Around Scotland - Monday 28 July 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 27 July 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS looks back at last week's Glasgow East by-election.

An SNP coup in Glasgow

FOR Labour, it was hotter than the Gaza Strip out in the East End of Glasgow on Thursday. Last week, I had the feeling that the party would maybe just hold on in the Glasgow East by-election, despite its disastrous start. I was wrong.
Winning Glasgow East is a jaw-dropping coup for the SNP.
The fatal damage to Labour's chances was not done, however, by the inept initial failure to select a candidate in that first "lost weekend" of the campaign. When she bravely stepped forward, Margaret Curran was as strong a candidate as Labour could hope for. Also the campaign was not actually lacking much in organisation, resources or volunteers.
Certainly, the SNP had more bodies on the street, but Labour should have been defending the defensible in Glasgow East.
Labour couldn't lose a seat like this unless a substantial part of its core vote actually turned against it.
The party, moving ever rightward under Blair and now Brown, has basically failed to make itself relevant to enough of its core voters over the last decade.
The lack of local organisation and canvassing returns before the by-election - indeed, almost the lack of a proper local constituency party at all - is evidence of a party which has lost touch with its roots.
The decay is replicated around Scotland. The SNP increasingly senses that Labour in Scotland is a hollow shell. If that is true, then Glasgow Easts could happen all across Scotland - and indeed Britain - at the next Westminster election.
The SNP victory was perhaps not too much of a surprise. It should, however, be an enormous shock to Labour. But the loss of power at Holyrood last year only seems to have confused Labour in Scotland, rather than sharpened it up.
Given that it has yet to learn from that defeat, I am not confident that Labour will take on board the even harsher lesson of Glasgow East.
Although the by-election was, in my view, mainly about who governs Scotland and not a referendum on Gordon Brown, as the media have tended to assume, the defeat only hastens Labour's demise at Westminster.
The Labour Party leadership doesn't appear to know how it got itself into this situation and has no obvious idea how to get itself out.
With Brown clinging desperately to Blairism, the Labour bus is being driven deliberately over an electoral cliff. The unions, so far, have failed to wrest the steering wheel back to a sane course.
At the time of writing this, I fully expect the Warwick policy forum meeting at the weekend to have further sealed Labour's fate with a few worthless ambiguous promises on the trade union agenda set to be reneged upon by a deluded Cabinet. That's one thing I would not mind being wrong about.
THE chasm of difference between narrowly winning and narrowly losing a by-election can be illustrated by asking who, apart from the political anoraks, remembers the huge 22 per cent SNP swing in Hamilton South in 1999.
Labour held on by 556 votes in a west Scotland constituency approximately as safe as Glasgow East.
A few months afterwards, Alex Salmond resigned the leadership of the SNP and left the Scottish Parliament to concentrate on being a Westminster MP. His party languished aimlessly under John Swinney until Salmond returned to galvanise it in 2004.
ONE young Labour canvasser knocking up supporters in Glasgow East on Thursday was pleased to find a very old lady who confirmed that she had already voted Labour, as she always did.
She went on to explain to the youth that the seat had been represented by John Wheatley. "But," she concluded, "I think he's retired now, son."
Red Clydesider Wheatley did indeed represent the Glasgow east end constituency of Shettleston - from 1922 until he died in 1930.

A thousand cuts take toll on Herald

CHARLES McGhee, editor of Scotland's biggest circulation "quality" paper The Herald, has resigned after only two-and-a-half years in post.
Rapacious US media owner Gannett, through its UK-based newspaper company Newsquest, has milked Glasgow's Herald, Sunday Herald and Evening Times group of titles for profit while cutting jobs and, ultimately, the quality of the product.
Five years ago, when it took over the papers from the troubled Scottish Media Group, Newsquest gave a commitment to the Competition Commission that it would invest in jobs and journalism in Scotland.
Instead, the number of jobs has been slashed by more than a third. Following round and after round of redundancies, The Herald is now produced by little over 100 editorial staff, down from 186 at the point of takeover.
Meanwhile, Newsquest has delivered £17.1 million in profits from the Glasgow operation alone to its US shareholders.
Further redundancies are being planned.
McGhee's resignation comes a year after the first newspaper strike in Scotland for quarter of century at the group. The NUJ-led strike was successful in beating off compulsory redundancies.
"Management claim that they are making savings because of a decline in advertising revenue and circulation," according to James Doherty, the Glasgow-based president of the NUJ.
"We would argue that, if you invest in your product, readers will stay loyal along with advertisers.
"But Newsquest seems more interested in a business model which squeezes the very life out of some of Scotland's most famous titles."
Doherty said of the latest news: "If Charles McGhee has resigned over the budget cuts he has had to oversee, he will be applauded by every journalist, not only at Newsquest, but throughout the UK. I hope it is a principled stand he has taken, that there comes a point where further budget cuts become unacceptable if you are wanting a newspaper to thrive. If it is, it will send shock waves around the industry."

Danger of flag-waving

ON Monday, Labour's Scottish executive meets to kick off the process to elect a new Scottish leader.
Actually, the position is not leader of the Labour Party in Scotland, but "leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament," as Scotland Office Minister David Cairns pointedly reminds us each time he appears in public.
To the already declared front-runners deputy leader Cathy Jamieson and Edinburgh MSP Iain Gray, we must now add former Jack McConnell sidekick Andy Kerr, who has decided to throw his hat in the ring after Glasgow East.
All of these establishment front-runners are now backing off from Wendy Alexander's call for a referendum on independence. So it looks like lots more Union flag waving in the hope that this will scare people into voting Labour.
But the louder that Labour cries wolf on independence, the more frantic and unpalatable the party appears. That is a lesson which should have been learned a year ago in May.
Meanwhile, the SNP appears more reasonable, winning the trust of even Labour core voters which Labour itself appears not to value.
The unpopularity of new Labour will then likely result in a Tory government in England and an increasingly popular and trusted SNP government in Scotland.
Thus Labour's Union flag wavers could precipitate the break up of the UK which they so fear.
Brains would be an advantage.

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Severed head

After The Earthquake The Landscape Changes (Ian Bell in The Herald ):

"I thought New Labour was a crock long before 1997. Which is to say incoherent. Which is to say little more than redundant managerialism, fancy book-keeping, equivocation, punitive moralising, ethical relativism - and advertising. The hunt for Mr Brown's fabled fatal flaw goes on, no doubt, but a single truth is that he severed himself from all the political forces that shaped him. It turns out that he has found nothing, nothing of substance, to take their place."

Around Scotland - Monday 21 July 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 21 July 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

Curran's contortions

LAST Wednesday, PCS promoted a hustings meeting for candidates in the Glasgow East by-election.
Sadly, I couldn't make it to the meeting, but I hear that it was a lively affair.
As you can imagine, Labour's Margaret Curran was under most pressure, having to attempt to justify the government's below-inflation pay policy for public-sector workers to a meeting organised by one of their unions.
It seems that she faced some jeers when telling the meeting that raising wages for people who were pressurised just wasn't a straightforward proposition.
"I think you negotiate between government and trade unions," Curran was quoted as saying, "but you have to make sure you don't lead to spiralling inflation." It would be a very good thing indeed for Labour if her election was to guarantee negotiations between government and trade unions over the damaging issue of public-sector pay cuts.
The PCS hustings was part of an interesting and I think quite new phenomenon - active and direct trade union intervention in a parliamentary election.
PCS has been running a campaign to promote its policies in the Glasgow East contest, complete with flyers and window bills. The aim is to make sure that its members in the constituency - around 500 according to the union - know what the by-election candidates' views are and that they vote accordingly.
Everyone seems to agree that the election is pretty close between Labour and the SNP. Could 500 PCS members make the difference?
Check out the Make Your Vote Count campaign at www.pcs.org.uk

It'll be Labour by a nose, I think

NOBODY has said that Margaret Curran is anything less than brave, especially in relation to putting her neck on the line in Glasgow East.
My co-contributor Bill Kidd, the SNP MSP, appears to think (Voices of Scotland, July 16) that the Labour neck is definitely for the chop on Thursday 24 July. As the poll approaches, I don't think that it is.
Labour is definitely on the ropes at Scottish and UK level. A good dose of clear thinking needs to be done and decisive action taken to stop Gordon Brown from leading us to a Tory victory in the next general election.
However, I don't think that the majority of voters in Glasgow East are actually going to help the Tories by voting SNP on Thursday.
Maybe they will. I don't have a crystal ball. But it's unusual for the bookies to get it wrong. Apart from an initial lurch to the SNP in the very first moment of the campaign when Labour was in total disarray, they have pretty consistently given the edge to Margaret Curran.

Leadership race revisited

THE putative runners and riders for Scottish Labour leader have been in purdah for the period of the by-election, but the moment that it's done, the jockeying will resume.
Before they were so rudely interrupted, MSPs Cathy Jamieson and Iain Gray had announced their intentions to stand and therefore counted as the front runners.
Margaret Curran was an outsider then, but, if Labour loses Glasgow East, the poison in the leadership chalice will become increasingly fatal for whoever else lifts it.
I give you another possibility. If Margaret Curran does in fact snatch Glasgow East back from the jaws of the SNP, she will be feted by Labour as a conquering hero. She will then straddle the biggest divide in Scotland - not the division between left and right, or nationalist and unionsts, but between Labour's Westminster MPs and its Holyrood MSPs. A unique dual mandate indeed, laced with a freshly-gained reputation for bold, decisive and victorious action which none of the other leadership candidates could even sniff at. Who would then deny Saint Margaret the Brave of Baillieston?
Oh come on. Part of the fun of politics is speculating about the outcome of leadership contests.
Here's yet another. Cathy Jamieson would have to give up the deputy leadership to have a tilt at the top job. In which case, the vacancy would mean a double header election for leader and deputy leader positions.
As I have written here before, securing the necessary six MSP nominations to get on the ballot paper is extremely difficult for a left challenger to achieve for the leader position. But it would be more likely for deputy.
This raises the fascinating possibility of a ticket pairing former Campaign for Socialism member Cathy Jamieson and a current CfS member, probably Bill Butler, for leader and deputy leader respectively.

A clear case for the coastguards

LAST Friday and Saturday, workers at Scotland's coastguard stations joined fellow PCS members across Britain in a 48-hour strike over pay.
I understand that the strike was solid, with demonstrations taking place at Aberdeen, Stornoway and Greenock coastguard stations.
The coastguards' case is clear. Pay levels in the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) have fallen far behind other emergency services. The government's pay cap effectively means a pay cut for Civil Service workers.
With starting salaries of £12,097, some of the coastguards responsible for lives and safety at sea are already actually paid only just above the minimum wage.
Coastguard watch assistants actively participate in search planning and other duties in response to 999 calls, yet are deemed to be the most worthless of employees. Even the boss of the MCA admits that the union has a case.
"Clearly, there is a gap between the pay of coastguards, particularly at the lower end of the range, and that of the other services," MCA chief executive Peter Cardy has said.
But the Prime Minister doesn't seem to get the idea either of public service or fair pay. On Wednesday, he was noised up in the Commons by the Lib Dem MP for Orkney and Shetland Alistair Carmichael, who claimed that levels of emergency cover during the strike would "not be sufficient."
Brown blustered in response: "I would even now call on those people who are engaged in planning this dispute to cease this action."
It's almost as if he characterises the people who save lives at sea as some kind of hostile force.
He should maybe keep the flak jacket on after getting back from his wee trip to gloss over the continuing disaster in Iraq.

Party for revolution

I LIKE to try and bring you something useful and enjoyable to take part in if I can. All part of the service. Here's a painless, indeed unmissable opportunity to support Cuba this Sunday - in Coatbridge!
The Scottish Cuba Solidarity Campaign is having a "Cuba-friendly bar" event from 5pm till late on Sunday July 27 2008. The venue is Big Owens Bar, 290 Main St, Coatbridge, Lanarkshire ML5 3RS. That is beside the fire station, near Coatdyke railway station.
Telephone the bar on (01236) 421-551 if you need directions or email Scottish Cuba Solidarity at scottishcuba@yahoo.co.uk if you need more info on the event or Cuba-friendly bars in Scotland.
Local MSP and Morning Star supporter Elaine Smith will be speaking and there will be plenty of comrades.
Your correspondent will definitely be there, so, if you disagree with anything I have written here, come and tell me, while we support Cuba over a genuine Havana Club mojito or Cuba Libre in sunny Coatbridge.

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Trains Galore

Trains galore, with Sean Burns

Revisiting Delia

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Lost tapes of the Dr Who composer:

"Delia Derbyshire's voice can be heard introducing it. 'Forget about this,' she says, 'it's for interest only.'"

US fails to measure up on 'human index'

Development: US fails to measure up on 'human index' | World news | The Guardian:

"Americans live shorter lives than citizens of almost every other developed country. And while it has the second-highest income per head in the world, the United States ranks 42nd in terms of life expectancy."

"The US also ranks first among the 30 rich countries of the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development in terms of the number of people in prison, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of the total population.

It has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners."

Around Scotland - Monday 14 July 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday 14 July 2008)

THE debate about Scotland's future goes beyond the SNP government's National Conversation or the Calman Commission, argues MALCOLM BURNS.

The SNP goal is independence, while the opposition's commission is aimed at moving in the direction of devolution-plus, but, with the parliament on its summer holiday, there is plenty of discussion going on in civic Scotland and elsewhere which could take us beyond the headlock and deadlock of Scottish party politics.

The Scottish TUC, which called for a re-established constitutional convention at its recent congress, welcomed the publication last week of a new report on the Barnett formula by the northern branch of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

Barnett is the oft-disputed means by which public expenditure is divvied up between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on population.

The IPPR report, which is called, appropriately enough, Fair Shares, concludes that Barnett is not the best way to allocate funding and recommends that it should be replaced with a mixture of some fiscal autonomy and some needs-based distribution of UK funds.

It recommends stronger revenue-raising powers to "match Scotland's full legislative powers," something very much in line with Scottish public opinion.

The IPPR argues that the Scottish Parliament could have extended powers over income tax, building on the existing power to vary the rate by 3p up or down, and that this could be accompanied by assigning tax revenue, such as a proportion of VAT.

This mixture of tax revenues would be topped up with a grant based on a needs assessment.

Wales and Northern Ireland could follow a similar fiscal route as legislative devolution is strengthened in each country.

The STUC response is that it would be unwise to move too hastily in the direction of abolishing the Barnett Formula but that the IPPR alternative, a mixed formula for funding, merits serious consideration.

"Mixed funding for devolved government would mean increasing revenue-raising powers, but retaining a block grant based on need," said STUC deputy general secretary Dave Moxham.

"The IPPR North report on Barnett and the politics of public expenditure is a valuable contribution to the debate on Scotland's constitutional future and politicians who are committed to "listening" should not be dismissing its recommendations out of hand."

The IPPR report is available online at www.ippr.org

Fair Shares is worth a read, for sure, but if you want a meatier and broader political analysis, the CPB Scottish committee's policy document called Scotland's Future, which was launched last month, is essential. Visit www.scottishcommunists.org.uk

Glasgow Tory puzzle

THE Glasgow East by-election is trundling on nice and nastily enough now that the candidates are finally in place.

One of the more interesting candidates is Tory Davena Rankin. She's black, she's a single parent and she was brought up in Drumchapel, the Easterhouse of west Glasgow. So far, so much on Cameron territory.

Rankin even stood beside her dear leader the other day and didn't flinch when he was doing a "back-to-basics" rant about irresponsible single parents in the East End of Glasgow.

I guess that ritual humiliation is all part and parcel of being a by-election hopeful.

But perhaps the most surprising thing about Rankin is that she is a UNISON activist, chairing the branch at Glasgow Caledonian University and sitting on various Scottish and national committees of the union.

Nope. No-one else I know can work out why she's a Tory, either.

McGahey meets Bevan

I WAS pleased to hear last week that the largest health-care union in Scotland has commissioned a statue of Nye Bevan as part of the celebrations for the NHS 60th anniversary.

I was even more pleased that the NHS founder's memorial will be placed, together with the statue of miner's leader Mick McGahey, in George V Park, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian.

These two working-class leaders have provided inspiration for literally millions of people.

UNISON Lothian Health Branch has contracted sculptor Andrew McFetters, who produced the McGahey statue, to create the Bevan work too.

UNISON Scottish Health Group chairman Tom Waterson said: "It is entirely appropriate that the founder of the NHS will sit next to such an important Scottish workers' leader.

"The NHS was created to provide free care for all who needed it and stopped the crime of working people being unable to afford vital health care."

Mick McGahey's son Michael also works in the NHS and is the UNISON Lothian Health Branch chairman.

The statue is due to be unveiled later this year.

Join the activist army

THE much postponed Communities and Regeneration Conference will take place on Friday September 5 at the Scottish TUC Centre in Glasgow.

An array of activists and experts will lead the examination of policies at all levels of government which impact on regeneration and local democracy. The event will also explore community and campaigning initiatives with an emphasis on how trade unions, grass-roots community organisations and the voluntary sector can work together.

Speakers will include Kait Laughlin of the Scottish Anti-Poverty Movement, Stephen Maxwell of Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and John Carragher from the Scottish Tenants' Organisation, academics Mike Danson, Geoff Whittham, Chik Collins and Sarah Glynn plus leading Scottish trade unionists.

The conference will be chaired by Dundee TUC's Mike Arnott. If you're involved in a union or if you are in a community, campaigning or voluntary organisation, contact the STUC to register.

Visit www.stuc.org.uk for more details.

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Heading for meltdown?

Published in the Morning Star

(Wednesday 09 July 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS looks at Labour's next big by-election hurdle.

Wendy Alexander could little have imagined how events would have run out of Labour's control since her surprise resignation a week ago.

Amid the flurry of leadership speculation, Glasgow East MP David Marshall resigned due to ill health, triggering a by-election.

Labour forced the pace on this in order to get it out of the way quickly. The vote is due on Thursday July 24, in the middle of the traditional Glasgow Fair holiday.

Despite an ultra-safe Labour majority of more than 13,000, bookies started giving odds on the SNP to win.

On Friday, in a bizarre twist, Labour's expected candidate in Glasgow East local councillor George Ryan failed to show at the selection meeting. This was explained as being due to "family pressures."

In the ensuing crisis, it appears that several high-profile Labour figures were asked to stand and refused.

The speculative list included Glasgow City Council leader Stephen Purcell, former party general secretary Lesley Quinn and Shettleston MSP Frank McAveety, whose Scottish Parliament constituency overlaps Glasgow East.

Then, Labour MSP Margaret Curran, whose Baillieston constituency also overlaps Glasgow East, stepped in to offer herself as a candidate.

Curran, who was confirmed as the Scottish Labour candidate on Monday night, does not intend to resign as an MSP if she wins, despite Labour's continual sniping at SNP leader Alex Salmond, who has retained his Westminster seat.

So, does Labour's "lost weekend" mean defeat in Glasgow East?

It is worth remembering that this is not the Glasgow Govan which haunts Labour memories. Govan delivered two remarkable SNP by-election victories, for Margo MacDonald in 1973 and her husband, former Labour MP Jim Sillars, in 1988.

Glasgow East remains famously poverty stricken, despite decades of Labour representation. Two out of five residents are on benefit, either due to unemployment or sickness. Male life expectancy, at 64, is 14 years below the UK average.

In some of the poorer districts, the figure is actually below 60 years.

However, Labour will raise hopes for the future with promises of spin-off regeneration from the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which have been secured by the city council. The SNP has no track record in Glasgow East, which is the archetypally solid Glasgow Labour stronghold.

So much so, in fact, that an SNP victory here would be even more remarkable than either of the Govan triumphs.

It is hard to predict how the voters will actually respond to the by-election spectacle which is about to land in their midst.

Turnout, even in a general election, is usually in the low thirties and may be less on July 24. The bookies currently make it very close but give the edge to Labour.

For Labour, a previously unthinkable defeat would put huge pressure on Gordon Brown's leadership. For the SNP, victory would be a jaw-dropping coup.

For everyone, left or right, nationalist or unionist, it could be the ultimate demonstration that Labour is in meltdown.

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Around Scotland - Monday 7 July 2008

Published in the Morning Star

(Monday07July 2008)

MALCOLM BURNS reviews the latest goings-on in Scotland.

It's official: prisons don't work

FORMER first minister Henry McLeish hasn't been seen much since he became the first Scottish Labour leader to quit office. But he was fairly ubiquitous last week.

The independent Scottish Prisons Commission, which Alex Salmond had asked McLeish to chair, reported that our jails were at bursting point, which we all knew. But the good news is that something can be done about this.

"High prison populations do not reduce crime," McLeish concluded in his report. "They are more likely to create pressures that drive reoffending than to reduce it."

So, it is official - prison doesn't work.

The government is already building three new prisons to cope with overcrowding, but SNP Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill said that this could not go on.

"Building more and more prisons at the expense of schools and hospitals is not the answer," he said.

The commission's report argues that gaining control over prison numbers should be the first step. Scotland has one of the highest rate of incarceration in Europe.

At 8,000, inmate numbers already exceed the prison capacity and the total would rise to 8,700 over the next few years if no action is taken.
The McLeish report states that Scotland should aim to reduce its prison population to 5,000.

Among its 23 recommendations, the report argues that a new type of community supervision sentence should be created to replace jail terms of up to six months.

The response from the other parties was predictably hysterical. The Tories believe that the solution is easy - build more prisons, presumably private ones.

Labour's justice spokeswoman Pauline McNeill called the idea of cutting the prison population by 3,000 "outrageous."

"All across Scotland, ordinary families will be asking, what message does this send about the SNP priorities?" she said.

Another question would be, what does that response say about Labour's priorities?

The last words in the McLeish Report are: "The government and the people of Scotland should be left in no doubt that we first need up-front investment in better services in and for Scotland's communities."

In other words, prison is not the answer and addressing poverty and inequality probably is.

Unfortunately, the considered wisdom of McLeish and even MacAskill may well be lost in the heat of gang warfare in the East End of Scotland's biggest city.

In the impoverished communities of Glasgow East in the present by-election, Labour and the SNP are likely to be in a bidding war to chastise and lock up as many people as possible in a effort to look tough on crime.

Just don't disagree

NOTWITHSTANDING - I've always wanted to start a sentence with that word - the political chaos around it, the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution continued with its established series of meetings last week.

Acting Labour leader Cathy Jamieson said that it was "business as usual" despite the sudden loss of Wendy Alexander, whose idea the commission was in the first place.

We'll see. To some extent, the future of Calman, as so much else for Scottish Labour, will depend on who takes the reins after the leadership contest now scheduled for August.

Meanwhile, the Calman Commission has decided to duck out of public meetings in its extensive summer schedule of consultations. Why?

The commission's engagement task group, which is chaired by Telegraph newspaper executive Murdoch Mac Lennan, agreed that "it would not be appropriate for the commission to hold 'town-hall' meetings across Scotland open to the general public, at least during the information-gathering stage of its work.

"Such meetings would be difficult to manage and open to 'hijack' and were unlikely to be an effective means of establishing the balance of public opinion in that area."

So now you know.

Contenders must wait

A SCOTTISH Labour leadership contest looks inevitable, even though it has been postponed now till the Glasgow East by-election is out of the way.

The candidates are now in "purdah" until then, but it looks as though Iain Gray will be the Brown-endorsed candidate, with current deputy leader Cathy Jamieson being the Scottish Establishment's "safe pair of hands." I am not sure that Alex Salmond will be too worried.

Other candidates who didn't deny an interest in throwing their hats in the ring were shadow health spokeswoman Margaret Curran and Andy Kerr.

Curiously, Charlie Gordon, the man who took the initial rap for Wendy Alexander's donations debacle, has also said that he would be interested.

Sorry, Charlie. There is even less chance of that than of a left-wing challenge, where the possible contenders Bill Butler and Elaine Smith would struggle to get the six required MSP nominations.

In the absence of any left leadership candidate, attention would switch to the deputy leadership, which would become vacant if Jamieson is in the race for leader.

Leaders drop like flies

I KNOW it's a long time in politics, but how many party leaders can bite the dust in one week? At the time of writing, it was two. First, Wendy walked, now Nicol's knuckled under.

Wendy Alexander's resignation as Scottish Labour leader was down to her own leadership campaign donation problems, which resulted in censure by the Scottish Parliament, though the fact that she had not found a way to successfully oppose the SNP put her under intolerable pressure as well.

Everyone takes Nicol Stephen's reason for quitting as Scottish Lib Dem leader - that he wants to spend more time with his family - quite literally, probably because he's regarded as an all-round nice guy. But he too had failed to galvanise his party in opposition.

Unions united

IT'S good to see the logos of all three unions - GMB, Unite and UNISON - on the leaflets going out to Scottish council workers in the current pay dispute.

It may well be the first time that such concerted action among the three main local authority unions has taken place and bodes well for a united front and a positive outcome in the campaign running throughout July for a Yes vote for strike action.

And the Civil Service union PCS is also now balloting for action. The summer is definitely hotting up in Scotland.

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Saint Margaret

The Sunday Herald - Labour's poisoned chalice: fourth choice Curran to fight by-election: "First candidate Ryan cites 'pressures' for withdrawal -Glasgow leader Purcell and McAveety refuse -Curran is 'deeply committed' to fighting by-election -Rivals claim Labour campaign is shambles"


Here's a thought...

If (when?) - or should that be when (if?) - Margaret Curran wins Glasgow East, it will be easy to characterise her brave intervention as that of a heroic saviour of Labour.
Who then will be the favourite for leader? Step forward Saint Margaret of Baillieston.

It would actually make a lot of sense for Scottish Labour to have a leader with a foot in the Westminster and Holyrood camps - straddling by far the biggest divide in the Scottish party, a much bigger and more public chasm even than the divide between left and right perhaps, exploited to the very max by whoever is in charge in London HQ. In a way that's the secret of Salmond's success, and of Donald Dewar before him. And perhaps of McLeish, McConnell and Alexander's failure.

Anyway, the implications for the Leader/Dep Leader elections may well be that there is a) no actual leadership contest (who would stand against St Margaret?) and/or b) there is no actual dep leader contest (if Cathy Jamieson doesn't stand against St Margaret).

Glasgow EastEnders

Ah I think I get it. EastEnders. It's the "soap opera" strategy, cunningly devised in a NuLab bunker in 10 Dahning Street. Labour, big east end family, lots of rammies, family bigwigs keep getting bumped off, skeletons in closets. And that's just the trailers...

Episode 1. Crisis at the altar/nomination meeting when the bridegroom/cooncillor doesn't show... the family/labour party is in meltdown...

And now for episode 2... the scheming/schemie female owner/MSP from the caff/neighbouring constituency makes a bid to become the landlady/candidate in the Vic/byelection... but the punters/punters don't fancy her much...

it's car crash tv, full of plots, stabbings, misheard conversations, scandal, speculation, secrets and lies, and you initially hate the characters and their absurd melodramas...

...but cunningly, over the series, you grow to love the fowlers/mitchells/labour so by the big day (christmas day/polling day) you want them to get married/elected and live happily ever after...

and then the clever old Labour scriptwriters invite you to make it so.

Bingo! Or perhaps Karaoke!

2b or not 2b?

2b or not 2b? | Review | guardian.co.uk Books:
"Despite doom-laden prophecies, texting has not been the disaster for language many feared, argues linguistics professor David Crystal. On the contrary, it improves children's writing and spelling"