Dear All
The SNP Conference is in the City of Glasgow over the weekend and today Alex Salmond gives a keynote speech.
He says that Glasgow is desperately in need a new political outlook and a change of administration.
With the city currently experiencing a phoney war in the long campaign, the real fight goes public once the council election starts.
Glasgow is a prime target for the SNP in May's local elections, if the SNP don’t win Glasgow by a landslide then the decision of the independence referendum moves to the unionists being on the front foot.
Glasgow isn’t just a council election; it is a key milestone in the attempt to win independence.
It is the heart of the Labour heartlands, last May at the Holyrood election, the Labour Party lost many MSPs in the city as the SNP took over their seats.
But this isn’t a Holyrood election; Alex Salmond for First Minister isn’t going to work as a strategy.
Salmond also said the party would be working "very hard" to wrest power from Labour but they face an uphill task.
The SNP Group in Glasgow is in exactly the same position as the Labour Party in Holyrood, they have done nothing of importance, however you could be forgiven for thinking they have since they wrote an article on the Glasgow SNP website of achievements.
Not their achievements but that of the SNP Government, but it didn’t stop them trying to claim credit for it.
Glasgow Southside MSP, Nicola Sturgeon claims voters are wanting change, everyone is seeking 'change' but what vision has Glasgow SNP laid out over the last term of this current council?
Nothing, it was a blank piece of paper.
Nicola Sturgeon said:
"I've lived in Glasgow for 20-plus years and I've never known the mood that there is in Glasgow just now, which is a mood of wanting change and disillusionment and disaffection with Labour. So I think we have a great chance and a great opportunity but we don't take anything for granted. We won the victories [of] last year because we worked really hard for every vote and that's what we will do again. At the end of the day, the result is down to the voters but we'll be working hard because I think the city does really need new leadership."
Her analysis is wrong, the reason for the SNP victory last May was that the Labour Party weren’t seen as a credible alternative for government, the SNP bar some mistakes had managed as a minority to steer a generally event free course.
That is why the SNP won.
There is an opportunity as she rightly says to win the city, but Herald Scotland says that although the Labour Party deserves to lose the city the SNP doesn’t deserve to win it.
Everything to play for, but an SNP victory at Glasgow City Chambers, this isn’t Holyrood. The SNP has produced a list of candidates most of whom I don’t know, never saw them before at any by-election campaigning.
And once this election is over, if they lose, they will disappear soon enough because that is their track record.
Type into Google their names and there is generally nothing, what do they stand for, what have they done, why didn’t they do by-elections?
Maybe if they had they would have had sufficient experience to know that elections aren’t won campaigning on potholes and dog shit.
They are about change, detail and vision.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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