Thursday 31 March 2011

Vladimir McTavish - The Election Blog 2011

Ever since last May, Lib Dem voters have been looking back wistfully and nostalgically to the good old days when theirs was a wasted vote, rather than a vote for a Tory government.   Well, if opinion polls are to be believed, it looks like those golden days could be with them once again, as their support has gone into meltdown, as they suffer the fallout from their association with a government whose economic policies make Maragaret Thatcher appear enlightened.

And while Tavish Scott may well have ordered his taxi for May 5th, either to take himself off to retirement or to take his entire contingent of MSP’s to Holyrood, fallout of an even more toxic nature reached Scotland this week.

Radiation levels in Glasgow, measured at the Southern General Hospital by the Health Protection Agency (HPA) have risen dramatically over the past week.  This, we are told, is fallout from the explosion of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, which is 5, 800 miles away.  It is categorically NOT from the Sellafield nuclear re-processing plant 130 miles away, or from Torness nuclear power station a mere sixty miles to the east.  Strange.

However, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) have sought to re-assure us all by stating that these radiation levels are no greater than that  to be found in one X-ray or twenty-five bananas.  

This is indeed quite frightening.  I’m pretty sure that if I was to eat twenty-five bananas, I’d feel pretty bloody sick.   Furthermore, I’d be intrigued to see an X-ray of my stomach after I had eaten twenty-five bananas.

In any case, two important questions remain unanswered.  Firstly, if these readings were taken at the Southern General, how can they be certain they weren’t  caused by people getting X-rays?   Secondly, why have we been kept in the dark for so long about the radiation in our bananas?  None of us who were in CND in the 1980’s knew about this at the time.  If we had, we’d have made stickers for our Citroen 2CV’s saying “Bananas.  Nein danke !” 

More seriously, this now makes the Windward Islands a bigger threat to global security than Afghanistan or Al-Quaeda.  Davis Cameron should order air strikes there, while he still has an air force.

I’m flying back from London tomorrow.  Better not try to get than banana through security at Heathrow.

Vladimir McTavish is appearing at The Griffin, 266 Bath Street, Glasgow on Saturday 9th April at 8 pm,  as part of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

------

No comments:

Post a Comment