Today, on the BBC’s Reporting Scotland, there was a clip of David Cameron, aka Mr Irresponsible, saying that he was to blame for many things (well you’re right in that at least, Dave) but that Labour’s collapse* in Scotland wasn’t one of them.

Really, Dave? How un-self-aware can anyone get?

It’s got nothing to do with the speech you made on the day after the Independence Referendum where you slapped down those who had just voted to remain in the UK with a, “We don’t care about you, we only care about England,” attitude? Could anything have been more likely to enrage both those who had voted no and those for yes? A clearer demonstration that Westminster politicians just don’t get it as far as Scotland is concerned would have been harder to find. To anyone who knows Scots what response could have been expected other than a rise in support for the SNP (who ought to have been set back for perhaps decades by the rejection of their key purpose for existence?)

I suppose it could all be part of a diabolical (yes, I know it means of the Devil) plan to undermine the Labour party in the UK as a whole but I don’t believe Cameron actually is as cunning as all that. (His sidekick Gideon Osborne, aka George, is another matter, though.) I realise the Tories have more than something of the night about them but I doubt in their wildest dreams could they have deliberately conceived and implemented a coherent, rather than accidental, strategy to reduce the influence of Labour on the Westminster Parliament.

Labour having conspicuously failed over the many years of my lifetime to protect Scots from governments they have not voted for, many people seem to have come round to the view that only a large bank of SNP MPs at Westminster will ensure that Westminster cannot treat Scotland off-handedly.

So yes, Dave. I do blame you.

BTW: I suspect that Labour won’t lose quite so many seats in Scotland as the polls at present predict. There are still many “always been Labour” voters around.

Our esteemed Prime Minister, Mr Irresponsible, showed himself in his true colours today when he tried to put down a Labour MP who was heckling him.

His phrase, “Calm down, dear,” is all very well for Michael Winner (he, after all, is only doing commercials) but ill becomes the head of the UK government. There’s a video on You Tube here. Note the glee too with which it was greeted by the MPs behind him and the insufferable George Osborne beside him.

This is the true face of “Call me Dave.” A person who thinks others are not worth a degree of respect in his dealings with them and who deploys casually dismissive, arguably sexist, language as soon as his guard is down.

I see our PM, the inestimable Mr Irresponsible wants to use our already overstretched military forces to become embroiled in the situation in Libya. (There is by the way a fantastic typo in the headline of that link.)

Has he learned nothing from our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan? And he’s just downscaled the RAF’s training programme, the very service whose input will be most required in the most likely operations in Libya.

Any use of UK military force in Libya is liable to backfire as it did in those other countries. Can DC guarantee no innocent casualties from such a development? Even deaths or injuries to those loyal to Gaddafi, those in the firing line in other words, could be a provocation too far.

If Gadaffi subsequently goes their families will resent the fact they were killed/injured by foreigners. If he stays his regime is not going to be enamoured of us. Either way our national interest is weakened.

While I personally would like to see him gone Gadaffi’s destiny ought to lie in the hands of Libyans.

DC’s survival is unfortunately not in the hands of us Britons. We won’t get the chance to chuck him out for another four years (think about it) by which time the damage he and his smirking side-kick George Osborne – have you ever seen such a smug, irritating so-and-so, he outranks even Kenneth Baker in that regard – will have done to the fabric of British life will be unrepairable.

Where are the Lib Dems when you need them?

Forgotten they’re supposed to be jointly in charge, it would seem.

I see Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has said it’s time to stop banker bashing. I saw a clip of him on the television news claiming this in the House of Commons.

This might be considered a little hypocritical of him coming only one day since he levied a tax on banker’s bonuses. A tax at which said bankers were said to be “livid.”

Except I don’t buy it. It’s much more Machiavellian than that.

Do you believe for a minute that these bankers were not aware this tax was on the cards? Cue much confected outrage.

These people have some nerve considering they bankrupted the country and continue to reward themselves handsomely for it while the rest of us mere mortals will be the ones paying the price.

By the way; do you get a bonus from your work? (I certainly don’t. Moreover, I don’t expect one.)

And why should you?

Why should anyone?

Your salary is your remuneration. You knew what it would be when you took the job on. Just exactly who needs a bonus to turn up and do their job?

And don’t give me this rubbish about going abroad if the money’s not enough. Let’s call that threat by its proper name. Blackmail.

Back to George Osborne.

He said that because of a deal he’s cooked up with his banker cronies – the deal which he says means it’s time to stop banker bashing – that there would be, and I quote, “less bonuses.”

Not, you’ll note – as I did – “less paid in bonuses” and certainly not “fewer bonuses.”

So much for an expensive private education.

George; you’re not much of an advert for Eton, nor for Magdalen College, Oxford.

The most alarming thing to me about George Osborne’s Spending Review yesterday was the figure given for direct job losses. It was 490,000; nearly half a million. There were also suggestions that indirect job losses in the private sector would match this in scale.

Nearly one million people extra out of work. Think about that for a minute.

Even if we take the smaller number that means, yes, half a million people not being paid by the government. But if there are no private sector jobs for them to move into (don’t forget the half million indirect job loses too, so there may be no slack there to be taken up) then they are going to be on the unemployment register – and being paid by the government.

Where exactly is the saving, then?

These newly unemployed people will also not be spending the amount of money they were when they were employed – if they spend any at all beyond food. This will inevitably affect private sector firms who will lose sales they might otherwise have had; thereby making the recession worse.

This savage cutting is surely a case of wearing a hair shirt for the sake of wearing a hair shirt. It is by no means inevitable.

I heard Mr Irresponsible saying that the Government didn’t want to make cuts; it had to make them. This is self evident nonsense. There was a choice to be made. And the cuts fall mainly on those on benefits; by definition those who can least bear them (and also those least to blame for the situation.) I don’t deny that some cuts are necessary but I dispute their rationale and decry their scale. Only lip service was paid to ensuring restitution from the real creators of the financial problem the Government has; the bankers. There was no black hole in the UK’s finances till their actions brought on the present situation, we had to bail them out, Government income plummeted due to the ensuing recession – and the bankers promptly carried on behaving exactly as before.

I thought one of the lessons of the 1930s depression was that you do not end one by cutting and cutting and cutting. You create employment by investing in infrastructure and the like. This injects money into the economy and the private sector starts to pick up.

Joseph Stiglitz says it better than I could.

And the dig at social housing was uncalled for. If there is a logjam in provision for social tenancies then the remedy is to build more houses for rent – at reasonable rental rates. (By the by, if local councils had been allowed to build more houses from the proceeds of Thatcher’s right-to-buy legislation there might not be a housing shortage now.) I noted too that they have already started to nibble at the BBC.

I well remember the Thatcher cuts and the devastation they wrought; from which many parts of the UK have still to recover.

This will be worse.

And it may not even get rid of the debt.

I’€™m not sure I want to wake up on Friday morning. I have this terrible feeling that Mr Irresponsible will win an outright majority.

It’€™s not that I’€™m in favour of Labour, though. Because of the nature of Labour in Scotland, I couldn’€™t bring myself to vote for them. But for all their drawbacks in the UK sense (Iraq, ID cards, other infringements of personal liberties, failure to bring the bankers to heel, not scrapping public private partnerships, intense relaxation about people being filthy rich) they are still better than the Tories. To take one example of their success, the NHS is immeasurably better than it was 13 years ago.

The reason that I dread a Mr Irresponsible premiership – more accurately I fear a George Osborne chancellorship -€“ is experience. The Tories have a track record. They seem to take a visceral delight in the cutting of public expenditure. But it’€™s all right for Cameron and Osborne; they’€™re well off and won’€™t be affected. (In fact, due to their inheritance tax plans, they’€™ll be even more quids in if their parents snuff it.)

It’€™s other people who will suffer, people who can least afford cuts, either in their benefits, their pensions or their jobs.

I know the other main parties are also saying they would make cuts but they are more likely to make efforts to mitigate the worst effects.

And don’€™t tell me the Tories are the party of low taxation. I well remember them during the 1979 election campaign denying claims that their plans would require the rate of VAT to be doubled. In their first budget after the election they raised VAT from 8 to 15%! (In subsequent Parliaments they raised it further to 17.5%.) VAT is a tax which hits most those who can least afford it.

I also fear for the BBC. It’€™s a great British institution which happens to be tremendously good at what it does. I would go so far as to say at everything it does. We would all miss it when it’€™s gone. I know we all have to pay for it almost willy-nilly but it is amazingly cheap at the price. The Tories are in Rupert Murdoch’€™s back pocket (as well as Lord Ashcroft’€™s) and he would like nothing better than to see the BBC dismantled or at least curtailed. Sky would not be able to give us such sterling service. It never could, because Murdoch is only seeking to turn a profit. I would rather never watch TV again than contribute to his coffers.

I know my vote is not going to make a difference. My sitting MP (Gordon Brown) has a huge majority and I can’€™t see it being overthrown. Besides when was the last time you heard that the incumbent PM actually lost his (or her) seat?

I genuinely don’t know for whom I’€™m going to vote; only that I will. Too many people fought too long and too hard for my right to do so for me not to honour them. But it will not be Tory or Labour.

If Mr Irresponsible should win on Thursday then, in the words of a prominent 1980s politician, I warn you not to be old, I warn you not to be ill, I warn you not to be poor.

The trouble is that, down the line, you (and I) are likely to be at least two of those things, if not all three.