I’m Paw Broon and I'm fair scunnered wi' the SNP – so let's vote Conservative and turn the clock back to Scotland’s halcyon days

Grinning away in a tartan suit as he hawks the Scottish Children’s Lottery, bamboozling the auld yins into thinking they're gambling away their pension feeding hungry weans in Saltcoats.

And that wee saltire on the SCL logo might hoodwink Nicola Sturgeon’s battle re-enactment enthusiasts into parting with their Monopoly notes, but they’re so blinded by self-righteousness they likely think the Health Lottery is run by the NHS. 

And I mean, michty me, the chance of winning the Health Lottery’s jackpot is 2,118,760-to-one. At those odds, it’s no bloody surprise its owners also ran the Fantasy Channel.

Although Northern & Shell are no longer pornographers, they are still a London-based gambling conglomerate sucking up Jock giros like William Hill or Ant & Dec. You know Ant & Dec. That conjoined villainous parasite that feeds on human weakness. The cheeky chappie face of betting the hoose, the job, the wife and the weans on (32) red. In particular, their Saturday Night takeaway online puggie.

Crivvens, I’ve veered off topic a wee bit. Wee sook of my pipe and I’ll be right as rain. Och aye, that’s better. That’s the one good thing about the modern era – crack is cheaper than baccy. Haw, don’t judge – at least I’ll be long deid before I get the chance to die from that hospital infection I’d catch getting my lung cancer treated.

The point is, Sean’s i-Ching often comes up roses, so Auchenshoogle’s gas-lit, cobbled streets are near-certain to be like ice rinks on Thursday. Bloody deadly for any auld yins venturing out to stop immigration and maintain that triple lock on their pensions.

And bad weather is bad news for Tories like Boris Johnson and wee Ruth. Aye, I know she’s leaving politics to cynically monetise her infamy in the middle-man purgatorial non-existence of PR, but she’s the spit of my wee lassie Daphne. So for me, she’s the best PM we never had.

No, a wee sub-zero polar vortex won’t stop me from putting my X next to Conservative – for I no longer feel the cold. Or, indeed, any physical pain, due to my addiction to opiate-based prescription painkillers which put a parachute on my crack comedowns.

In fact, all I really feel these days is a weeping blackness gnawing on the roots of my soul until the next prescription arrives at the chemist’s. Sorry, “pharmacy”. Pesky Yanks.

Not feeling ship shape

SOME of you will be surprised Paw Broon now relies on chemical compounds to numb his brain’s pain receptors, but your back would be buggered too if you’d worked at the shipyards for 85 years. And that’s just one of the reasons I’ll be voting Conservative this Thursday.

For if those swivel-eyed Nats ever manage to sever us from the rich veins of England’s valiant lionheart and attach Scotland’s flaccid blue aorta to the cold, mechanical Kraut ventilator throb of the EU, the shipyard subsidies and abundant contracts gifted by multi-state unity means Maw will need to pack me a jeely piece every day for the next bloody 85 years.

Not only is it bad enough that Sturgeon wants us to concede defeat on WW2 and have us all on our knees in meek subservience to a German superstate, but she’s probably now got a taste for nationalising all Scotland’s remaining shipyards after her mad Ferguson’s splurge.

Who does she think she is? Thoughtlessly safeguarding hundreds of jobs and forcing skilled workers into decades of steady, dependable toil and labour.

Under the SNP I’ll probably need to work for eternity. Or at least until The Sunday Post’s readers are all dead. But then, even 15 years can seem like eternity when you’re on the pipe.

Paws off

WHICH brings me to the main reason I’m voting Tory. It’s simple. I just want be free of the fleeting euphoric transcendence afforded to me by these terrible drugs. I genuinely wish I’d never become acquainted with such untethered bliss.

However, if we addicts vote Conservative, our salvation will come with the forthcoming Great Depression – artificially engineered by billionaire venture capitalists to legitimise the bargain basement sell-off of state assets like the NHS, Big Ben, Ben Nevis, Ben Fogle and, likely, my beloved But n’ Ben.

For when the price of opiates is artificially bumped up so high by the Yanks that what’s left of state-provided healthcare won’t be able to afford Aldi paracetamol, the subsequent drought will instantly liberate my fellow junkies and I from the monkeys on our backs. It’ll be like that scene in Planet Of The Apes when Caesar opens all the laboratory cages. Or leads the charge over the Golden Gate Bridge. 

I'm no mathematician, but it's clear to me that no drugs equals no addiction. This is bad news for bleeding-heart, over-educated liberals too, for it means there will be no more lucrative careers in social services or the charity sector once we junkies are no longer enslaved to a soul-crushing half-life on opiates or methadone programmes.

Yet, all the illegal dealers on the new-build estates will still be able to breathe easy – for this won’t happen quickly. The NHS will be deliberately asset-stripped so slowly that, like evolution itself, no-one will see it happening. You’re not supposed to. Until you’re forking out an extra £500 to get your sick wean in the priority queue. And that’ll just get you the secretary googling their symptoms.

Aye, this will be new utopia – a great reset for UK society, our Year Zero, with hordes of dirty-faced weans once again running round ruins sharing the family shoe and eating nits for dinner. Back to the days when Grandpa and I were content with a cheeky wee nip from his hip flask on the park bench instead of seeking oblivion in benzoylmethylecgonine and four litre bottles of Frosty Jack’s cider.

Deep in the Broon

LIKE the Tories, a return to simpler times is what I yearn for. I fondly recall the days when reality was simple. Each day was cosily predictable, filled with basic scenarios like “The Bairn Gets The Wrong End Of The Stick Overhearing Something”.

Oh, how we laughed that time she told us Grandpa was “away for a huge fight” and we all rushed over to his house – only to burst in on him sitting on the toilet.

Then there was the “Paw’s An Auld Skinflint” premise, where I would adopt the era’s Conservative-imposed austerity measures by attempting similar prudence with the family finances. After all, I’ve refused to buy new clothes for any of them since 1925. I mean, Hen still wears a bower hat.

And who could forget the halcyon scenario of “The But n Ben Trip”, where all nine Broons would squeeze ourselves into a single-room shack deep in the Scottish Highlands for a weekend playing cairds and doms. We’re actually holed up there permanently now because of the Bedroom Tax – but I’d rather sleep in the bath than accept Sturgeon’s handouts to cover the rent!

And finally ...

ANOTHER scenario I recall fondly is “Broons vs Modern Life”, where a young Broon would enthuse about some new fad or gizmo, only for my cynicism to conclude with all-round hilarity at my antiquated perception of reality.

Joke’s on them though – don't see what's so funny about my inability to accept modern life’s steamroller of “progress”. As far as I can tell, folk are unhappier and more depressed now than at any other point in history. Aye, guid progress. 

I mean, take that online Universal Credit application – I can’t get past the first screen because it doesn’t accept Maw, Paw, Twins or Bairn as first names. And they’ve even cut off Joe’s Child Support payments from his biological faither Desperate Dan, after they found out he’s 115 years old. Still living at home, right enough.

Ach, who needs money anyway? Only thing I’ve bought recently was an HD webcam that Daphne wanted for her wee business. No idea what she does, but it’s clearly something that requires concentration as her bedroom door is always locked.

Then again, Horace did the same until PC Murdoch of the Auchenshoogle Online Crime Squad came visiting one day and took him – and his computer – away.

In fact, the only good thing about the modern era is that thanks to Peaky Blinders, I’m back right at the cutting edge of fashion.

And you can return to a bygone era too - just vote Conservative this Thursday then simply sit back, light up a pipe and relax as they wind the clock back to the guid auld days.