The life and times of a Labour grifter

This week brought the (excellent?) news that a second Scottish Labour MP (there are only two) had been promoted to Labour’s shadow front bench. This is the continued advancement of Michael Shanks who has come from obscurity to ministerial status in the space of just two months, and this from a man with a chequered history of party loyalty and a poor record of success in elections, having been unsuccessful in Local Authority, Scottish Parliament and UK Parliament elections.

Shanks left Labour party in May 2019 citing opposition to Brexit and antisemitism. He rejoined the party in April 2020 when Keir Starmer became leader. Strangely enough, his opposition to Brexit didn’t seem to hinder his continued membership of the party, even as the Starmer led party became more and more pro Brexit.

Here’s a comment he made at the time of his resignation, describing Labour as “a party that has a bankrupt approach to our membership of the EU and is complacent about the impact it will have on the poorest people across the UK”.

Out of the blue, he was selected to stand as a candidate in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election when 3 much more experienced members who had put their names forward were barred by Labour HQ. A complaint about the selection process was made by the local CLP, but was ignored. They didn’t even get a reply. Obviously, there was some reason why the party were keen to see him selected for an election that, given the circumstances, Labour were virtually certain to win. I wonder what it was.

Shanks won Rutherglen and Hamilton West on 5th October, thanks mainly to the huge boycott by former SNP voters, disgusted at the behaviour of the party leaders and by their treatment of the previous MP, Margaret Ferrier. During his election campaign, he promised to be “his own man” and to oppose both the two-child cap and the bedroom tax, both policies Starmer has said will be retained by a future Labour Government. Were these promises made to get elected, to be dropped once in Westminster?

Many bloggers, including myself, warned that Shanks had no interest in Scotland and, once elected, would simply be another Labour stooge. Here’s a blog I published at the time of his selection as Labour candidate.

Shanks was sworn in as MP on 16th October, making his maiden speech in the Violence Reduction, Policing and Criminal Justice Bill debate on 15th November.

Does Shanks’ first month and a half show how closely he’s going to stick to the promises he made to the Rutherglen and Hamilton West electorate to get elected? Is he going to support Scotland or is he going to support Labour?

The first test of his intention was Devolution (Employment) (Scotland) debate on 17th October, the day after he was sworn in. The motion was proposed by SNP Member David Linden and was a proposal to devolve employment legislation to the Scottish Parliament. The motion was lost by 33 votes to 22, with Shanks and his colleague and now boss, Ian Murray, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, along with the rest of Labour Members, choosing to abstain. Was this was an example of the Bain Principle (Labour will never support a measure raised by the SNP) or was it was a continuation of Labour’s reluctance to give any powers to the Scottish Parliament that could make things better in Scotland. (Bear in mind that in the post 2014 referendum Smith Commission to decide what powers would be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, Labour voted against virtually all tax devolution.)

So, within 24 hours of arriving in the Commons, Shanks failed his first test, choosing to support Labour, not Scotland.

His next test was in the debate on a ceasefire in Gaza on 16th November, again a motion proposed by the SNP. Here, strong feelings were expressed by members of all parties (except the Tories, of course). In fact, in advance of the debate, Labour in Scotland had backed the ceasefire as did the vast majority of the Scottish public. However, Starmer had issued a three-line whip for all members to abstain, so voting for the ceasefire would have career implications for Labour members. When it came to the vote, 56 Labour MPs voted for the ceasefire, including several ministers, but neither Shanks or Murray were among the 56.

Shanks’ decision to follow the Westminster party line and go against the Scottish party and public proved to be a career enhancing move as he was promoted to the shadow front bench on 27th November, just 42 days after his arrival in the Commons and 11 days after the ceasefire vote. Probably not a record, but still seeming like surprising haste.

So, Shanks failed his second test, choosing to vote for Labour and not for Scotland.

Of course, Labour have always been against Scottish improvement. Here’s a quote from Jimmy Hood, a Labour MP at the time of the Independence referendum. “Even if the Scottish people are going to be better off economically and so on, I would still be against breaking away from the Union”. That could be rephrased as “Even if my constituents would be better off, I would still vote against it”. Even though a Scottish MP, he was more interested in the UK than in Scotland.

If and when it comes to a vote on the two-child cap or the bedroom tax, we can be almost certain that Shanks will choose to retain his recently acquired ministerial status and vote with the party line, not with the promises he made to the Rutherglen and Hamilton West electors to get elected. Instead of being his own man and campaigning to remove these hated Tory policies, he has shown himself to be just another Labour party stooge, caring about Scotland only at election time.

We told you so, didn’t we.

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Thanks to Workers Liberty (https://www.workersliberty.org/) for some Labour background.

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BEAT THE CENSORS
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SALVO
The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.

LIBERATION.SCOT
We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.

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A Scottish political disgrace

After a thoroughly nasty set of campaigns from her opponents, the recall petition for Margaret Ferrier has succeeded, with the two major parties in Scotland (with loads of help from the media) managing to persuade just over 14% of the electorate to sign. Commons rules meant Margaret was not permitted to put her case before the recall was officially announced, but by that time Labour had already been campaigning for about 2 months. Margaret immediately leaves the Commons and will likely be succeeded in a by-election sometime later this year by a numpty from the Labour party, whose only contribution to the Rutherglen and Hamilton constituency will be his smirking appearance at the post-election photoshoot. You can be sure that he was only picked (over 4 real local candidates) because he agreed to do what he was told by his London bosses.

The recall petition was ‘cleverly’ arranged to conclude while Parliament was on holiday, so maximising the disruption as the by-election can’t be arranged until the Commons returns in September. It means that Rutherglen and Hamilton West will be without representation for some months, so constituents, please make sure you have no problems needing support from your MP until after the by-election and even then, hope that the MP has a team who have some clue and can be bothered to make the effort, though, as we’re talking Labour, that’s far from guaranteed.

Certainly, Labour’s contribution to the campaign was a series of leaflets more notable for their lies and smears than for their policy content. For one example, see here.

At least, you can understand what drove Labour to create the opportunity, first by voting in the Commons committee to make sure that a 30 day suspension was agreed, triggering the recall petition and then conducting this nasty campaign, disguising their party self-interest in a cloak of public concern. They desperately wanted this by-election success to demonstrate that Labour are back to being a political force to be reckoned with in Scotland, even though victory, if it happens, is likely to be more to do with the expected disintegration of the SNP vote rather than any increase in Labour support.

But what’s in it for the SNP? When Nicola Sturgeon prompted this witch hunt against arguably the most hard working SNP MP, but one whose support for independence was at odds with the leadership of the current party, the SNP were riding high in the polls, with the worst of the Hate Crimes Bill, the GRRB, DRS, the offshore wind auction and the rest still to come. Could she have anticipated the backlash and the impact on SNP support or, as many have said, could she have planned it?

But now, with SNP support heading for the toilet, Sturgeon’s replacement decided to continue the persecution of Margaret Ferrier, thus really annoying the large number of constituents who previously supported the SNP, but who had no desire to get rid of Margaret. Of course, they had no voice in the recall, but will certainly make their voice heard in the by-election.

Let’s not forget that the SSP, the Scottish Socialist Party, another supposedly independence supporting party, were also campaigning for the recall, even though they had virtually nothing to gain from a by-election. Perhaps they thought they were on safe ground with no actual independence party standing to point out that the SSP, like the SNP and the Greens, are another party who seem only committed to independence when it suits them.

So we are where we are. If Margaret chooses not to stand again, the constituency will lose a hard-working MP with a proud record of backing local issues and local people. Even worse, her replacement will be either be the Labour candidate who lies about being local (unless you think Partick is part of Rutherglen) or the SNP one, said to be the laziest councillor in South Lanarkshire. Some choice!

So the good people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West have a choice to make. We don’t yet know all who’ll be standing, but the two candidates who have so far been put forward by Labour and SNP are certainly not ones I would vote for (and I have a vote).

One last general point. Are the recall rules fit for purpose? Is the tiny 10% of the constituency electorate (OK 14% in this case) really sufficient to end the career of an MP, especially when the combined might of parties attracting virtually 100% of the voting public are campaigning for the recall? Is it fair that those who oppose the recall get no voice? Is it fair that parties supporting the recall get to campaign for weeks before the recall petition is officially launched, when the MP is prohibited by Commons rules from putting her case during that time? Is it fair that parties can spend up to £10,000 each and make use of party members time, limited only by the number of members in each party, when the MP is effectively on their own? I realise you can’t expect fairness from Westminster, but surely this is just too one-sided.

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BEAT THE CENSORS
Many Facebook sites are increasingly censoring bloggers like myself who can be critical of the actions of the SNP and the Scottish Government. They are attempting to prevent bloggers from getting their message out, so we have to depend on readers sharing the blog posts. If you liked this post or others I have written, please share this and take out a free subscription by clicking the follow button on the home page or on the posts. You will then be notified by email of any new posts on the blog. Thank you.

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SALVO
The progress of Salvo has been the most encouraging development since 2022. It is doing sterling work educating Scots about the Claim of Right and spelling out what it means that the Scottish people are sovereign, not any Parliament. Salvo has joined with Liberation.scot to develop campaigns the results of which will be available soon.

LIBERATION.SCOT
We are seeking to build up liberation.scot to at least 100,000 signatures as part of our plan to win recognition at the UN as an official liberation movement. We intend to internationalise our battle for independence and through the setting up of the Scottish National Council we will develop our arguments to win progress in the international courts. Please help by signing up at liberation.scot. The membership of liberation.scot is also where the first members of Scottish National Congress will be balloted for selection.

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Independence – is there no choice?

Firstly, a history lesson.

In the second half of the last century (doesn’t that seem such a long time ago) and the beginning of this one, Scotland voted Labour at every UK general election, because there was no alternative for those hoping for a left leaning government, the sort of government that would be good for ordinary working people. Labour used the fear of right-wing government as their main campaign argument.  Vote Labour to stop the Tories was what they always said.  However, more often than not, even when Scotland voted Labour in large numbers, they didn’t get the government they wanted because English voters had voted Conservative and, because of their much larger numbers, English voters pretty much always got what they wanted.

This was the situation in 2010. Scotland again voted to stop the Tories, giving Labour 41 seats.  Again it was a waste of time, as the Tories, with the help of the LibDems, gained power again in the UK.  However, this time there was going to be a difference.

In 1999, Scotland’s Parliament had been reconvened and after an eight year spell of relatively unsuccessful Labour control with some help from the LibDems (again), the SNP took charge in 2007, leading a minority government.  Perhaps, Labour should have taken more notice of the Holyrood result, because it only got worse in 2011.  An absolute majority for the SNP (this wasn’t supposed to be possible, the whole system was created to prevent it) led to the eventually unsuccessful independence referendum.  But what followed the referendum was an enormous upsurge in popularity for the SNP and the huge increase in membership.

At the next UK election in 2015, Labour went with the same (tired?) strategy of vote for us to stop the Tories, but when the results were announced, the SNP took all but three of the Scottish seats, leaving only one each for Labour, Tories and LibDems.  Thus, in the space of 5 years, a tiny amount of time for such a seismic shift, Labour had been reduced from half a century of dominance in Scotland to irrelevance, a drop of 97.5% in a single election, the biggest fall from grace in UK politics, possibly the biggest in world politics.

So what’s the point of this history lesson, which most of you will already know. What it illustrates is that in Scotland today, it’s possible for political changes to happen very quickly, when a dominant party with a tried and tested strategy which it repeatedly uses in its election campaigning, has a history of not delivering on it.

In Scotland today, the SNP are the dominant party, having won practically every election at every level since 2007, the only blots being the aforementioned 2010 UK election and, of course, the 2014 independence referendum, though the latter was a Yes loss, not just an SNP loss. The SNP are, of course, the party of independence, created for that very purpose in 1934. After a number of false dawns, their move from being just a minor part of the Scottish political scene to their current position began in 2007 as described above.  Their campaigning in each election has always emphasised their commitment to the independence cause, such as last year’s:

“Let’s put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands, and escape from Brexit. Vote SNP on December 12th.”

But recently, despite the apparent level of commitment to independence in pre-election campaigning, many supporters have become increasingly disturbed that winning campaigns haven’t translated into party calls for a fresh independence referendum. In post election speeches, party leaders have emphasised the need for patience, saying that independence wouldn’t be won by rushing before they were ready.

Supporters have separated into two opposing camps, those who follow the party line that independence won’t be won by rushing and those who have concerns that delay, particularly delay until we’re completely out of the EU by the end of this year, could cost us the opportunity by allowing Westminster to change the rules to prevent a referendum (so it’s Delayers vs Rushers).  Unfortunately, discussions between the two sides have often descended into increasingly bitter arguments, with accusations from the delayers that the other side are not real independence supporters and rushers claiming the party were spending too much time on Brexit to the virtual exclusion of independence, threatening to cancel their party membership and find another way to achieve independence.

But, for change to happen, there has to be an alternative.  Labour’s downfall came about because there was another centre-left party (assuming you still think of Labour as centre-left) with a proven record of competence just waiting in the wings.  So we would need an alternative and that alternative would have to be available pretty soon.

So how could change come about?  It has been suggested that we need a new independence party, relegating the SNP to a government role only.  However, those suggesting that should think how long it took for the SNP to become a real political force.  Can we afford to wait 20 years, or even 80 years, for a new party to reach the dizzy heights currently occupied by the SNP.  The same holds true for the suggestion of a list only independence party, which, in any case, would have to be created from scratch in 15 months and would only apply in the Holyrood election.  The history of small independence-supporting parties in the list is not full of success.  Even the Greens, a pretty well-known independence-supporting  party, only won six seats in 2016.

So what should independence supporters do.  My view is that we have no chance of gaining independence without a big political hitter.   We need a large independence-supporting party in Holyrood to be the focus of any future campaign and, at the moment, there is no choice other than the SNP.  Like many, I have reservations about the party’s current strategy and I have serious concerns that the dangers of delaying a referendum till next year, or even later, have not been sufficiently taken into account.  However, until it becomes certain that the party no longer supports independence or there is a clear well-established alternative, I cannot, in all conscience, refuse to support the one party that can bring it about.

To all those SNP members who have quit the party or who are thinking of doing so, to all those Yessers who have said they will no longer support the SNP, think carefully whether what you’re doing is going to bring independence closer.

You can never have too much money …… allegedly

A tale of loose morals and how the rich got richer and the rest of us didn’t.

After the end of World War II, 1945 ushered in a reforming Labour government which effectively set the scene in the UK for the next 25 years.  They introduced the NHS, free at the point of use, and expanded Social Security provisions with the objective of providing a safety net for all families “from the cradle to the grave”.   I know it will be hard for younger readers (ie. anyone under 50) to believe that Labour were once a reforming party, but I can assure you it was once true.  Labour used to be led by people who weren’t as right wing as Tony Blair, who weren’t as foolish as Gordon Brown and who weren’t as plain stupid as Tricky Dicky Leonard.  Really, they were.  Honest, it is actually true.  Would I lie?  Even when the Conservatives replaced Labour, the provisions introduced by Labour were largely retained because there was a general consensus in the country that they were the ‘right thing to do’.

However, step on a few decades and things started to change.  Since Thatcher’s government of the nineteen eighties, the UK has become a different country.  Instead of the production of goods, the emphasis in the UK economy has been changed to concentrate on the creation of money.  Those not concerned in the production of money were often discarded; manufacturing jobs were cut, supposedly to reduce the power of the manufacturing unions, and unemployment rose, funded largely by the newly discovered North Sea oil.  It is interesting to contemplate what Thatcher would have done without North Sea oil.  How could she have funded the changes?  Her need for North Sea oil provides a clear explanation of the reason behind the lies told to Scotland about its value.  If they had been told how much it was worth, the Scots might have wanted some of it for themselves and that would never have done.  Oil was not for the bare-arsed, kilt-wearing lower classes.

The banks were given practically free rein to do what they liked, as long as it generated money; as long as it increased profits.  Banks, whose local branches used to look after Granny’s savings and would lend money to small companies to help them grow, now became addicted to gambling in a big way and it seemed they were good at it as it certainly made their profits, and the bonuses of the gambling employees, grow.  In the United States, the gamble of choice was the subprime mortgage.  These were loans to folks who wanted to buy a house, but who couldn’t really afford one.  So they weren’t such a good credit risk, but the banks quickly found that the more risk you were prepared to take, the more mortgages you could sell, the more money you made and the bigger bonuses you could pay yourself.  In many cases, it was fake money because even more money was produced by moving batches of mortgages around while adding a bit on to the price each time it moved, generating profits for the bank and bonuses for the bankers without really increasing the value of the mortgages.  Of course, though nobody realised at the time or, if they did, they didn’t care, this couldn’t go on for ever.  The goods went round and round the merry-go-round, like a game of pass the parcel, sellers making profits and buyers happy to buy knowing they could sell to someone else at a profit, until the music stopped and the company left holding the parcel had to unwrap it to find out what was in it.  And often they found out that, by the time it reached them, there was nothing left, or at least, nothing to justify what had been paid.  But the fake ‘profits’ made at each stage had been used to justify the huge salaries and bonuses that the money men were able to pay themselves.  To make matters better, for them, but worse, for the rest of us, they would have enough money to afford accountants who would make sure they didn’t have to pay any tax.

The crash was bound to come and when it finally came in 2008, banks all over the world were in trouble, some going bust and many others close to.  What was to be done?  Should the ones who caused the problem and had benefitted from the racket be made to pay or should those with no involvement and no power be made to foot the bill?  As this isn’t a Grimms’ fairy story, I’m sure you can guess the answer.  In one of the biggest transfers of wealth of all time from the poor (the taxpayers) to the rich (the bank executives and shareholders), the government bailed out the banks with our money.  With the exception of one or two sent to the gallows so the government could pretend that it was taking action, those who caused the problem were able to retain their immoral earnings, while those who didn’t, lost out.  The government said at the time that the money used to fund the bailouts would be returned, with interest, when the banks returned to profitability, but we all really knew it was a lie and, indeed, that was the way it turned out.

Handing all this money to the banks left the government a bit short, so they had to come up with ways to increase their income or reduce their outgoings. The option of increasing general taxation to raise extra money was quickly dismissed, bad politics with an election coming up. A windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses was considered, but not implemented before the 2010 election, and there was no way a Conservative government would do such a thing. So again they turned to a soft target, the Social Security system. Changes were introduced to ‘tighten up’ the system, and with the Conservative media ramping up stories about benefit fraud, the Labour government were free to introduce one of the biggest changes, Work Capability Assessments, run from the start by ATOS, a French based private company who set targets for the number of claimants they could screw. Why do Westminster governments always target the weakest and poorest and let the strongest and richest off scot-free? Why did no one in government care about the impact the changes were having on those least able to defend themselves? Why did no one in government care about the number of deaths the changes caused? Though the changes were introduced by Labour, the Tories, who followed in 2010, with the willing assistance of their little yellow LibDem helpers, made things even worse for claimants at the same time as they were dishing out tax cuts to the rich.

The ATOS contract followed the usual government plan of handing taxpayers’ money over to rich companies.  As more and more private companies are brought in to carry out parts of what used to be public sector  functions, more and more of our money is being handed over to multi-national companies owned by rich money men.  Yet more transfers from the poor to the rich.

Unfortunately (for the money men), governments were forced to introduce rules to prevent the bank scam which caused the 2008 crash happening again, so that was the end of that money making scheme.  Something had to be found to replace it, because the money men needed to keep the money rolling in.  They may already have enormous wealth, but it was important to add to that wealth, because you can never have too much.  As things stand, the world’s richest 1% have as much wealth as the rest of the world’s population combined (see Fairtrade Foundation).  Even though they already have more money than they could possibly spend in several lifetimes, they still want more.

But there’s no shortage of inventiveness among rich people in search of further riches, so it wasn’t long before a new scheme was hatched, and this was even better, because nobody would lose, or at least nobody who counted.  It had long been known that betting huge sums on the movement of currencies caused by the outcome of significant political events could produce enormous profits, at least if you were right.  But if you were wrong, you could make an enormous loss, which obviously wasn’t such a good idea.  You certainly didn’t want to get it wrong.  But what if you knew someone who was in a position to influence what was happening, and what if you could strike a deal for them to take an action which would be very likely to produce a beneficial result.  An action that would be likely to minimise or even remove the possibility of making a loss.  Betting on a sure thing?

Who do you think would be in a position to influence what was happening in the political arena?  Could that be a politician?  Could that be the politician in the position of the greatest power, the one being punted by the media?

Before looking at the current situation, let’s think of an event that happened three years ago, the EU referendum.  As the referendum approached, large numbers of hedge funds took short positions, ie. they bet on the outcome being leave.  At the time, the expectation was that remain would win and, as the vote approached, polling data appeared to confirm this view.  Immediately after the polls closed, Nigel Farage, the effective leader of the leave side, appeared to concede defeat for leave and this view was confirmed by YouGov saying that the latest trends were towards remain.  As a result, sterling soared.  However, as we all know, the result was somewhat different.  Sterling tanked and the hedge funds which had bet on sterling falling made huge profits.  Several hedge fund managers have described 24 June, 2016, the day after the referendum, as the most profitable day in their history.

There have been many investigations into what happened that night, but it seems fairly well accepted that the profits made by the hedge funds were the byproduct of the comments made by Farage and other politicians and with the information provided by several polling companies.  Vast profits were made because of an alleged arrangement between the money men and those who had the ability to influence events.

So now let’s think about today and the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.  What immediately strikes you is the similarity between what’s happening now and what happened in the run-up to the referendum.  This time, the main man seems to be Boris Johnson, who is leading the negotiations between the UK and the EU, though his interest in securing a deal seems at least to be in some doubt.  We know (thanks to Carole Cadwalladr) that the hedge funds who were funding Johnson and the Leave campaign have already taken in excess of £8bn of short positions on a no deal Brexit (ie. betting that it’s going to happen).  Interestingly, a large part of the money was placed after the result of the Tory leadership election was announced, the result of which was influenced by these same companies bankrolling Johnson’s leadership bid to the extent of nearly half a million pounds.  Obviously, hedge fund managers must really like Boris Johnson.  They seemed very keen for him to win.  I wonder why.

So if things work out as planned, we will see a few very rich people getting even richer. But what will they do with the money? Maybe they’ll spend some of the money to buy a few more houses? Or a few more cars? Or maybe they’ll give their staff a rise to share out the good fortune? Or will they simply put the money into a bank vault to join the rest of their millions, taking it out of circulation where it won’t do the rest of us any good?  It is estimated, based on information contained in the Panama papers, that, worldwide, the equivalent of about $8 trillion is held in offshore accounts, mainly for tax avoidance purposes.  Of course, the whole Brexit fiasco came about because of the EU plan to crack down on such tax avoidance schemes, which the money men were very keen to avoid, for obvious reasons.

Should we be trying to do something to stop this latest money making scheme from succeeding?  Is there anything that realistically can be done? What do you think?  Suggestions welcomed.

She’s gone, gone, gone (and I don’t care)

So it’s finally happened.  After months of speculation, after many possible dates being mentioned, Kezia has jumped, probably just before she was pushed.  Was it a coincidence that it came immediately following Corbyn’s pretty disastrous tour of Scotland, where his appearances were met with huge waves of apathy?  Perhaps.  Given her widely expressed views on the unsuitability of Corbyn as leader of the Labour party and given Corbyn’s upsurge in popularity following June’s election, it was only a matter of time before an excuse was found, and likely Kezia’s unsubtle hint that Labour voters should vote Tory in constituencies where the Tories had the best chance of unseating the SNP was it.  The net result of many potential Labour voters following her advice was an increase in Tory seats in Scotland, keeping May in power and depriving Corbyn of possibly his best, or maybe even only, chance of becoming PM.

When your hatred of the SNP exceeds even your desire for your own party to succeed, you have to be on a shoogly peg as leader, even if you’re only the local branch manager.

There have already been many views expressed about Kezia’s performance as leader of the Labour Party in Scotland and, no doubt, there will be many more.  My own view is that she put herself into an impossible position, inheriting a disaster from Jim Murphy, when she had neither the competence nor the experience to turn things around.  We all have known people who, even from a young age, were able to take control of any situation and make things happen.  We have also known people who, no matter their age, didn’t have the confidence and the authority to define a course of action and convince others to follow their lead.  Kezia is, unfortunately, one of the latter.  She mostly acted like the teenager who wants to be liked but who, somehow, always ended up on the outside.  She was unable to define a clear and consistent set of policies to energise her party and attract the voters.  In the end, her only consistent policy was SNPbad and that’s not a platform for government.

One last point.  The timing of her resignation has been the subject of some discussion, coming, as it did, on the same day as the opening of the Queensferry Crossing.  Was this a deliberate act to try to take some of the attention away from the opening?  Given Kezia’s well documented lack of forward planning, it’s hard to imagine it was part of some long term plan.  More likely, it was a last minute decision and, if she thought about the bridge opening, she would have thought the timing a bit of a giggle and payback for all the problems the evil Nats caused her.

Bye, bye Kezia.

Corbyn’s offer to Scotland.

Site Title

Since Corbyn is currently in Scotland claiming that the SNP isn’t doing enough to mitigate Tory austerity, it’s a good time to remind ourselves of how Labour compares to the SNP, and indeed what Corbyn’s vision would mean for Scots.

In their general election manifesto the SNP pledged to fight for an end to the two child tax credits cap, and for Universal Credit roll-out to be halted to prevent further cuts, and also for the benefits freeze to be lifted. Conversely, Corbyn’s Labour manifesto only committed to ending the rape clause and long wait times for receipt of Universal Credit. Indeed the Resolution Foundation confirmed that Labour’s manifesto would only have reversed a quarter of the cuts from/still to come from these policies. Whereas the SNP’s manifesto pledges would have reversed/prevented 100% of these billions worth of cuts. Incidentally the SNP manifesto also argued for reinstatement of the Work…

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Money to burn

It appears that the Conservative Party may have been just a little bit naughty about their election expenses for the 2015 UK General Election.  According to Channel 4 news (is it the only decent news broadcaster in the UK these days?), large chunks of lolly were “accidentally” omitted from the spending returns of a large number of Tory candidates in marginal seats.  The Tories’ excuse was that this was believed to be national spending, though it appears that much of the money doesn’t appear to have been included in their national return either, due to “administrative” errors.  However, as we are talking of six figure sums involving large Union Jack bedecked battle buses and dozens of activists, you may need to be particularly inept to overlook them entirely.

 Currently, around 45 (opinions vary about the number) Tory MPs’ election expenses are being investigated by around 30 police forces.  Most appear to have asked for extra time to complete their investigations, though none (as far as I am aware) have given any indication of the length of time their investigations are likely to take, important because the longer it takes, the less chance there is of there being any real result.

In theory, the Electoral Commission could order a rerun of the 2015 election in the affected constituencies.  That would almost certainly mean a change of government as it’s unlikely voters would be as kind to the Tories as they were in the original vote.  However, the implications of a rerun are such that this seems a bit extreme for the Commission.  For example, would it render the decisions taken by the (now) illegal Tory administration invalid?  Or would the Labour party come to regret the number of times they abstained in crucial divisions on Social Security changes instead of living up to their status as official Opposition.

More likely is that the Commission would accept a Tory plea that the errors were simply mistakes and that there was no deliberate intention to defraud, resulting in slap on the wrist, a small(ish) fine and a promise to be better behaved little boys and girls in the future.  That’s especially likely if you think about why the two main UK opposition parties are not really taking as much advantage of the situation as you’d expect and aren’t making that much fuss.  Could it be because both Labour and the LibDems were more or less equally guilty, differing perhaps only on a matter of scale.

Perhaps they’re all just naughty little boys and girls.