Monday, January 16, 2017

#Fakepolitics is just as bad as #fakenews: former Labour FM Jack McConnell says MSPs must put constituents above party loyalty; you have to ask why he believes that a culture needs to be created in the first place, Holyrood needs to remove the Holyrood list system and create 129 constituencies















Dear All

Holyrood is full of crap MSPs.

This revelation isn’t new, but it gets drowned out by the phoney politics exhibited in the place.

Just as people are waking up to the concept of #fakenews thrust on us by the media, the fakery also extends to politics.

A classic example of #fakepolitics is the campaign to save Glasgow Jobcentres from closure. The Labour Party for example knew 9 months ago that Anniesland Jobcentre was closing but kept quiet about it.

Any proof?

The application for turning the jobcentre into flats was submitted to Glasgow City Council, it had to be passed by Councillors.

9 months ago.

It is only now that that the political parties such as Scottish Labour, the SNP and the Scottish Greens are speaking up.

Why were they quiet in the past?

Are we to assume that that Glasgow Councillors didn’t pass this information onto MPs and MSPs? And if they did, why did they keep quiet?

The reason is simple; helping the poor is a low priority for Scotland’s political elite, unless there is mileage in running a campaign to dupe unemployed working class people into getting their votes.

I will not be ‘joining’ the campaign to stop Glasgow Jobcentre closures because the campaign is a con; its all ‘fake’ and nothing can be done about it.  If I was to campaign I would be just as big a fraud doing #fakepolitics as the rest of people promoting this farce.

If there is a campaign worth supporting it is the janitors’ campaign in Glasgow.

Janitors are fighting the Labour council ALEO Cordia which is effectively trying to screw them out of money and conditions. In the past I wasn’t a supporter of the ALEOs created by the Labour Council and I am still aren’t, councils should run public services and protect their staff. The reason they don’t is because of the poor state of Scottish politics and Holyrood in particular. The political elite always take the easy route to ‘save’ money and that is done by cutting staff and budgets under the lie of ‘savings’.

Holyrood is a major disappointment, it is as many people note full of third rate politicians who are little more than drones, they take the money and just sit there.

Jack McConnell was a former Labour First Minster, he lost the Scottish election in 2007, here is an interview which shows that Scottish Labour’s problems have existed for a rather long time, please watch both parts of the video.



And of course, the epic car crash of Jack McConnell interviewed by Bernard Ponsonby is also worth a watch.


The World spins on its axis and people get replaced but as we have seen not by better, Jack McConnell lost to the SNP rather badly, like many politicians; he didn’t keep an eye on the day job or a finger on the pulse of the people.

And paid the price!

Did Scottish Labour deserve to lose in 2007?

Yes; they did deserve to lose, and the trajectory of the party has kept declining downwards because the same type of people keep getting picked from the same group.

Jack McConnell says MSPs must put constituents above party loyalty.

For the avoidance of doubt, this will not happen in the SNP or in Scottish Labour; the Labour councillors aren’t going to support the workers against ALEO Cordia and neither the elected party members who are the Glasgow list Labour MSPs. If it is workers being treated badly by a Labour Council ALEO then elected representatives are all signed up to following group decisions whether they are right or wrong.

The Labour Councillors are wrong on the janitor situation just as they are wrong on the G51 Parking and the attempt to outsource IT facilities all of which is against the interests of the public.

If you want to speak out, you can in the Labour Group but you can’t do so publicly, it is the same in all parties. If I had been selected by Labour as a candidate, I wouldn’t be able to speak out about the Glasgow rail link project which is a turkey, I would have to keep my mouth shut and lump it.

As an independent, I don’t, I don’t support the attempt to get the failed Glasgow rail link project back on its feet, too costly and I don’t see a case to support it, other parts of the City plan for Glasgow I might support in the interests of jobs if the jobs are long term.

Jack McConnell says Holyrood needs radical reform to make sure the Scottish Government is held properly to account.

The important reform that is needed in Holyrood is an end to the list system which allows people not elected by the public to become a political representative; this is a disgrace that the general public cannot remove these people.

Jack McConnell always wants the committees to be given more power, you can argue the toss on the merits of that idea over the quality of the MSPs already there in place, more power to an idiot only makes a situation worse does it not?  

As to the idea of the parliamentary day should be more flexible, the current crop of MSPs fill their day up doing not an awful lot as it is.

The next point of backbenchers should be encouraged to give their first loyalty to the parliament and their constituents, not their parties.

This is bogus, it won’t happen and it cannot happen, MSPs sign up to follow group orders just as MPs and Councillors do.

Jack McConnell says he doesn’t support the idea of a second chamber at Holyrood or an increase in the number of MSPs. I would go along with those ideas at present, a second chamber would be filled with worse dross than currently sitting on the Holyrood benches, and there is no case to increase MSPs.

It seems that I do concur with Jack McConnell on the need for better MSPs when he stated:

“The solution is not more MSPs, its better MSPs, better procedures, hard work and proper scrutiny.”

Lord McConnell said: “There does need to be a check on the power of ministers and the government. I believed that as first minister and I proposed changes then.

“I believe, if anything, the evidence has grown and strengthened that case over the last 15 years. The immediate thing to do is to strengthen the role of the backbench MSP and create a culture where they know they are there to represent their constituents."

Finally, please watch the videos which I have listed because it shows a symptom of what Scottish Labour’s problems are, people proposing changes and when questioned don’t know what they are talking about because they electioneering not developing policy.

As Bernard Ponsonby said:

“The answer is you don’t know”!

If you asked Jack McConnell how his idea of how to create a culture where MSPs know they are there to represent their constituents, you have to ask why a culture needs to be created in the first place.

Isn’t that what they were supposed to be doing all along?

The most important reform to Holyrood is the removal of the list system and the creation of 129 constituencies.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I remember McConnell in the early 80s. He was a Tory infiltrator, a Blairite before Blair. A traitor to the Labour party and working class Scots. Its creeps like him that has made the Lie@bour party unelectable. Aye, it’s the truth and the SNP are no better.