The 'Dumb and the Furious' at Holyrood; SNP MSP Joan McAlpine makes a complete fool of herself claiming that the UK single market doesn't exist, insult to injury as she is corrected by two Professors, one of whom is a Law Professor, Nationalist trot out their ignorance as a matter of course, but this take stupid to a whole new level

Dear All

It appears that brains are in short supply when it comes to SNP MPs or MSPs, where it is married MSP like Kenny Gibson diving off to Costa Rica with a married party aide, attending illegal referendums like Joanne Cherry or talking bollocks like Joan McAlpine, there is a nationalist for every occasion to let Scotland down.

If there was prizes for stupidity, Joan McAlpine would have to be included in the line up, to leave her out would be a crime, her latest major gaffe is claiming there is no such thing as the UK single market. You might be shocked at how someone elected to public office can stand up and say this and think it would be allowed to pass unnoticed.

The United Kingdom is the most impressive single market that has ever existed, where you are Scots, English, Welsh or Northern Irish, there is border-free movement of goods, capital, people and services. In fact the free movement of trade has gone on for centuries which probably explain why people like; Joan McAlpine doesn’t get it.

The revelation makes you wonder how on earth someone like Joan McAlpine gets to be the convener of Holyrood’s European Committee especially when she comes out with statements like this which shows  stark lack of reality.

The claim made at the Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics however didn’t stand the test of time as she said:

“This talk of the UK single market, it’s a bit of a nonsense when you think that under the devolved settlement we already have different approaches to things. Health, for example, and lots of other areas as well where we take a different approach. So we don’t really have a UK single market.”

Up pops Professor Nicola McEwen, Associate Director of the Centre for Constitutional Change at Edinburgh University who told her:

“Yes, we do.”

Followed by Alan Page, Professor of Public Law at the University of Dundee who also set her staright by saying:

“Buying and selling goods, moving job, capital - all of these things move freely within the United Kingdom to the extent that we don’t even think about it. We live in an economic and monetary union. We do have, no question, a single market in which goods, people, capital move freely within the UK.”

Short, sanppy and to the point, even an idiot could understand this, McAlpine was born in Gourock, Renfrewshire, that being said, education is taught in that neck of the woods, and when you throw in her stint at Glasgow University where she did MA (Hons) in Scottish History and Economic History, you can only come to the conclusion that McAlpine is an ‘arse’.

Several things which Joan McAlpine seems to have no problem are listed in her wiki page, such as employing Gail Lythgoe, was found to have emailed a women's equality group, alleging that the Labour politician Ian Davidson has a history of bullying women and called on them to demonstrate against him, that ended badly for Lythgoe. Then there was failing to turn up to Ministerial Questions to ask a question which she had tabled in the Scottish Parliament as she was eating dinner in a restaurant. This was something I blogged on the deer muncher story.

http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/return-of-deer-muncher-snp-msp-joan.html

Forced to apologise!

Then there is my two personal favs, the speeding in a car incident and the classic story of McAlpine in a sex romp:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2568325/Alex-Salmond-aide-six-month-affair-axed-party-worker-used-public-money-pay-cheated-wife.html

A touching story of McAlpine breaking up a 29 year old marriage, at the time she said that she hadn’t had an affair but a relationship. According to her lover at the time, he said on the circumstances:

“We were both on our own in the city (Inverness at SNP Conference), drink was taken and we ended up in bed together. It was a fling. To me it was never more than a fling. It was me doing that thing that many married men do – when the opportunity is there you take it. I’m not proud of it.” 

Having done history, it seems that Joan McAlpine is unable to learn from history, or has a short term memory problem, her committee last year wrote the foreword to a paper which referred to the UK single market.

It said:

"The devolution settlement, like the European Union, is based on a ‘single market’ in goods, persons, services and capital."

If Ms McAlpine thinks she has a career as a propangandist, in the past she worked for newspapers, perhaps she should think again, her career is littered with gaffes where she ends up becoming the story due to ‘bad messaging’.

A spokesman for the Scottish Tories said:

“It appears Joan McAlpine has decided to temporarily leave the reality-based community. Of course we have a UK market - just ask anyone who has popped across the border from Carlisle to Gretna to do some shopping. Given Ms McAlpine is a South of Scotland MSP; you’d think she’d be the first to understand this. It’s therefore extremely odd she doesn’t.”

If you are ignorant, daft or feebleminded, a good strategy is to say nothing which draws attention to yourself, that way you can sup up the taxpayer cash as an MSP and no one will know you exist. After all, there are plenty of MSPs that no one has ever heard of at the Scottish Parliament.

Joan McAlpine is just another in the line of failed SNP politicians which the public is seeing on a daily basis, some like Tasmina Ahmed-Shiekh, Angus Roberston, Anne McLaughlin have been kicked out of office but other like Joan McAlpine still remain, one day, I hope to see the end of the Holyrood list system which allows people like Joan McAlpine into the Scottish Parliament, that day cannot come soon enough in my opinion.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University