'Cash for Questions' scandal engulfs Holyrood

By Brahn N. Velope, Our Corruption Correspondent

cashforqsMSPs have been secretly filmed by BBC Scotlandshire asking questions of Ministers, HAVING BEEN PAID TO DO SO!

Shockingly, this has been going on since 1999, when Labour in Westminster graciously allowed the Scotch to have some say in their own affairs, but we are the first to bring this disgusting level of corruption to public attention.

Amazingly, these Financial Midden Quagmires (FMQs) take place in the open, and are not decently conducted "below the radar" as Westminster politicians sensibly do, to avoid public scandal.

Matters came to a head recently as Deputy Dawgdale departed from the long established convention of asking only one question (but three times over), and occasionally asked an entirely different question as well. Fellow MSPs were outraged.

"I'm outraged!" said veteran Tory MSP for Auchenshoogle North (and a bittie tae the East as weel), Hector McGlumph. "I've been here since 1999, and I haven't asked a single question since my first day, when I asked where to hand in my expenses chitty."

Labour MSP, Jackie Baillie, also denied ever asking questions. "I make long rambling speeches with a smirk on my face, and leave it to the First Minister to work out if there was a question there, and if so, what it was. I only know when to stop when the Presiding Officer says 'Can we have a question please, Ms Baillie?' Then I sit down."

christFurther shameful Holyrood behaviour was exposed when three MSPs were identified as the latest victims of Channel 4's sting operation.

The TV channel had set up a fake company called "Deity Enterprises (Scotlandshire) Ltd", which promised eternal rewards to MSPs who were prepared to lobby for its current product - "creationism".

In return for a permanent home at company HQ, the three - Richard Lyle, Dave Thompson and John Mason - agreed to table a motion that pupils should be taught that the company's founder had created the world in six days."

However, Parliamentary procedures were deemed not to have been breached, as no money had changed hands.

The Presiding Officer has launched an immediate investigation into the status of the souls involved.

MP Magrit Curran, whose soul was lost by the removal company while taking her worldly possessions from Holyrood to Westminster, condemned the use of undercover filming as "creepy", due to none of the production team living in her constituency. "Any filming under my covers is strictly for local members only."

Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick, said that she had no intention of following demands at Westminster that MPs should be banned from doing outside work or "double-jobbing".

"As I survey the faces before me they look a right peely-wally bunch, who already do lots of double-jobbying and could benefit from being outside a lot more.

"While these effete southern MPs worry about handling two inside jobs, in Scotland MSPs will be forced into outside manual work, as Mao insisted.

"I'm ordering a set of shovels and a load of asphalt. All MSPs will compulsorily do outside work filling in potholes, rather than whining in here about them."

The crisis was discussed on our flagship discussion programme 'Scotlandshire 1915' with Sarky Smith.

Paul Hutcheon, Herald Political Editor, noted that "other than David McLetchie and Gordon Jackson, the 'second jobs' culture has never really taken off at Holyrood", alhough STV's paid sweetie wife, Stephen Daisley, pointed out "That's because a lot of them are lucky to have the one job."

Green leader, Pat Harvie, declined to comment on his God Squad colleagues, but he observed that "Malcolm Rifkind has apparently decided he will be leaving Parliament to spend more time with his money."

Smith summed up: "You'd think this would be the last Straw for the public but where there is a Will there is a way to being a Labour candidate for Rossendale and Darwen."


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