Jack MacRoary's Guide to the General Election:
Episode Five
Genre: Humour
Swearwords: None.
Description: The politics is in the porridge.
_____________________________________________________________________
My dad tells me that we MacRoarys are a placid lot. We gang wi’ the flow, he says, whereas they Maxwells (my mum and Uncle Tam) are a fearsome lot, like Bisum wi’ a bone. Dad tells me he feels tied to the land and doesn’t need any more than that, but mum, well mum wants to change the world. She really wants Social Justice. She wants it more than I want to be a potato farmer and that’s a lot. And these days all our dreams are looking on a shoogly peg, because there’s been overproduction of potatoes and the General Election may just put another nail in the coffin of Independence.
But I know you want to hear about politics, even though I want to talk about potatoes, because I think they are much more interesting. So I’ll tell you. Even though you probably know because you’ll have been watching it as well… we had another TV debate this week – Dad says it’s turning into Soap Opera Wastemonster. Same old story, same old characters, week after week. When I go back to school tomorrow (because I’m writing this on Sunday before the week really begins) I’m going to ask Mr Marker why, if a week is so long in politics, we have to have well over a month going on about the Election before it even happens.
John never revised as hard for his exams as the political candidates must have had to do, but even they must be getting bored coming out with the same old stuff time and again. It might look a bit different at each programme, but when it comes down to it, it’s pretty much all the same. But what was good after the last debate was that the women leaders all hugged each other at the end, because they all stand (mum says) united on ‘the ticket’ of progressive politics. That is, making things better for people, not just playing it like a red/blue football match. And you might think that was a girlie thing to do, hugging, but really it wasn’t. It was an expression of solidarity, as my Uncle Tam might have said if he was still alive, which of course he isn’t because of the Referendum result.
The debate was on Thursday night, so yes, thank you, we had chips for tea and mum home to cook them. It had all the opposition people, not David Cameron because he didn’t want to come and not Nick Clegg because they wouldn’t let him come – them both being in the government still. Just. Which left Ed Miliband as the ‘elder statesman’ in his own mind at least, and he and Nigel Farage were outnumbered (and outclassed, everyone seemed to think afterwards, at least on social media) by the women from Green, Plaid Cymru and of course Nicola Sturgeon from the SNP. And lots of English people are now getting really annoyed that they can’t vote for Nicola Sturgeon because they like what she has to say – I hope they vote Green because that’s what I’d vote if I had a vote and if I wasn’t in Scotland – which I don’t and am. Obviously vote for the Welsh lady if you’re in Wales!
Ed Miliband was pretty sarky and rude to Nicola, but she took it as she usually does. She called him out and he was left looking stupid. Or just like someone who is so determined he’s not going to share that it’s hard to imagine that he’s really putting the people first. He’s like Murphy lite, Dad says. Whereas Dad says that Farage is like Hitler lite. But he said I couldn’t write that because you shouldn’t put slurs on people, and Farage called someone from the SNP a terrorist so we shouldn’t stoop to their level. So I’m not saying that Farage is like Hitler, what I am saying is that he looks suspiciously like a racist – he keeps blaming immigrants for everything whereas everyone else points out that without them we’d have no NHS. And he pretty quickly seems to lump Scots into the camp of ‘other’ so it’s hard not to see him as the English Independence Party rather than the UK one. But we shouldn’t waste time talking about him because he just made himself look really stupid on the debate – Nicola called his attitudes a disgrace and I agreed with her. But Nicola Sturgeon is a female statesman because after the hugging she was the first to go and shake hands with Milipede (as Dad calls him now) even though he’s been so patronisingly smug towards her before. And everyone was laughing because the Farage Balloon (as John calls him now) was standing on his own like a Johnny no-mates and Nicola even shook his hand.
I always thought shaking hands was a pretty stupid thing anyway, but I learned about the politics of shaking hands when Nelson Mandela died and loads of people wouldn’t shake hands with the Cuban leader Raul Castro. It was sort of like the celebrities who wouldn’t tell Alex Salmond (or us) if they wanted Independence (remember in his book) and I think it’s just childish. They wanted us to think that they were making a point but really they are just ‘covering their own backs’, as Dad would say.
Nicola understands that shaking hands is a sign of politeness and civilised behaviour and that whether she shakes hands with the Farage Barage doesn’t mean she condones (Mum’s word) his beliefs or behaviour, but just that you have to treat people as well as you would want to be treated. And we all might wish he didn’t exist, but he does and it showed that Nicola is serious that she will work with anyone. BUT she won’t be taken the piss out of by anyone either. Which I think is great. I’m glad she’s our leader. But I still hope we haven’t seen the end of Alex Salmond too.
And this week, President Obama shook hands with Raul Castro but it doesn’t mean he agrees with Cuba – but that’s world politics and at the moment the world has to take care of itself a bit because we’ve got our own issues. Don’t get me started on Trident, I’ve heard enough about that to last me a lifetime. It’s such a no-brainer. The only argument they have is that it would cost jobs, but with the money they saved not having it they’d be able to give jobs to all the people and maybe they could be jobs helping people in other countries rather than jobs which threaten to blow us all up, which no one is going to do – except maybe a terrorist if they got their hands on the button – but I’m NOT going to start on about Trident. If you can’t see that it’s the biggest and most disgraceful waste of money in the world, then nothing I can say is going to convince you. ‘Bairns not Bombs’ says it all really.
Anyway, another debate over, with the same questions, the same answers, the same people and the same old arguments – if anyone hasn’t worked it all out by now then they must be hiding under a stone. And here we are with only about a fortnight to the General Election which unfortunately does matter to us here in Scotland as well as people in England. But only because if we don’t keep our eye on the ball we’ll find that someone has burst it and left us without a pump so that we will have to do CPR on our country.
You can’t begin to imagine how bad things will get for us if the Farage Barage has any say in the next government. Mind you, I reckon it’ll be pretty bad if Murphy has his way as well. I’d cross my fingers but it’s a long time to sit with fingers crossed till the 7th May and I have too much work to do. Mr Marker got really annoyed with Brian the Brain last term when he said he couldn’t do his homework because his mum had told him to keep his fingers crossed for Independence.
I think I’m beginning to understand why my mum is making such an effort to make sure that the SNP get a decent showing at least at the Wastemonster. I’m not sure that Dad understands and he certainly doesn’t agree. But, because he’s learned from Nicola, he realises that Mum has to do what she has to do and we all have to respect each other’s way of doing things. So that’s what we do. We make the sacrifices and we hope for the best. But I think it must be hard for Dad. Especially when I have to cook his tea. Mum’s been out this weekend on the campaign trail again. She is mixing with all the important people now. She’s been out with Alex Salmond and also with ‘the Doctor’. That’s what Dad calls her anyway.
When he first said it I thought he meant Doctor Who. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? And even though I don’t watch Doctor Who any more (because I’ve realised it’s for kids, and I wish a lot of adults would wake up to that too), I thought it was pretty great if my mum was out campaigning with Doctor Who. And to put the record straight, I think that the current Doctor Who which is Peter Capaldi was pro-Independence and so he might vote SNP (but I don’t know, I haven’t asked him) whereas David Tennant who was Doctor Who last time I watched it, thought we were Better Together. Which I think most people can see we aren’t now. I don’t know if he’s changed his mind. But anyway, none of these are THE DOCTOR my dad was talking about.
My dad is talking about Dr Eilidh Whiteford, who is our local candidate. She’s been there for the last five years and she spoke up about bullying and all sorts of other things, so we hope she’ll get back there. If she wants to. I wish she could just be in Holyrood and that Alex Salmond could come back to Holyrood too (especially if we end up with Jim Murphy there, because if he loses in this election he’ll definitely be trying to get his feet under the table in Holyrood).
Anyway, my mum has been out campaigning with ‘the Doctor’ and says she’s a really nice woman and I discovered that she’s not a medical type doctor but has a PhD (that means she stayed at university and worked really hard) and it’s in Scottish Literature – which means I’ve got something in common with her too. She probably understands that the politics is in the porridge and that culture is something you grow from the grass roots not something that people try to dress you in like posh clothes. One day maybe I’ll get to meet her and I wonder if she’ll be as inspirational (and friendly) as Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. I think she will. And she’s interested in Fair Trade, too, so maybe once this is all over I’ll get her to come and talk at DrumTumshie Academy when I start setting it up as a Fair Trade School.
Dad says that Scotland can grow perfectly good politicians, and that since we’ve had Holyrood we’re starting to reap the benefits, but it’s such a shame that we’re about to have to send a load of them to Wastemonster to try and kick them into shape. If we’d have had Independence we wouldn’t have had to do that.
Mum says that if The Doctor, and Alex Salmond and loads of other SNP’s get into the Wastemonster system and challenge it, then soon enough we’ll have them back making home-grown politics something to be as proud of as Scotch Whisky or Scotch Beef. Dad said BSE and fake foreign products can still undermine our proud nation status. I think he was making some kind of an analogy, but maybe he was being literal. I know how Brian the Brain must feel most of the time now, because I can’t work out when someone is saying something real or figuratively – is it satire? irony? Or something else entirely? That’s a question that has been asked about a lot of Scottish writing and I’m sure someone, somewhere is asking it about me. Well, let me tell you, I’m just writing about my life. I’m the author so I should know what I’m writing about. If you don’t understand, ask The Doctor, she knows about all the politics of literature – Mum says.
Mum also says that if we get enough of us down at Wastemonster there to make a difference it’s most likely that they will get so fed up of us that they’ll be begging us to go Independent. And I said maybe The Doctor would like to take Micro the Pig down with her as a mascot, because she’s so annoying and causes so much chaos (remember Referendum Day) that it’d speed things up. Because I don’t want to have to wait another five years to get all these good people back in our own Parliament, because imagine if we get Jim Murphy and maybe even Gordon Judas Brown comes out of retirement. And Nicola has to spend five years arguing with them. It’s like a nightmare waiting to happen.
But mum explained it to me that these people are making a big sacrifice for us to go down there and try and free us. They’re more or less becoming emigrants themselves (I know they get to come home on weekends and things, but you have to feel sorry for them having to go and do politics in the Wastemonster when we have a perfectly good Parliament right here, which could run our country perfectly well if they’d just let us) and that’s why the Farage Barage is so arsey about them.
I just hope something big happens soon because by the time I’m able to vote it’s not a referendum we’ll be needing, it’s a revolution. And I don’t want to be a revolutionary, I just want to grow potatoes on my farm and live a calm and peaceful life being Scottish. I know that the politics is in the porridge, like Brian the Brain said. And for me, the politics is in the potatoes. But I’ll tell you more about that next week.
And if you wish this all wasn’t so boring, which I do all the time, you should have voted Yes (if you didn’t!). And if you did, I’m just sorry, but we’re all in the same boat. We are all together, but if this is Better it’s a funny kind of Better, isn’t it? It seems like it’s a punishment for Voting No that we have to be interested in the General Election. And even the people who Voted Yes are being punished. Which doesn’t seem fair. Even after watching the Masters for a whole weekend, I can’t understand what a golf handicap is, but I wonder if it’s sort of like being Scottish at the moment. Dad said it’s not really, he said it’s like trying to catch a cow with your legs chained together and one hand tied behind your back.
It’s fair to say dad is fed up with the whole Election thing. And because it’s likely to be a hung parliament, he says it’s not going to be over any time soon. Not by a long shot. Which is really annoying because I want to get back to my real life and stop having to talk about politics. But that’s why Mr McStoryteller says I have to keep writing about the General Election even after May 8th, because I can’t stop until the end. What I worry about, though, is that if this is Soap Opera Wastemonster it might never end because soap operas just go on and on. So we have to do something to change the programme! We have to Be Stronger for Scotland and do everything we can to have our voices heard – and our voices are Scottish and proud. Eat porridge. Drink Whisky (or Irn Bru) and vote SNP! Respect other people but stand up for yourself. That’s Jack MacRoary’s political broadcast.
Swearwords: None.
Description: The politics is in the porridge.
_____________________________________________________________________
My dad tells me that we MacRoarys are a placid lot. We gang wi’ the flow, he says, whereas they Maxwells (my mum and Uncle Tam) are a fearsome lot, like Bisum wi’ a bone. Dad tells me he feels tied to the land and doesn’t need any more than that, but mum, well mum wants to change the world. She really wants Social Justice. She wants it more than I want to be a potato farmer and that’s a lot. And these days all our dreams are looking on a shoogly peg, because there’s been overproduction of potatoes and the General Election may just put another nail in the coffin of Independence.
But I know you want to hear about politics, even though I want to talk about potatoes, because I think they are much more interesting. So I’ll tell you. Even though you probably know because you’ll have been watching it as well… we had another TV debate this week – Dad says it’s turning into Soap Opera Wastemonster. Same old story, same old characters, week after week. When I go back to school tomorrow (because I’m writing this on Sunday before the week really begins) I’m going to ask Mr Marker why, if a week is so long in politics, we have to have well over a month going on about the Election before it even happens.
John never revised as hard for his exams as the political candidates must have had to do, but even they must be getting bored coming out with the same old stuff time and again. It might look a bit different at each programme, but when it comes down to it, it’s pretty much all the same. But what was good after the last debate was that the women leaders all hugged each other at the end, because they all stand (mum says) united on ‘the ticket’ of progressive politics. That is, making things better for people, not just playing it like a red/blue football match. And you might think that was a girlie thing to do, hugging, but really it wasn’t. It was an expression of solidarity, as my Uncle Tam might have said if he was still alive, which of course he isn’t because of the Referendum result.
The debate was on Thursday night, so yes, thank you, we had chips for tea and mum home to cook them. It had all the opposition people, not David Cameron because he didn’t want to come and not Nick Clegg because they wouldn’t let him come – them both being in the government still. Just. Which left Ed Miliband as the ‘elder statesman’ in his own mind at least, and he and Nigel Farage were outnumbered (and outclassed, everyone seemed to think afterwards, at least on social media) by the women from Green, Plaid Cymru and of course Nicola Sturgeon from the SNP. And lots of English people are now getting really annoyed that they can’t vote for Nicola Sturgeon because they like what she has to say – I hope they vote Green because that’s what I’d vote if I had a vote and if I wasn’t in Scotland – which I don’t and am. Obviously vote for the Welsh lady if you’re in Wales!
Ed Miliband was pretty sarky and rude to Nicola, but she took it as she usually does. She called him out and he was left looking stupid. Or just like someone who is so determined he’s not going to share that it’s hard to imagine that he’s really putting the people first. He’s like Murphy lite, Dad says. Whereas Dad says that Farage is like Hitler lite. But he said I couldn’t write that because you shouldn’t put slurs on people, and Farage called someone from the SNP a terrorist so we shouldn’t stoop to their level. So I’m not saying that Farage is like Hitler, what I am saying is that he looks suspiciously like a racist – he keeps blaming immigrants for everything whereas everyone else points out that without them we’d have no NHS. And he pretty quickly seems to lump Scots into the camp of ‘other’ so it’s hard not to see him as the English Independence Party rather than the UK one. But we shouldn’t waste time talking about him because he just made himself look really stupid on the debate – Nicola called his attitudes a disgrace and I agreed with her. But Nicola Sturgeon is a female statesman because after the hugging she was the first to go and shake hands with Milipede (as Dad calls him now) even though he’s been so patronisingly smug towards her before. And everyone was laughing because the Farage Balloon (as John calls him now) was standing on his own like a Johnny no-mates and Nicola even shook his hand.
I always thought shaking hands was a pretty stupid thing anyway, but I learned about the politics of shaking hands when Nelson Mandela died and loads of people wouldn’t shake hands with the Cuban leader Raul Castro. It was sort of like the celebrities who wouldn’t tell Alex Salmond (or us) if they wanted Independence (remember in his book) and I think it’s just childish. They wanted us to think that they were making a point but really they are just ‘covering their own backs’, as Dad would say.
Nicola understands that shaking hands is a sign of politeness and civilised behaviour and that whether she shakes hands with the Farage Barage doesn’t mean she condones (Mum’s word) his beliefs or behaviour, but just that you have to treat people as well as you would want to be treated. And we all might wish he didn’t exist, but he does and it showed that Nicola is serious that she will work with anyone. BUT she won’t be taken the piss out of by anyone either. Which I think is great. I’m glad she’s our leader. But I still hope we haven’t seen the end of Alex Salmond too.
And this week, President Obama shook hands with Raul Castro but it doesn’t mean he agrees with Cuba – but that’s world politics and at the moment the world has to take care of itself a bit because we’ve got our own issues. Don’t get me started on Trident, I’ve heard enough about that to last me a lifetime. It’s such a no-brainer. The only argument they have is that it would cost jobs, but with the money they saved not having it they’d be able to give jobs to all the people and maybe they could be jobs helping people in other countries rather than jobs which threaten to blow us all up, which no one is going to do – except maybe a terrorist if they got their hands on the button – but I’m NOT going to start on about Trident. If you can’t see that it’s the biggest and most disgraceful waste of money in the world, then nothing I can say is going to convince you. ‘Bairns not Bombs’ says it all really.
Anyway, another debate over, with the same questions, the same answers, the same people and the same old arguments – if anyone hasn’t worked it all out by now then they must be hiding under a stone. And here we are with only about a fortnight to the General Election which unfortunately does matter to us here in Scotland as well as people in England. But only because if we don’t keep our eye on the ball we’ll find that someone has burst it and left us without a pump so that we will have to do CPR on our country.
You can’t begin to imagine how bad things will get for us if the Farage Barage has any say in the next government. Mind you, I reckon it’ll be pretty bad if Murphy has his way as well. I’d cross my fingers but it’s a long time to sit with fingers crossed till the 7th May and I have too much work to do. Mr Marker got really annoyed with Brian the Brain last term when he said he couldn’t do his homework because his mum had told him to keep his fingers crossed for Independence.
I think I’m beginning to understand why my mum is making such an effort to make sure that the SNP get a decent showing at least at the Wastemonster. I’m not sure that Dad understands and he certainly doesn’t agree. But, because he’s learned from Nicola, he realises that Mum has to do what she has to do and we all have to respect each other’s way of doing things. So that’s what we do. We make the sacrifices and we hope for the best. But I think it must be hard for Dad. Especially when I have to cook his tea. Mum’s been out this weekend on the campaign trail again. She is mixing with all the important people now. She’s been out with Alex Salmond and also with ‘the Doctor’. That’s what Dad calls her anyway.
When he first said it I thought he meant Doctor Who. Well, you would, wouldn’t you? And even though I don’t watch Doctor Who any more (because I’ve realised it’s for kids, and I wish a lot of adults would wake up to that too), I thought it was pretty great if my mum was out campaigning with Doctor Who. And to put the record straight, I think that the current Doctor Who which is Peter Capaldi was pro-Independence and so he might vote SNP (but I don’t know, I haven’t asked him) whereas David Tennant who was Doctor Who last time I watched it, thought we were Better Together. Which I think most people can see we aren’t now. I don’t know if he’s changed his mind. But anyway, none of these are THE DOCTOR my dad was talking about.
My dad is talking about Dr Eilidh Whiteford, who is our local candidate. She’s been there for the last five years and she spoke up about bullying and all sorts of other things, so we hope she’ll get back there. If she wants to. I wish she could just be in Holyrood and that Alex Salmond could come back to Holyrood too (especially if we end up with Jim Murphy there, because if he loses in this election he’ll definitely be trying to get his feet under the table in Holyrood).
Anyway, my mum has been out campaigning with ‘the Doctor’ and says she’s a really nice woman and I discovered that she’s not a medical type doctor but has a PhD (that means she stayed at university and worked really hard) and it’s in Scottish Literature – which means I’ve got something in common with her too. She probably understands that the politics is in the porridge and that culture is something you grow from the grass roots not something that people try to dress you in like posh clothes. One day maybe I’ll get to meet her and I wonder if she’ll be as inspirational (and friendly) as Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. I think she will. And she’s interested in Fair Trade, too, so maybe once this is all over I’ll get her to come and talk at DrumTumshie Academy when I start setting it up as a Fair Trade School.
Dad says that Scotland can grow perfectly good politicians, and that since we’ve had Holyrood we’re starting to reap the benefits, but it’s such a shame that we’re about to have to send a load of them to Wastemonster to try and kick them into shape. If we’d have had Independence we wouldn’t have had to do that.
Mum says that if The Doctor, and Alex Salmond and loads of other SNP’s get into the Wastemonster system and challenge it, then soon enough we’ll have them back making home-grown politics something to be as proud of as Scotch Whisky or Scotch Beef. Dad said BSE and fake foreign products can still undermine our proud nation status. I think he was making some kind of an analogy, but maybe he was being literal. I know how Brian the Brain must feel most of the time now, because I can’t work out when someone is saying something real or figuratively – is it satire? irony? Or something else entirely? That’s a question that has been asked about a lot of Scottish writing and I’m sure someone, somewhere is asking it about me. Well, let me tell you, I’m just writing about my life. I’m the author so I should know what I’m writing about. If you don’t understand, ask The Doctor, she knows about all the politics of literature – Mum says.
Mum also says that if we get enough of us down at Wastemonster there to make a difference it’s most likely that they will get so fed up of us that they’ll be begging us to go Independent. And I said maybe The Doctor would like to take Micro the Pig down with her as a mascot, because she’s so annoying and causes so much chaos (remember Referendum Day) that it’d speed things up. Because I don’t want to have to wait another five years to get all these good people back in our own Parliament, because imagine if we get Jim Murphy and maybe even Gordon Judas Brown comes out of retirement. And Nicola has to spend five years arguing with them. It’s like a nightmare waiting to happen.
But mum explained it to me that these people are making a big sacrifice for us to go down there and try and free us. They’re more or less becoming emigrants themselves (I know they get to come home on weekends and things, but you have to feel sorry for them having to go and do politics in the Wastemonster when we have a perfectly good Parliament right here, which could run our country perfectly well if they’d just let us) and that’s why the Farage Barage is so arsey about them.
I just hope something big happens soon because by the time I’m able to vote it’s not a referendum we’ll be needing, it’s a revolution. And I don’t want to be a revolutionary, I just want to grow potatoes on my farm and live a calm and peaceful life being Scottish. I know that the politics is in the porridge, like Brian the Brain said. And for me, the politics is in the potatoes. But I’ll tell you more about that next week.
And if you wish this all wasn’t so boring, which I do all the time, you should have voted Yes (if you didn’t!). And if you did, I’m just sorry, but we’re all in the same boat. We are all together, but if this is Better it’s a funny kind of Better, isn’t it? It seems like it’s a punishment for Voting No that we have to be interested in the General Election. And even the people who Voted Yes are being punished. Which doesn’t seem fair. Even after watching the Masters for a whole weekend, I can’t understand what a golf handicap is, but I wonder if it’s sort of like being Scottish at the moment. Dad said it’s not really, he said it’s like trying to catch a cow with your legs chained together and one hand tied behind your back.
It’s fair to say dad is fed up with the whole Election thing. And because it’s likely to be a hung parliament, he says it’s not going to be over any time soon. Not by a long shot. Which is really annoying because I want to get back to my real life and stop having to talk about politics. But that’s why Mr McStoryteller says I have to keep writing about the General Election even after May 8th, because I can’t stop until the end. What I worry about, though, is that if this is Soap Opera Wastemonster it might never end because soap operas just go on and on. So we have to do something to change the programme! We have to Be Stronger for Scotland and do everything we can to have our voices heard – and our voices are Scottish and proud. Eat porridge. Drink Whisky (or Irn Bru) and vote SNP! Respect other people but stand up for yourself. That’s Jack MacRoary’s political broadcast.
About the Author
Jack MacRoary, also known locally as the Bard of DrumTumshie, comes from the small farming community of Tattybogle, which he has singlehandedly put ‘on the map’ through his fame. After bursting onto the literary cultural scene in August 2012 when he appeared at the inaugural Edinburgh eBook Festival, Jack now attends DrumTumshie Academy. His current ebooks are Tales from Tattybogle (available from Amazon here and Kobo here) and More Tales from Tattybogle (available from Amazon here and Kobo here). He is also the first McStorytellers McSerial writer.
Jack lives on a farm with his dad, mum, older brother John and a range of animals and pets, including Dug (the cat), Bisum (the dog) and Micro (the pig). His ebooks give an insight into rural life, as well as providing an insightful commentary on Scots culture.
Follow Jack on Facebook here.
Jack lives on a farm with his dad, mum, older brother John and a range of animals and pets, including Dug (the cat), Bisum (the dog) and Micro (the pig). His ebooks give an insight into rural life, as well as providing an insightful commentary on Scots culture.
Follow Jack on Facebook here.