DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

No doubt when the numbers voting crash to another all-time low politicians, dignatories and all round good-eggs will be rolled out to bemoan the youth of today, celebratory culture, a lack of values, blah de bloody blah

But looking at the M74 Stitch-Up, sorry, I mean Public Enquiry, who can blame anyone for NOT taking part in this sham democracy?

Democracy is not putting a cross in a vote for one of three half-wits every four years. It includes civic society now festooned with enquiries, quangoes and jury-rigged bodies all desperately conniving to give the politicians the answers they want to hear.

According to the Herald:

"Richard Hickman, the inquiry's reporter, concluded the M74 link should be abandoned as it would generate traffic, endanger jobs and have short-lived benefits. But when his verdict was finally made public, the executive said it would press ahead with the five-mile road regardless.

Nicol Stephen, the transport minister, said Mr Hickman failed to give due weight to evidence about new jobs and regeneration. The minister also issued a 15-page rebuttal to the findings.

However, figures obtained by The Herald show that by then the executive had already spent a quarter of its £168m budget for acquiring land on the route.

Indeed, in order to extend the M74 from Cambuslang to the M8 at the Kingston Bridge in Glasgow, ministers began buying land and compensating companies as early as December 2002, when GKN in Rutherglen got £5.6m. However, in the nine months between receiving it and giving their reaction, the executive spent another £35.6m buying land along the route in the name of the Scottish ministers and compensating businesses.

This included £13.5m last April for City Refrigeration; £7.4m for Albion Chemicals in July; and £7.1m to Scottish Mutual Assurance in February this year. Glasgow City Council and the Territorial Army also received substantial pay-outs."

The Liberals are the Hoors of Scotland, they’ll get into bed with anyone because they know for sure that that is the only way they’ll have a sniff of office as their insipid policies don’t rack up to a hill of beans. Instead we get hopeless endless compromise propping up this discredited New Labour mob of charlatans.