Monday, October 12, 2009

Labour activist, Yapping Yousuf is scared that the people of Springburn want a better future











Dear All

Yousuf Hamid has written an article called “The battle for the soul of Springburn”.

Yousuf is a Labour activist and researcher for Frank McAveety, Labour MSP and general doughball.

In order to try and justify William Bain’s existence he has written what he believes is clear water or dividing lines between Bain and David Kerr, the SNP Candidate.

So let’s go through them one by one.

“He's Local: Unlike the SNP candidate, Willie Bain is a local candidate and the line of a local man fighting for local people is going down incredibly well on the doorstep. There's a legitimate debate regarding how much this should matter but there is no doubt that it does matter”.

The constituency is Glasgow North East, this takes in numerous areas; William Bain is only local to one, when he is not staying in London, England.

That’s right folks, one single area but in his election leaflets he is claiming to be local in all areas.

“Selection: The complete mess that was the SNP's selection for North East and the feeling that Kerr was the man local people didn't want has made it harder to get the SNP to gain momentum, replicating what Labour did in Glasgow East”.

The SNP selection procedure ran properly unfortunately the Labour Party is so inept that they can’t understand the written word.

“Their Record: Like in Glenrothes the SNP have a record to defend and they are on the defensive, particularly on crime. The policy of mandatory knife sentences for carrying a knife is proving massively popular and the SNP had to respond with a leaflet defending their record on crime, not where they want to be”.

Crime is at its lowest levels in Scotland for 30 years under the SNP Government.

The Labour Party is trying to talk tough on crime but let’ remember the Labour controlled Glasgow City Council funded the Chirnsyde Community Initiative. This centre was controlled by the Lyons Crime family and people in the area were subject to intimidation and threats.

The SNP got the centre shut down when the Labour Party refused to act.

The Labour Party isn’t tough on crime.

“The Euros: Even at our darkest moments in the Euro elections when our vote overwhelmingly stayed at home in Scotland we still beat the SNP in the constituency by a comfortable 2000 votes”.

This is true; the Labour Party won the area by 2,000 votes so the SNP and David Kerr are the underdogs but the difference is that the SNP have a positive message for what they intend to do to help the people after David Kerr gets elected. Labour has no concrete proposals.

“Campaigning: A mythology was built around the apparently 'unbeatable' SNP by election machine. Glenrothes bust it with a terrific campaign and on the streets we have been terrific organisationally getting lots of activists out on the doors and delivering leaflets with a massive office with a second one just open, unlike some”.

Speaking of campaigning, the Labour Party are having to draft in activists from outside Glasgow as they can’t get local people to work for them. This includes people from England and also people from the east coast of Scotland.

“The Sheridan Effect: Tommy Sheridan is standing and this tends to take more votes away from the SNP than Labour. I've blogged on this before. Chuck in the Smeaton effect as well”.

The Sheridan effect as Yousuf describes it is meaningless, once Tommy Sheridan was a force but not anymore. Big brother killed him personally as a serious politician.

“The Osborne Effect: The message used to come from Labour that this was a choice between us and the Tories for the next government but after Osbornes speech people are saying it Thermoses on the doorstep and those who were Labour but not particularly inclined to vote are feeling more impassioned to vote”.

The Tories are dead in Scotland, so there is no Osborne effect period; the Tory Candidate has no chance of winning, even a raffle.

“GARL: The SNP have cut the Glasgow Airport Rail Link and the Evening Times and Daily Record have been going on the SNP betraying Glasgow heavily recently. Willie Bain has campaigned against the cut heavily. David Kerr less so”.

There is no one other than Labour talking about GARL, it is a dead issue with no traction and why they still punt it is a mystery.

The only thing I can thing of is that because they mentioned it before they have political OCD and keep parroting it out.

“Still I suppose time will tell and there is no room for complacency at all but I'm getting increasingly confident that Westminster will be lucky enough to see Willie Bain join its ranks soon”.

The Labour Party is taking this election seriously but considering that the Labour Party has held the area for 70 plus years, it seems rattled by David Kerr and the SNP. The SNP will build on what John Mason has done in Glasgow East and offer the people a new vision from a pro active MP who is committed to reaching out to the people. David Kerr has already got ideas that will help the people get real opportunities that Labour has never delivered.

So, Yousuf is scared and he should be, the people of Springburn are asking the SNP questions and engaging with them. The more the people find out how badly they have been treated the sooner they will make a historic shift towards David Kerr and the SNP, the future looks brighter already but not for William Bain.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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