CALEDONIAN COMMENT

Well Mr Lennon – did Motherwell take a dive against Celtic today by losing 4-0, just like you disgracefully seemed to claim that Hearts did against Rangers last week ?

Oh and by the way, your “emotional” address at Parkhead after the match was as nauseating a display of disingenuous, smug, arrogant, supercillious, self-righteous, shallow selective outrage as has been seen for quite some time. And no chance of you acknowledging Rangers as SPL Champions of course – and as for any hope that you might condemn the sectarian songs belted out by sections of your own support, which is just as bad as the vocal excesses of Rangers supporters, forget it.  You’re not fit to clean Jock Stein’s shoes, never mind follow in his footsteps.

Scottish football will sink into an abyss of ugly sectarian nonsense if you stick around, because dignity, forbearance, self-discipline and moderation are values you don’t seem to possess. The more you preen and posture, the worse it will get. Nobody condones violence against you but it seems clear that there’s part of you that’s actually confrontational enough to quietly welcome such goings-on and in Scotland that’s too dangerous a thing. Either moderate your behaviour or GO.

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Thank goodness Andrew Sentance (pictured above) leaves the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in May. His shrill, ill-timed and frankly disrespectful selective arguments today to raise interest rates seem more like a fit of pique as he throws his toys out of the pram because he hasn’t got his way, having so far failed to convince his fellow MPC members of the need to raise rates, than reasoned economic argument.

He doesn’t mention rising unemployment, spending cuts, lack of business confidence, scarce and expensive lending to businesses, VAT hikes and fuel duty. He tries to pretend that a modest rise in the value of the pound would erase the effect of massive rises in overseas commodity prices. He makes no distinction between “Cost Push” and “Demand Pull” inflation. To sum up, he’s a right-wing monetarist with no conception of the hardships most people are going through right now. To him, raising mortgage payments is an academic exercise – to many others, it would be a disaster. To him, raising rates is a simplistic alleged remedy for inflation – to the economy, it would be a recipe for double-dip.

Perhaps most offensive of all is his assertion that a “wage-led inflationary spiral is imminent”. Against the background of cuts, unemployment and pay-freezes, not to mention the latest figures showing annual wage rises have just slowed from 2.1% to 1.8%, what disingenuous, pernicious nonsense.

Yesterday Bank Governor Mervyn King gave a measured, serious set of explanations regarding inflation, rates and the economy. Today we get Sentance deliberately trying to discomfit his fellow MPC members. I hope they continue to ignore his bullying tactics until he leaves the MPC and good riddance.

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Pictured above is a rather glum UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne. He’s just presided over a potential return to recession as UK growth between last October and December fell by 0.5%, which George is rather quaintly blaming on the weather. But I’m sorry - the Coalition government is going to need some more impressive news management than that to deflect attention away from this lot – blaming the snow just won’t do. How about a heightened terror alert – or a small war – or of course the impending royal wedding. Maybe former Hitler Youth and Nazi anti-aircraft gunner Pope Benedict XVI should be asked back again, or failing that maybe the Supreme Leader of Iran.

Weather permitting, of course.

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Pictured above is the (former) Sky Sports football pundit Andy Gray, who has just been sacked for allegedly ”unacceptable” statements and behaviour concerning young ladies. It’s amazing how harmless banter which goes on in pubs and workplaces up and down the land is treated by our breathless “liberal-elite” media luvvies like a capital crime. It’s also striking how their victims always appear to be heterosexual men. I suppose they’ll have a short heyday destroying careers until their naive, selective outrage which ignores real dangers results in them all being frogmarched to the mosque – and you won’t hear much about sexism and feminism after THAT, ladies.

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Heart of Midlothian 1-0 Hibernian. Happy New Year.