Uncle Ken Defends Labour on BBC Radio 5 Live

The BBC Radio 5 Live interview went reasonably well, and I asked a BBC fellow who was standing around to take the above photo. Sitting on the right is the luscious blonde interviewer, whose name escapes me at the moment. On her right is the Tory voter, in front of him is the Liberal-Democrat man and the woman next to him spoke for the SNP. The fat bastard next to her is yours truly, who actually looks sleek and slender compared to about half the men in Scotland.

Mrs SNP made the point several times that she is not actually a member of the party, however she turned up with her notebook that I noticed was chock full of discussion points and sound bytes. She mentioned before the interview started that she was involved with Women for Independence, which is an SNP front, so she's not a party member, but she is a wholly owned subsidiary.

We introduced ourselves and then Miss Luscious-Blonde interviewed Alex Salmond who was in Aberdeen. Speaking to him is a bit like wrestling a greased pig, which was why broad grins were seen on the faces of the three non-SNP interviewees.

Salmond finished dancing around the interviewer, we went to the news, and then we were supposed to be up. However, two journalists had been put in at the last minute so they took twenty minutes out of our time slot.

Eventually we were on and I had already decided that defending Labour was a waste of time, but trying to pull holes in the SNP wasn't - so I hit the Nats with both barrels. Nothing personal, folks, but you have fucked around with my disability benefit and reneged on your promise to raise tax on the rich to 50p in the pound.

I managed to forget the reason why I had agreed to go on the show, which was to plug my books, but what the Hell, I enjoyed the morning.

When it was all over Mrs SNP scampered off, and I suggested a pint or three to the two fellows. Amazingly enough, in a country that floats on a sea of beer they both made their excuses and left. Feeling thoroughly embarrassed on behalf of Scottish manhood, I as a Mancunian who has only lived here for a few years, sloped off to a pub to lift a jar on behalf of the men of a whole country.

Don't thank me: I was only doing my duty.

You can hear the whole show at this link. Click on the 10 May show, then jump forward to the 50 minute mark if you just want to hear the ten minute segment that I was involved with.