Loose talk on transportation from fools costs Labour votes - Vladimir McTavish

​​Just when people were beginning to actually believe that Labour were not only electable in Scotland but also actually cared about us, it only takes one rash comment from some London-centric buffoon to undo all the good work.

A man gives a thumbs up as he sits with a group of people, thought to be migrants, crossing The Channel in a small boat headed in the direction of Dover

Josh Simons, director of think tank Labour Together came up with an outrageous plan during an interview on LBC.

His alternative to the Tories’ strategy on illegal migration would be to target the people traffickers. So far so reasonable, he really should have stopped talking right there.

Instead he went to expand on the plan which would involve shipping convicted traffickers to the north of Scotland.

Simons started off this meltdown of an interview by stating “My problem with Rwanda is it won’t work” Sorry? His problem is not that the Rwanda plan is inhumane and morally bankrupt? It’s of logistics?

He then continued to make less sense, droning on “Why don’t you send the smuggling gangs and put them on the barge that has been set aside for the asylum seekers, and then ship the barge up to the north of Scotland – who cares?”

The idea is crazily offensive on so many levels, I’m not sure I have room to itemise them all here, but let’s make a start.

First, talking about the North of Scotland and loading people onto boats in the same sentence will enrage many people in the Highlands where folk memory of the Clearances is still vivid.

This act of ethnic cleansing was carried out centuries back when crofters were driven off the land, their cottages were burnt down and they were packed off on boats to Canada.

It was the bleakest period in Scottish history. Until 1966 when England won the World Cup.

Not convinced? Well, ask yourself this: If someone were to knock on your door and give you the choice of having your house razed to the ground and being packed off to Canada or England winning the World Cup, what would you choose? You can always come back from Canada.

Reading Simons’ remarks while I’m out here in Australia, it is impossible to ignore the irony behind a British political wannabe making such a ridiculous suggestion.

In the early colonial days, people were sentenced to transportation here for petty crimes like stealing a loaf of bread.

Throughout history, the UK has a shameful record of sending inconvenient people very far away. Crofters to Canada, convicts to Australia, asylum seekers to Rwanda, Richard Branson to his private island in the Caribbean, Tony Blair to Cloud Cuckooland.

Think tanks tend to attract narcissistic careerists who don’t actually work in politics but desperately want to do so, seeing the think tank as their chance to climb up the slippery pole.

Hence the proliferation of daft ideas these morons come up with when they’re “hot desking” or “blue sky thinking” or whatever the current phrase may be.

Back in the day, it was called “talking s****”.

For the last 30 years, I have made my living out of talking s****. The difference is I don’t expect my s**** to be taken seriously.

So here’s my latest idea. Why not send Josh Simons to the North of Scotland and leave him to the mercy of the locals? That would prompt some blue sky thinking.