Letters / A political football
Poor Gordon Harmer and his three scaremongering team mates, all worried and stressed about their pensions.
It strikes me that the Yes/No independence debate is like a game of football with the various issues (like pensions) being kicked about between the two sides.
Despite his worry and stress, Gordon is to be congratulated for his dribbling skills and for being on the ball and publically exposing the negative scare tactics employed by the team that he supports, UK United, otherwise identifiable by their descriptive nickname “project fear”.
Sometimes “project fear” play their games in an away strip, which is similar to their opponent’s kit, whereby they infiltrate the opposition, initially avoid recognition and then pass about their doom and gloom, in the hope of creating fear and panic in the opposition’s penalty box. This is referred to as the “troll” kit.
UK United run a juvenile team, which is known as “Better Together”, so called as they need to be spoon fed collectively by the team PR department and also because they tend to mostly only be able to hunt in packs. Meanwhile, the Better Together Team Captain (David Cameron) has received a yellow card for hiding in the team toilet and being too afraid to leave the safety of the changing room and tackle the opposition’s captain, Alex Salmond.
Oops, I’m getting carried away with the football analogy, so back to the pensions issues. The UK Government’s refusal to pre-negotiate is the source that has generated the invented and self-generated worry and stress for their supporting UK United sheep to be able to bleat on and on about. It would be quite easy for the Better Together team management to calm and pacify their sheep by removing any doubt or concerns by engaging in pre-negotiation talks.
The lack of such talks and negotiations and the resulting clarity that it would bring to the independence debate, enables the Better Together fans to claim that it’s the YES side’s inability to give assurances that is at the root cause of their pension related worry and stress. What a brilliant wheeze by UK United, even Baldrick couldn’t come up with a cunning plan like this!
Perhaps Gordon could encourage the Better Together Board of Directors to tackle the issue and pre-negotiate. This act of fair play would provide a level playing field where the actual issues could be discussed and debated based on facts, instead of pure fanciful speculation.
Such action would instantly remove the pension related worry and stress and replace it with facts and certainty, but then such activity wouldn’t suit BT’s style of negative play and their fear driven spin and propaganda.
Another culprit in causing fear, worry and stress in relation to occupational and private pensions is the Better Together defender Gordon Brown. Single handedly (as Chancellor), he took billions and billions of pounds annually (yes it’s ongoing) out of pension schemes through his tax related professional foul on pensions.
The end consequence of this pension foul has been to reduce the amount of retirement income that folk will receive. Recently having appeared in the independence debate as a substitute, Mr Brown (having previously been shown a red card by the electorate) had the cheek to tell us that we are Better Together.
Ordinary folk are now paying the penalty for Gordon Brown’s woeful performance, as countless pension funds are constantly being reduced and eroded because of his actions.
This is tangible and irrefutable evidence that we are definitely not better together and that it is Westminster and not Holyrood who cannot be trusted with our pensions.
After the ref has blown the final whistle at 10pm on 18 September 2014 (no extra time will be played), the Better Together Westminster team should duly be relegated after the Yes team has secured the necessary points to win the cup final. Only such a victory will provide safer and fairer results for Scotland in the future.
I would like to thank Mr Harmer for his revealing admissions, with his free kick and long throw in to the debate, with the danger having been expertly cleared by the YES team’s Brian Nugent (Pensioners deserve better; SN, 24/06/2014).
Gordon’s letter (Who will pay our pension? SN, 19/06/14) could well have been written and sent from a football stadium somewhere in Brazil, where the negative, defensive whinging team has just scored a spectacular own goal.
Sam Leckie
Gott
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