Lyr Add: Scottish MPs

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish MPs
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jul 01 - 04:05 AM

When I was in Shetland they often told my they'd be glad about independence if they could keep their oil.

Susanne, thank, I should have thought of that temporary file in 'My songbook' but I only checked the usual entry.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish MPs
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 17 Jul 01 - 06:45 PM

Oh no! The Sunday Herald seems to have thrown out its 'characters from Scottish history' files so the link doesn't work. Should anyone want to know more about Macdonald I'll be happy to post the article here. It is taking a balanced approach, but also fairly long.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish MPs
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jul 01 - 06:37 PM

I'd be happy with Scottish independence - as long as we got the oil....

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish MPs
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 17 Jul 01 - 06:34 PM

Written by Jim McLean. The line in verse 2 ought to read 'the whole damn lot' (according to my version, sung by Nigel Denver). There's some more info at My Songbook but as the file is provisional here's the main content:

[1980:] [Lord Home] became, in the course of an eventful political career, Earl of Home (fourteenth); Sir Alec Douglas-Home and, finally, Lord Home of the Hirsel. He was also Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister. The Homes are an ancient family of the Scottish Borders, famous in the old days as keepers, or breakers, of the peace and, later, as farmers, sportsmen and fishermen. [...] Lord Home (born 1903) [then still Lord Dunglass] stood for Parliament in 1929 for Coatbridge and was rejected. Two years later he was elected for South Lanark. [...] The death of his father in [1951] ended (as it seemed), or interrupted (as it turned out), his career in the House of Commons. [...] In the autumn of 1963, [Prime Minister Harold] Macmillan was compelled by a breakdown in health to give up the leadership of the Tory Party. [...] Home was approached to be the successor, and with many misgivings agreed to surrender his peerage and fight a by-election so that he could sit in the Commons. He became MP for Kinross and West Perthshire and, as Sir Alec Douglas-Home, was Prime Minister. [...] When Home lost the general election in the following year by a small margin, he resigned with all the cheerfulness in the world. [...] Home was Foreign Secretary until 1974, in which year he was created a life peer. (Thomson, The Prime Ministers p 239 ff.)

[1990:] I'd forgotten that The Scottish MP was Jim's song till researching for this book. It is of course very unfair and inaccurate. (MPs get titles, not medals.) (McVicar, One Singer One Song 72)

[1997:] The Tories and Scottish Nationalists yesterday accused Labour of 'breathtaking hypocrisy and double standards' after it was revealed that only a handful of Scottish Labour MPs and parliamentary candidates would stand for election to Tony Blair's proposed Scottish assembly. An 'Observer' survey found that only seven of Labour's 43 Scottish MPs from the last Parliament who are standing again would give up Westminster for Edinburgh [...]. Only 13 [Labour candidates out of 72] said they would stand for an Edinburgh parliament. [...] It is an open secret north of the border that, although Labour MPs such as [the Shadow Scottish Secretary George] Robertson pay lip service to devolution, few are prepared to swap the privileges of life at Westminster for a new career on Edinburgh's Calton Hill. (John Arlidge, Observer, 20 April)

[1999:] A journalist had given me his opinion that the reason so many Scottish MPs did not want to stand as MSPs was that up here, their foibles and peccadilloes would be uncovered in double-quick time. (Ian Rankin, Observer, 11 Apr)

Ramsay MacDonald

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish MPs
From: Snuffy
Date: 17 Jul 01 - 08:34 AM

GrimmondJo Grimond - Liberal leader of the 50s/60s. MP for orkney or Shetland

HumeSir Alec Douglas-Home resigned his peerage (14th earl of Home) in '63 or '64 to become tory leader and Prime Minister. He owned much of the Borders, but sat as MP fro Kinross & West Perthshire. He later was given a life peerage as Lord Home of the Hirsel

Rumsey, MacJames Ramsay Macdonald - first Labour prime minister in the '20s. A Scot. Split the labour movement in the 30's by leading an all-party coalition National Government, but most socialists walked out. Still thought of as a traitor to the labour movement by many.

Subject: Scottish MPs
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Jul 01 - 05:47 AM

I have an old tape with songs sung by Alastair McDonald. All of the songs are more or less explicit an advice to vote for the SNP (Scottish national party) in an election at least 25 years ago. Maybe none of these songs will (should) survive but I'll post one anyway. The lyrics are my transcription but with the exception of the line with the names (in verse 3) they should be close to correct.

Wolfgang

SCOTTISH MPs
(Tune: The merry ploughboy, Off to Dublin in the green)

Oh I am a Scottish MP
from a City grey and black,
so I'll shut my mouth when I'm in the South
just in case they send me back.
Now some folks work for Labour
And some for the Tory class
But I work like Hell for me myself
And the rest can kiss my kilt.

Chorus: For I'm off to London in the morn, in the morn,
in Westminster I will be,
and I leave behind my brains and mind
and try for an MBE.

Oh Scotland, dearest Scotland
you have given me your trust
and if I make the grade to the Board of Trade
just guess who'll I trade first.
I will trade the Lowlands for a peerage,
give me an Earldom for the Isles
and the whole damn glut(?) could be easily bought
with one of Lizzie's smiles.

Oh, I am a Scot's Home Ruler,
but at my English Queen's command,
for my real birthright is to be a knight
and the rest can be Republicans.
So, come Grimmond, Hume, and Rumsey, Mac,
our Scottish Englishmen,
nationality for a Scot's MP
means tea at number 10.