To wish Mhairi Black was PM?

[Littlefluffyclouds81]

www.itv.com/news/2015-07-14/mhairi-black-20-year-old-mps-maiden-speech-pulls-no-punches/

She is amazing. Her speech made me cry. She may be young but she talks such sense and has so much passion. If only the House of Commons contained more people like her.

[bethshart]

Having once been an idealist myself at Mhairi Black's age many years ago, and seeing amazingly little of any kind of idealism around these days amongst a lot of young people, I love it that someone like her has got a seat in Parliament and is speaking her mind to all these fat cat career politicians who seem to have very little idea of how real people live and have to make do on a day to day basis and seem only concerned about making life better for their darling friends in the media, banking and insurance, and big corporate business generally. Unfortunately she'll probably have it bashed out of her by Westminster politics but at least she's giving it a go.

[Perihelion]

83 You don't see what was unfair about the Poll Tax? Really? That someone on £100k would pay the same as a person on minimum wage ( not that it existed then ).

[GinandJag]

I haven't seen anything particularly likeable about her.

Her maiden speech was in poor taste, unsurprisingly.

[DopeyDawg]

Mhari Black is all that is WRONG with SNP, imo.

The glorification of ignorant parochialism, the celebration of an aggressive 'central belt socialist' culture, and you just watch the lack of accountability...

[unlucky83]

Peri -how is that that much difference to council tax really?
You could win the lottery and choose to continue living in your council house (as lottery winners have) or the trade unionist Bob Crowe who died last year who earned £100k and lived in a 3 bed council house... they would be paying low council tax based on the value of their property - no reference to their earnings.
While you could have a widow who lives on her own on a low pension in a 3 bed house she and her husband struggled to buy donkey's years ago which was determined as worth more than a similar sized council house (council tax valuation bands are known to be seriously flawed anyway)....I guess she could always sell up...
I don't think there is a truly fair system...they all have flaws.

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

That's a bit disingenuous, unlucky. Someone in an expensive council tax bracket has the option of moving to a cheaper one. The Poll Tax didn't allow for any reduction, as far as I know.

[HirplesWithHaggis]

There was a huge difference in our household when the poll tax was introduced. We had been paying about £50 a month in rates, and had to pay £50 each under poll tax. To put it in perspective, at the time I was mostly sahm working pt evenings and weekends, and the poll tax was a full week's wages for me.

I suspect that was a more common situation than lottery winners staying in council flats.

Especially as the lottery didn't exist back then.

[Happy36]

Does anyone know where I could get the text of the speech, please?

[TheChandler]

TooExtra Going back to the City of Edinburgh Council point, they are about to have a new chief exec and are in the middle of a transformation programme which is going to result in more than 900 jobs being deleted, mainly at the higher/middle management levels. The Scottish Government will have been involved in commissioning this review. It is well recognised that the place needs shaking up, and it's about to get it.

I don't think anyone who has much realism about them really believes that. City of Edinburgh Council are resurrecting their fraudulent statutory notices scheme. They brought in Dame Sue Bruce to great fanfare a couple of years ago, and even she, who turned around City of Aberdeen Council which had similar problems and was nearly bankrupt, had to admit defeat.

The statutory notices scandal makes the poll tax pale by comparison. You have old ladies living in one bedroom tenement flats that wouldn't even be liable for roof repairs under their title deeds having bills of £30,000 to be paid within 28 days sprung on them, for dubious workmanship, inflated work and even work not done. Try and sell up? Not possible, if you have a £60,000 statutory notice over your property which has been unresolved for 11 years because of the scandal (a real case, there are many more examples, but because Scottish local government isn't properly accountable, its not possible to even quantify the problem).

The doublespeak that typifies City of Edinburgh Council's official documents has to be read to believed, although its pretty hard to read. Unfortunately the new Chief Exec seems to deliver official documents in a similarly obtrusive tone, which leads me to suspect they have simply appointed a master in cover-up to avoid sorting out the problem.

If you are an SNP supporter and unaware or ignoring the statutory notice problem, or problems with public sector fraud in Scotland, while wittering on about a "fair and more just society", then shame on you.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

Does anyone know where I could get the text of the speech, please?

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mhairi-black-speech-in-full-snp-mp-tears-apart-conservative-government-and-labour-opposition-in-maiden-speech-10389334.html

[TheChandler]

Can I also say that it is a well used technique in the Scottish public sector to make redundancies and then to give the work previously done in house to consultants or companies comprised of the former employees. Sometimes a niche industry is even set up for them (such as statutory notices) so that individuals cannot choose their own contractor and have to get work done by those on a Council-approved list, authorised by a Council employee who used to work alongside those very contractors...

[Floisme]

I'd barely heard of her before yesterday but if she's so useless why are some people getting in such a froth about her?

[mughandle]

Can't stand the SNP, so no I'm not going to be that impressed with any of their MPs to be honest

[BigChocFrenzy]

Regardless of party, she looks a very promising young MP, lots of energy and idealism - I hope she keeps that.
Westminster seems full of boring untalented hacks of all parties, just there on the buggins principle, snouts in the expenses & pensions trough.
If the SNP or anyone else can shake things up and ruffle feathers, fine by me.

I wouldn't like a Parliament crammed with 20-somethings, due to the lack of life experience. However, we should have a wide age range to be representative and it is great to have a one 20-yr-old. Too many middle-aged farts there - I'm that age group, but I hope I never get that stuffy.

On reflection, many middle-aged politicians have extremely limited life experience: born to great wealth, privilege, going to top Public Schools, no friends who have to count their pennies.... So, she has more in common with her constituents than they do.

I liked her pre-election Tweet about getting rid of the previous MP. Most of us non-politicians don't respect these pompous old has-beens and the status quo.
As an MP though, she needs to cut out remarks about "nutting" people - which showed her remaining immaturity. A 20-yr-old man would probably not have got away so easily with that.

AFAIK, ordinary MPs of all parties have to write their own speeches and you do see the difference in style & emphasis; only government ministers and Shadow Cabinet are likely to have speechwriters.

[DunelmDoris]

For all those arguing about her lack of life experience - the job of our MPs is to represent us. Getting more women, ethnic minorities and young people into parliament is essential to ensure the population is properly represented. It also provides visible role models for our children.

We have been conditioned to think that the only people qualified to make important decisions are old men in suits. That's bollocks.

[DidoTheDodo]

Ye gods...PM? No thanks.
Try a slice of real life first please.

[Floisme]

Mumsnet is so funny: if you're under 25, you haven't lived. If you're over 50, you may as well crawl away and die.

[wafflyversatile]

What experience of real life as experienced by most segments of the population does George Osbourne have?

[specialsubject]

I don't think that the only people qualified to make decisions are old men in suits. Anyone who thinks that probably isn't qualified to make their own decisions!

Ms Black certainly doesn't have much life experience, and does come across as immature without pre-planned speeches. But she can change that. At least she has the right degree for the job!

[cdtaylornats]

I just wish they would get her name right Mhairi is a gaelic name and its pronounced Vaary

[DunelmDoris]

It's largely personal choice. As I understand it, the V sound is used in Gaelic when addressing the person, so technically Mhairi should be spelled Mairi. But many people do use Mhairi with a M sound these days.

I'm sure if Mhairi's name was being pronounced incorrectly she'd have politely informed the mistaken party.

[HirplesWithHaggis]

It's pronounced Marry by Mhairi and her parents, though.

[Happy36]

ItsAllGoingToBeFine Thank you so much!

[TheChandler]

I always wondered how you pronounced Mhairi! I thought it was "marry" but I wasn't sure it wasn't "Mary" or even "Marie". But if it should be proncounced "Varry", why not just spell it with a "v" then!

Gaelic is one of those totally foreign languages I just have no "feel" for. Its pretty strange seeing road signs all over the place which you have no idea how to pronounce (particularly in the Western Isles, where a lot of the place names are Scandinavian anyway and then spelt in Gaelic).