"Scottish party leader admits never taking cannabis"

From the BBC:

Three of Scotland's four main political party leaders have said being fairly normal, they had taken cannabis when they were younger.

Nicola Sturgeon and Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson both admitted that they had made the beginners' mistake of combining it with alcohol and it had made them feel sick. Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said he had taken it "in his youthful days", adding that he still felt pretty youthful every now and then.

However Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy told the Glasgow University debate between the party leaders that as a terminally dull and joyless person who had always had one eye on a political career, he had always politely declined the offer of toke.

Mr Murphy told the audience at the university's Queen Margaret Union that lecturing friends and family about the dangers of cannabis as a gateway drug was a "working class thing to do" in the Glasgow estate where he grew up.

Twats of the day

I have lined up three twats from across the political spectrum, just to show I hate them all...

1) On the left, we have NEU-Lab minister Jim Murphy, who "dismissed the results of the [poll on whether people wanted a referendum on the EU-CONstitution], insisting that it had been largely ignored in his constituency. 'Most local people realised that this was an expensive gimmick and binned the ballot'."

Er ... there was a 36% turnout and 88% voted for a referendum, that makes 32% of eligible voters. Whereas at the 2005 General Election, NEU-Lab won a large majority with the backing of only about 22% of eligible votes!

2) On the right, we have Boris Johnson (in today's Metro, I can't track down the article online), claiming that public transport in London is expensive and over-crowded. Firstly, for Oystercard users it is not expensive - a twelve mile journey costs me about £3 a go. The state controls quantity and price, but it cannot control demand - if there is insufficient quantity and the price is too low, then of course there will be 'overcrowding'. AFAICS, what glib commentators call 'overcrowding', I call 'efficient use of limited resources'.

3) And finally, The Libertarian Party. They propose to cut out wasteful government spending, which is about a quarter of total spending or £130 billion. A very good start, BTW! But instead of wanting to get rid of the most damaging taxes (VAT and Employer's National Insurance - yield about £125 bn) they say they would scrap income tax, which all things considered, is nowhere near as damaging and is much 'fairer'*, in the grander scheme of things, than VAT and Employer's National Insurance. So it's just a headline-grabbing gimmick from people who don't understand economics.

See also my comments at DK's. Me, statist? I've heard it all now.

* Especially if the personal allowance were doubled to £10,000 or so.