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As the Scottish Parliamentary election approaches,
FirstFoot has pleasure in presenting our entirely un-jaundiced guide
to Scottish devolution and the Scottish Parliament.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What
is devolution?
Devolution is the first step to re-establishing Scotland
as a sovereign nation.
Under the terms of the Scotland Act 1998, the Scottish
Parliament is able to pass laws on important issues like the colour
of sweetie wrappers and the weight of toilet paper used in hospitals.
The Scotland Act also specifies certain issues on
which the Scottish Parliament cannot pass legislation. These are
known as reserved matters and include Foreign Affairs, Defence,
National Security and anything else important to the ongoing control
of Scotland by Westminster.
What is the Scottish Executive?
It's all the high heid yins of the Labour Party in
Scotland. Entirely made up of people with no experience of running
anything more than a trade union meeting, they have decided to run
Scotland like a trade union. Lots of rules, no vision.
What
can the Scottish Parliament do?
The Scottish Parliament can pass legislation enabling
the construction of large and opulent buildings capable of containing
significant quantities of hot air.
How are laws made?
The legislative process begins with a trip to the
pub. A fag packet is taken out and a few notes made on the back
of it.
Then fag packet is then passed to a civil servant
with specific instructions that he/she should drink several bottles
of Tennants super lager before drafting the legislation. This will
ensure that a coach and horse can be driven through the enacted
Bill (see Hunting with Dogs etc).
The Executive will consult widely with their pals
and make sure that any legislation will not lose votes. In the interest
of the ongoing reign of the Labour Party in Scotland, it has often
been decided that doing nothing is in the best interests of the
Labour Party of Scotland. And so the bill is scrapped.
Once a Bill is introduced to the Parliament, then
all pretense at democracy is dead. Parliament is a talking shop
and the ruling party's foot-soldiers will support any old shit put
in front of them. For the simple reason that they fear that their
prospects of one day joining the high heid yins will be damaged
if they don't.
How is
the Scottish Executive formed?
After a Scottish Parliamentary election, the Labour
Party and the Lib Dems get together in the pub to divvy up the jobs.
The Leader of the Labour Party always gets the Heid Bummers job
and the big hoose and car.
All other positions depend on who has kissed the Heid
Bummers arse most during the lifetime of the previous Parliament.
The Lib Dems always get a couple of token jobs so they won't protest
too much about the democratic deficit.
What is the relationship between the
Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament?
The Scottish Parliament is made up of 129 MSPs (Members
of the Scottish Parliament).
The high heid yin MSPs from the Lib Dems and the Labour
Party form the Scottish Executive. Their task is to brutalise their
own MSPs to ensure that all Executive legislation is passed and
anything else gets dumped.
The MSPs from other parties get to make lots of noise,
appear on Parliaments' own television channel (audience ... 12),
and to wear shiny suits.
What is the relationship between the
Scottish Parliament and UK Parliament?
The Scottish Parliament is allowed to do lots of wee
things. The grown-up Parliament in Westminster does all the important
stuff.
Where there is a conflict between the Scottish Parliament
and Westminster, the Scottish Parliament always backs down.
After all, we don't want to be invaded, do we?
What is the difference between an MP
and an MSP?
An MP stands for Member of Parliament, meaning the
UK Parliament at Westminster. They get paid more, get better allowances
and pensions and bigger cars. There are more pubs and Lap dancing
clubs in London.
MSP stands for Member of the Scottish Parliament in
Edinburgh. All MSP's one day want to become MP's (apart from Tommy
Sheridan).
How does the system for electing MSPs
work?
The Scottish Parliament is elected according to a
form of proportional representation known as the Additional Member
System (AMS). This is intended to ensure that the electorate is
as confused as fuck.
Each voter at a Scottish Parliament election has two
votes. The first vote is cast for the candidate with the nicest
smile and the second vote is cast for the candidate with the nicest
bum.
At the end of counting, the Labour Party is declared
the winner.
Does Scotland have its own civil service?
Of course not. The civil service is a UK institution.
Ciivil servants in Scotland get smaller cars, attend
fewer lap dancing clubs and are expected to be nice to the numpties
in the Scottish Parliament.
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