Salmond-Impeaching Blair with YOUR money. Who’ll have the last laugh?

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BREAKING 1: SNP CANDIDATE for BY-ELECTION QUITS – 1 DOWN, 2 DOWN, 3rd TIME LUCKY?

BREAKING 2: Plaid Cymru have de-selected a parliamentary candidate in South Wales for “leaking” to the press. PARDON?  Isn’t leaking in their job description?

Comment at end

13th July, 2009

SMILE, ALEX …

‘Laughable’ complaint: “.. a spokesman for Mr Salmond – Scotland’s first minister – said he and other MPs involved had been “extremely proud of the action they took” and said the “vast majority” of people believed the war to be “illegal and immoral”.

Oh really, Mr laugh-out-of-the-other-side-of-your-face Salmond? And, to continue the metaphor – your spokesman is speaking out of the other side of his mouth.

Not from MY recollection did MOST people believe that the Iraq war was either immoral or illegal.  (See here. Recent 2007 drop in support was due to many factors, but two thirds initially supported the invasion.)

If the polls were wrong and MOST people DID opppose the war when you started your legal action in 2004, Mr Salmond, why was Blair’s government voted in for a third term in 2005, more than two years after the Iraq war started?

Don’t flatter yourselves – the nationalists and Liberal Democrats are hardly “most people”.

TRAITORS AND THIEVES

HONOURS

AN OPEN NOTE TO SALMOND – (I ONLY WRITE ‘LETTERS’ TO THOSE I LOVE OR ADMIRE)

You and people like you, Mr Salmond, are responsible for lies, accusations, misinformation, deceit and arrogance. Your misuse of expenses funds may be criminally liable and your ongoing, misplaced, undeserved triumphalism are deeply disturbing.  In view of your attacks being directed personally at the British Prime Minister who actually brought devolution to Scotland, they also betray a worrying lack of balanced thinking. No-one expects gracious gratefulness from you.  I long gave up on aything gracious from you when at PMQs, during the ‘Honours’ investigation, I noticed you rub your fingers and thumb together in a gesture to the then PM implying money in his own back pocket.  He was still, then in his last year, going through a year and a half’s Police investigation over the Nationalists’-inspired Honours debacle. Shameful behaviour by you and colleagues.

Some things stick in the memory.

You have form on trying to destroy Mr Blair & the British government. I, as a Scot, will never forgive your party the earlier attempt. This expenses business compounds my deep distrust and dislike of you.  So you’ve scored with me, Salmond.

I seldom dislike anyone, especially those I have never met.  For you, I make an exception.

EXPENSES

The use of public money – office expenses, belonging to BRITISH voters (not just Scottish), the huge majority of whom DID NOT vote for any nationalist party, was treachery and theft, nothing less.

And all of it – ALL of it, Honours and Impeaching Blair, came to nothing.

WHY? Why, if the legal advice was so strong?

The intended irony in their use of Matrix Chambers (Cherie Booth-Blair’s) has bounced back on THEM.  The then prime-minister’s wife was not personally giving them advice, but if the Nationalists had gone on further with this “stunt” and actually been successful, their use of her chambers would have been an added kick-in-the-teeth.  Salmond then, as often, had a deft touch in self-destruction.

Still laughing, Mr Salmond?

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Salmond queried over legal fees (BBC report today)

Parliament’s standards commissioner has asked Alex Salmond to explain why he claimed £790 towards the legal costs of trying to impeach then PM Tony Blair.

Tony Blair spent much of his time in Downing Street in the closing years fighting off fundamentalist 'TRUTHERS' at home as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan. The enemy within.

In 2004 Scottish and Welsh nationalist MPs tried to impeach Mr Blair accusing him of misleading Parliament over Iraq.

Labour MSP Lord Foulkes complained to John Lyon that public money should not be used for “party political” purposes.

But a spokesman for the SNP leader said the claim was “entirely legitimate” and the complaint a “stunt”.

In its revelations about MPs’ expenses last month, the Daily Telegraph reported that legal bills totalling £14,100 for the unsuccessful impeachment bid were claimed on expenses.

Comments invited

The campaign was supported by author Frederick Forsyth and the actor Corin Redgrave but came to nothing.

Mr Salmond’s share of the bill amounted to £790.

Lord Foulkes complained to Parliament’s standards commissioner John Lyon, who is already looking into a number of MPs’ claims following complaints.

Lord Foulkes complained to Parlaiment's standards commissioner on Alex Salmond's misuse of public expenses money to pay legal charges in order to try to impeach Tony Blair. This, Foulkes insists, was a political matter and not a constituency issue. Office expenses are NOT meant to try to bring down a prime minister or a government.

Mr Lyon wrote back to say he had accepted the complaint and had written to Mr Salmond “inviting his comments”.

“Once I receive his response, I shall consider how best to proceed,” he said.

Lord Foulkes said he was pleased with the response, adding: “The issue is not about whether the Iraq war was right or wrong.

“It is about whether legal advice about it should be paid for by the taxpayer out of Mr Salmond’s office costs allowance.

“I think it’s quite wrong for public money to be used for a party political campaign.”

‘Laughable’ complaint

But a spokesman for Mr Salmond – Scotland’s first minister – said he and other MPs involved had been “extremely proud of the action they took” and said the “vast majority” of people believed the war to be “illegal and immoral”.

“The expenses incurred in supporting the impeachment process were entirely legitimate, and Lord Foulkes’s complaint is laughable,” he said.

“We are sure that he will be the first to apologise when the complaint is found to be without foundation.”

They accused the peer – who is also an MSP – of costing Scottish taxpayers £120,000 in two years with “countless frivolous parliamentary questions at Holyrood”.

Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price has previously defended charging for his share of expenses saying it was a “big and extremely publicly important matter”.

The impeachment procedure had not been used for more than 150 years and they needed specialist advice, he said.

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WELSH NATIONALISTS CONSPIRED TO BRING DOWN BLAIR AND GOVERNMENT TOO

And what about your Welsh nationalist friends? Were they more honourable? Ready to put their money where their mouths were? Willing to dig into their own pockets for their legal advice on this despicable task of  ‘treason’? Not on your nellie duff!

BBC report 22nd May 2009

Plaid MPs defend legal bill claim

Legal advice backing a move to have former prime minister Tony Blair impeached was funded from Parliamentary office expenses, it has been revealed.

Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price proposed forcing Mr Blair from power in 2004 over the Iraq war using ancient powers.

Caernarfon MP Hywel Williams now says he, Mr Price and colleague Elfyn Llwyd split the £4,500 bill for outside legal advice as an “incidental” office cost.

The impeachment bid, dismissed by Labour as a stunt, came to nothing.

More than 20 MPs, including the now London Mayor Boris Johnson and Liberal Democrat and SNP members, signed a Commons motion tabled by Mr Price calling for Mr Blair’s impeachment.

More here

I take it all Scottish Nationalist and Plaid Cymru MPs involved in that seedy plot are now taking legal advice, ready for their appearance in front of the Standards Watchdog?

You can be sure, THIS time, we the people will NOT be paying for it.

RELATED

• The Dirty Dozen were gunning for Blair, at OUR expense!
• Iraq Inquiry & MPs’ Expenses & SNP leader charges YOU for HIS political game
• Nationalists’ FAILED Plan to Oust Blair: Legal Costs Paid by You & Me!
• Watchdog to investigate Salmond – The Scotsman
• The Sun reports on the probe into £14,000 paid to Cherie Blair’s firm by the SNP & Plaid Cymru
• Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price says they needed specialist legal advice because the impeachment procedure had not been used for 150 years.  So AGAIN I ask – since the advice was favourable, WHY did they not ACT on it? We the people had already started to pay the lawyers. We deserved nothing less  – a good bang-up job for our buck! Or was it no more than a “stunt”?

BLOGGGERS -THE IRRATIONALITY OF PREJUDICE

How come illegal actions are fine, OK, well-deserved, in the public interest etc if the illegal action is to help prove something you agree with? Excerpt from here:

“So £790 for a second opinion on the most ill-advised War in modern times? I’ll happily pay for that. But even the value for money is beside the point.”

Quite – “beside the point”. But which point?

True, everything in politics is politically motivated, OBVIOUSLY (deep stuff here, eh?), but Salmond was wrong in using MY money to try to impeach My Prime Minister.  If he was skint at the time, he could have asked this blogger. He’d have coughed up, happily. Political motivation.

But, hey -  hang on! I have found a balanced blogger – as rare as honest politicians, maybe. This Aberdeen -based blog also thinks Salmond was wrong to use our money for this purpose.

Meanwhile what is Mr Blair up to? Getting on with real politics.

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Tags: Alex Salmond, Cherie Booth Blair, impeach Tony Blair legal advice, Iraq war legality, John Lyon, Lord Foulkes, Matrix, office expenses used to attempt to bring down prime minister, Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Plaid Cymru, Scottish nationalists, SNP, Welsh nationalists