obtained by The Sunday Times under freedom of information legislation. McTernan, who was among those cleared of wrongdoing in the cash for honours affair, wrote to Karen Gillon, a Labour member of the Scottish parliament, before a visit to Sweden: “If you’ve not been to Sweden before, I think you’ll really like it – it’s the country Scotland would be if it wasn’t narrow, Presbyterian, racist etc. etc. Social democracy in action.”
Alex Salmond, the Scottish first minister, said last night that the remarks showed Labour's true “contempt” for the Scottish people, and questioned why McTernan should keep his publicly funded £99,000-a-year job.
“It’s a remarkable insight into the attitudes of the special adviser that London put in charge of Labour’s election campaign last year,” he said.
“It shows why Labour lost the election. They seem to have developed a unique contempt for the Scottish people. But it’s not Scotland that is narrow; it’s the Labour party.”
The e-mail was written while McTernan was working as a policy adviser at the Scottish Arts Council in late 2002. Before that he worked as a special adviser to Henry McLeish, the former Labour first minister who was forced to stand down after a scandal involving his office expenses.
McTernan, 48, who was born in London but grew up in Edinburgh, said it was “ludicrous” to suggest the remarks affected his job.
“These comments are from private correspondence and are taken out of context,” he said.
“People who know me will make a judgment of me based on everything I say and feel about Scotland. I have always worked hard for the interests of Scotland.”
McTernan’s loyalty to New Labour and no-prisoners approach to politics earned him the nickname “the McTerminator”. In 2004 he wrote in a Sunday newspaper: “I have never found descriptions of national characteristics particularly persuasive; most are at such a high level of abstraction that they are transferable with ease from country to country.”
XE.com Conversion - 99,000.00 GBP to USD
99,000.00 GBP
=
193,574.70 USD
United Kingdom Pounds
United States Dollars
1 GBP = 1.95530 USD
1 USD = 0.511430 GBP
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Current salary of The President of The United States:
| Effective January 1, 2001, the annual salary of the president of the United States was increased to $400,000 per year, including a $50,000 expense allowance. The increase was approved as part of the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act (Public Law 106-58), passed in the closing days of the 106th Congress.
|
Vice President's Salary
The salary of the vice president is currently (for 2008) $221,100
*************************************************
So, a Government AIDE to the Scottish and Defence Secretary makes about the same as our President did up until 2001, and makes just a bit less than what our Vice President does currently.
And he thinks that Socialist Sweden is such a wonderful place....
If Scotland is bigoted enough to dump Labour for more right-leaning politics instead of worser forms of socialist gobbledygook, their bigotry will likely do the region a world of good. But I imagine that a lot of Scotland is to the left of Labour.
Fortunately for McTerminator, there are flights leaving Heathrow hourly for Sweden, he can choose anyone of them at anytime and not bother paying for the return fare...
Undoubtedly the source of this breathtakingly overpaid Aide's vitriol.
their bigotry will likely do the region a world of good.
If any significant Capitalist reforms have been made, the people of Scotland are probably seeing a world of positive difference indeed....something that causes Labour no end of angst, no doubt.
imagine that a lot of Scotland is to the left of Labour.
They may well be, but it seems to me that this Aide's sentiments suggest that there aren't nearly enough Lefties in Scotland to please Labour, which is a very hopeful sign.
When Socialists become hysterical and start saying utterly unhinged things, it's oftentimes a cause for cautious optimism :-)
Sadly, he is probably very much like so many of our American Left who promised to leave for Canada "because it's so much more enlightened there" but never quite got around to it, for one reason or another.......
Maybe. Wikipedia calls the Scottish National Party a “social democratic” “center-left” party, but I’ll leave you to decide for yourself what that really means. As it is, the SNP is probably going to try and do what Quebec has been trying to do, which really isn’t all that bright either, economically speaking. I doubt their leadership would make the “Republic of Scotland” more of cradle-to-grave paradise than Sweden is.
Thanks again for posting those!
I've found Wikipedia to be pretty hopeless in a number of areas, politics among them. As for the rest, I hope that you're right.
When I read supposedly “objective” writing about politics, I generally assume that the author is left-of-center himself and that he’s writing from his own point of view, regardless.
I've found that to usually be the case as well.
Anyone who doesn't have a clear opinion about issues isn't listening.
True objectivity is a very rare thing and is usually only announced as a smokescreen to hide an agenda.
I'd much prefer that people simply be honest about their perspectives.
As Rush says, "middle-of-the-roaders just get run over" :-)
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