John McNally 114


John McNally has been selected by the membership to fight Falkirk for the SNP. I was able to congratulate him yesterday and offer any assistance I can give in the campaign. I spent a total of ten hours locked in various small rooms with John as we waited to take our turn at each of the four hustings meetings in the constituency, and he is a genuinely decent man who will make an excellent MP. He was not just courteous, but markedly kind and helpful to me as a newcomer to the constituency. It was evident he was not only a Councillor, but a man deeply rooted in his community. There was nobody we met during the process of whom John could not tell me not just who they were, but about their family for several generations.

I will not pretend that I am not still stunned by the strength of hostility of the SNP highheidyins towards me, and my removal from the ballot. But to put that in context, here is the email I sent to the leader of the SNP group on Falkirk Council on 12 November:

Dear Cecil,

[Name deleted] …gave me your email address. I believe she mentioned to you that I am looking to stand as an SNP candidate at the forthcoming Westminster election, and very interested indeed in the prospect of campaigning in Falkirk, which I strongly believe we can win.

But I would like to make absolutely clear that if there is a hardworking and qualified local person who wishes to be the candidate and who would have a good chance to win, I would not want to come in from outside and spoil somebody else’s hopes. Does that make sense?

As you may know, I am a former British Ambassador and former Rector of the University of Dundee, and campaigned very hard during the referendum campaign both speaking at meetings and online. I have been an SNP member since 2011. Before that I was a Lib Dem but resigned in disgust! My application to be approved as a candidate is lodged with SNP HQ. I realise they are swamped at the moment and hope we will be able to find a way to get that dealt with in good time. I contacted [name deleted – a MSP] who suggested that if I could get definite interest from a constituency, that may help prioritise processing the application. That seems a bit chicken and egg as to which comes first (not a Jim Murphy reference)

Craig

The reply of the same date was:

Dear Craig,

Thanks for your e mail, it is good to know that there is interest in Falkirk, as it will in deed be a key seat.

We are in a very different position this time round for the Westminster Elections, and would not discourage giving members a choice of potential candidates

Cecil

I therefore went forward despite my strong reservation, on the express understanding that the members wanted to have a wide choice. But from the first time I met John McNally, I was having qualms of conscience about standing against someone who is the kind of local citizen, not a career politician, who ought to be an MP. That is why I can say, that irrespective of my continuing concerns about the values of some of the central SNP establishment, the local outcome is the right one for the people of Falkirk. I shall certainly be back there occasionally to campaign for John McNally.

PS By coincidence today is the anniversary of the victory of the great Lord George Murray against the Hanoverians in the Battle of Falkirk, 1746. I don’t think the family had been back since, until this campaign. 🙂 There is an old stained glass window installed in the shopping mall in the centre of Falkirk, one level down. It includes a large portrait of George Murray. The interesting thing is that this portrait, from the 1830’s – which is a fantastic piece of glasswork – shows in great detail his kilt, which is identical in absolutely every respect to the Murray of Atholl tartan in my own kilt. One of the anti-national myths perpetuated in Scotland is that kilts are a recent romantic invention. They are not, they date back at least seven hundred years and the modern “small kilt” at least 240 years. Part of the myth is that the clan tartans were invented by weaving mills in the 1890’s. This window is incontrovertible proof that is not true either.


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114 thoughts on “John McNally

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  • Fedup

    London mosques ‘sent death threats and drawings of Prophet Mohamed’ after Charlie Hebdo attack

    Muslim gets stabbed in Tesco’s with the assailant screaming; “white power” chasing his Pakistani victim and stabbing him repeatedly.

    However all is well because beebeecee is reporting;
    UK must do more to ‘wipe out’ anti-Semitism – May

    The end of the cold war meant the start of a new war; war on Islam.

    As with all things concerning Muslims; “we don’t do body counts” as per the rules in the killing fields of Iraq, here we don’t do statistics on racist attacks on Muslims.

    However just to get the measure of the hatred here is a sample;“Are you gonna blow me up c*nt?”

    Reading the comments in this site will give a clear indication of the depth of hatred and the ease with which it is accepted and a tolerable mode of hatred.

  • RobG

    @ Tony_0pmoc

    Is that the best that GCHQ can come up with?

    It’s bad enough with this Habba character.

    What’s the weather like in Cheltenham?

  • Tim

    Habbakuk

    True, but the Member States have already given the Commission the mandate. It has even been published, for the first time (an interesting argument in its own right). I used the term “negotiations” deliberately because it is impossible to “say no” to TTIP itself as it does not yet exist, and will not for another year at least. Changing the mandate against the will of the Commissioner would require unanimity of the 28 on the point in question – a logical, but unlikely possibility. But if the UK leaves the EU it will be out of TTIP.

    Something else to shade is small countries’ experience with the Euro. The Balts are quite enthusiastic about it.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Craig,

    You just wrote something really beautiful

    ” and he is a genuinely decent man who will make an excellent MP. He was not just courteous, but markedly kind and helpful to me as a newcomer to the constituency. It was evident he was not only a Councillor, but a man deeply rooted in his community. There was nobody we met during the process of whom John could not tell me not just who they were, but about their family for several generations.”

    Now is the time to take a break..stop working so hard and spend a bit of time with Cameron..Your Son..don’t miss him…

    You’ve done Brill..but a man can only do so much..Go and play with your Son..how old is he now…about 3 or 5?

    Tony

  • Ba'al Zevul

    But if the UK leaves the EU it will be out of TTIP.

    I disagree. Because without our present access to European markets, we would be forced into closer conjunction with the US. And (as our pusillanimous contortions over extradition demonstrate) we would have to accept even worse terms and conditions than TTIP.

  • Tony_0pmoc

    RobG,

    Well about 15 years ago, i did work with some Really Bright Young Kids..some of who’m ..well one…just single handedly rewrote the entire application…from scratch in his bedroom…and he said try this..We both broke all the rules…but FFS..it worked ..it wasn’t crashing all the time…

    He lived near Cheltenham…but got Fired…but he didn’t care..He gave it to me For Free..cos I was his mate and spent hours talking to him on the phone…about all the problems..he was just so ‘kin quick

    The Kid saved us

    If GCHQ hasn’t recruited him yet..I would be amazed.

    Bright Kid

    Tony

  • Tony_0pmoc

    Robg Just read it FFS..I have now got them trying to take the piss out of me

    LOL Tony xx

  • Tony_0pmoc

    RobG,

    They recruited me..and they pay my pension

    I saved them nearly 6 Million Pounds a Year..and we kept them alive

    What did you do except Criticise me?

    Tony

  • Anon

    “Reading the comments in this site will give a clear indication of the depth of hatred and the ease with which it is accepted and a tolerable mode of hatred.”

    The comments on a LiveLeak video are only really a “clear indication of the depth of hatred” of those commenting on the video. And to be fair, I’ve seen worse

  • Fedup

    “Muslim gets stabbed in Tesco’s”

    The victim was a Sikh.

    It should be pretty disappointing for you.

    Won’t you agree there should be a law compelling Muslims to wear a green crescent on their chest!

    Sick quip for

    “life-changing” injuries, police have confirmed.

    The poor victim was going about his business when Zachary Peter Davies decided to stab him, for being a “Paki” and “Immigrant” a “Muslim”.

    Good job Teresa of May is busy wiping out anti-semi…..

  • Anon

    “How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations…”

    Infiltrate the internet……..? Is it that what you do when you log on?

  • Anon

    For the record, Teresa May did say Britain wouldn’t be Britain without Muslims, as well as saying it wouldn’t be without Jews.

  • Anon

    ““Muslim gets stabbed in Tesco’s”

    The victim was a Sikh.

    It should be pretty disappointing for you.”

    Pretty sick, F*edup, even for you!

  • Tony_0pmoc

    They were making a £300M annual loss..and they fired nearly everyone..but they recruited me..and they all said no way..We are going to Go Bust and We all Had Our Balls To The Wall..but We made it work..there was only about 24 of us…

    And this stuff is really important..I am not talking about massages…

    It’s still working ain’t it???

    BRITISH

    Tony

  • Anon

    “Won’t you agree there should be a law compelling Muslims to wear a green crescent on their chest!”

    No. Where did you get that idea from, F*edUp? Attributing to your opponent all the random nasty stuff that comes into your deranged mind, again? Tut tut.

  • Anon

    “sick agents stalking this blog and elsewhere on the internet.”

    Oh yes, I remember. Sick agents like Dreoilin, labelled a Zionist agent and apologist for expressing the view that some of he commenters here might be a little bit obsessed with Israel and the Jews. Or was it Technicolour? Or was it both? You’re a fucking nutter, aren’t you F*edup.

  • Anon

    If I’ve got this right, because I point out (correctly) that the victim was a Sikh and not, as you had written, a Muslim, I somehow support Muslims being stabbed?

    Have you ever wondered why you are generally considered an extremist lunatic on here, F*edup?

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Teresa May did say Britain wouldn’t be Britain without Muslims, as well as saying it wouldn’t be without Jews.

    That may be what she said as something of an afterthought. It’s not what’s being stressed in all the headlines.

    This is being handled abominably. In the first place, the furore about antisemitism in the UK was kicked off by an outfit called Campaign Against Antisemitism, founded last summer by a deeply dodgy looking character called Gideon Falter. He has no credible means of support other than two large government grants for a device in the process of development which is alleged to add whizzo business functionality to any landline phone to which it is attached. Wonder what else it does , this ‘digital device that re-energises under-utilised landline infrastructure’ – as the company, Rimota ltd, alleges in its blurb. Clue, perhaps…Rimota means ‘remote’ in Italian.

    http://powerbase.info/index.php/Gideon_Falter

    His sidekick, Sacerdoti, has even more overt affinity with the whitewashers of Israel.

    http://powerbase.info/index.php/Jonathan_Sacerdoti

    The hysteria was then picked up via press releases and interviews by this pair, and has been amplified ever since.

    Still, it should help recruitment of yet more settlers to Israel. And never mind the continuing polarisation here.

  • Fedup

    If I’ve got this right, because I point out (correctly) that the victim was a Sikh and not, as you had written, a Muslim, I somehow support Muslims being stabbed?

    Have you ever wondered why you are generally considered an extremist lunatic on here, F*edup?

    Back-pedalled whitewash, with the added insults post the outright aggressive hostility, which Mods no doubt will tolerate, because it is the middle of the road honest to goodness liberal values to insult all and sundry who oppose the Jewish supremacists and their vile concept of “normalcy”.

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