Worst excuse by a national leader to avoid D-day event? Golf-club dinner.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

Premier of Scotland Jack McConnell's blew out the D-Day commemoration to attend a golf club dinner in St Andrews.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/scotland/story/0,9061,1232657,00.html

The First Minister provoked fury when it emerged he had circulated a two-line email to his ministers and deputies asking if anyone was free to attend the D-Day commemoration in his place.

Andy Kerr, the Finance Minister and MSP for East Kilbride, accepted. Although recognised by just 1 per cent of the population in a recent survey for the Scotsman , McConnell's advisers insisted it was entirely proper for him to take his place alongside world leaders and heads of state, including the Queen, Tony Blair, George Bush, Jacques Chirac, Vladimir Putin and Gerhard Schröder.

But on Friday morning, after giving a talk on improving the image of Scotland abroad at a marketing conference, a stony-faced McConnell emerged from a huddle with his aides to say he had decided he would represent the Scottish government.

He received some credit for doing the right thing but quickly came under fire again when, in a public letter, he blamed the media for creating the furore.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

1. OK, I give it one kick. I thought it was noteworthy, at least.

None of you peasants did, it seems. :evilgrin:

[GOPisEvil]

2. It's not just ANY golf club. It's St.-FREAKING-Andrews!

I'm with you McConnell. It's only the 60th Anniversary of D-Day. Now if it were the 50th, or 75th...then we'd have something to write about.

[Awsi Dooger]

3. I almost posted that, but thought I'd be chewed out

I've played St. Andrews and visited the D-Day beaches. If I had a choice of revisiting one or the other, it's not exactly a dilemma, like two pins on the same green.

Unless I could hustle those 80+ year olds on a course near Normandy...

[Screaming Lord Byron]

4. Yeah, but McConnell lives a couple of hours from St. Andrews.

It's not like he couldn't have rescheduled.

[GOPisEvil]

5. Heh...I was being a little tongue-in-cheek.

I mean, the obvious choice for a head of state (particularly if that state is Scotland) is to go to the memorial. Get seen in pictures, that sort of thing. But, as a golfer myself, I can understand the draw of St. Andrews. I'd have been torn myself. But then, I don't live driving distance from The Old Course.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

6. Normandy looks like good golf country to me, y'know.

[GOPisEvil]

7. Right you are!

http://www.golfinfrance.f9.co.uk/normandy.htm

[Guy_Montag]

8. He's just twat, out for what he can get

I'm sure the golf dinner would have been more convivial than representing the Parliment in Normandy, but that's not really the point of being the figurehead.

In truth the whole parliment is parochial and insular, obsessed with politically correctness and petty squabbles. <Counting to ten>

Don't get me started on my second favourite whinge.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

9. Go on Guy. I always enjoy seeing people's favourite whinges in full flight

[Guy_Montag]

10. My Favourite whinge boils down to:

People in Admin - your job is to make peoples' live easier! Not harder you god-dammed, motherfucking, cock-sucking, shit-eating fascists. I have a special loathing reserved for people working in purchasing.

My second favourite whinge - if you were picking people for a job would you pick the people who let their major project run to 11 times their initial estimate. Yes, folks it went from £40Mil, to £430Mil and counting.

Glasgow has the lowest life expectancy of any city in the UK at 68 (it's almost fucking third world), but fuck that lets ban fox hunting. Now I'm no fan of fox hunting, but come on guys priorities.

counting to ten again

[Screaming Lord Byron]

11. I never understood why they needed a new parliament building.

They had a perfectly serviceable building on Calton Hill. The need for some big fancy edifice (maybe they had an edifice complex?) and to rush out a ban on Fox hunting suggests a predisposition for the superficial.

[Guy_Montag]

12. Exactly right on both! Thank you. n/t