Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Open Letter to Alex Salmond; you defend Glasgow SNP leader Allison Hunter citing she is a “great woman”, there is no greatness there!
















Dear All

You know that things are bad in Glasgow when the First Minister Alex Salmond has to defend you publicly.

In this case, he has ‘gone to bat’ for the gaffe prone old aged pensioner Allison Hunter, ‘Leader’ of the SNP Group at Glasgow City Council.

Alex Salmond badly needs to win Glasgow by a landslide; anything else would be a personal disaster for him and the SNP.

The SNP Leader is spending a great deal of time in Glasgow ahead of the crunch election in the city on Thursday!

His take on Allison Hunter is that she is a “great woman.”

Wow, talk about being completely out of touch!

What exactly does Alex Salmond think is ‘great’ about Alllison Hunter?

I have met her, several times, there is no greatness there, she even admitted that she isn’t an out there leader, just a team leader.

And anyone can be that!

When Allison Hunter admitted that she had not “actually thought” what policies she would introduce if the SNP takes power in Scotland’s biggest city, the question spring to mind immediately.

What has she and the other SNP Councillors been doing for the last 5 years?

Her performance through-out this election has been so gaffe ridden, it has a comic feel to it.

Another piece of Hunter ‘wisdom’ that bombed in the press was her saying this week’s elections were a stepping stone towards achieving an independent Scotland.

In debates, she fails to impress, I caught up with her at the Sunny Govan Hustings, there wasn’t greatness in the room and she failed to shine in a room of political non entities.

Alex Salmond used a radio interview to voice his support for Ms Hunter as you do.

He said:

“I looked exactly at Allison Hunter’s quote – what she said is the SNP is the party for independence and everybody knows that, but the priority was change in Glasgow for the people of Glasgow, that’s what she said and of course our opponents, who are no doubt entitled to do so, took the first half of the quote and forgot the second half.”

Then in defending Hunter, he launched an attack on Labour-led administration in Glasgow, presumably this is part of the positive message which the SNP keeps pushing.

Salmond said:

“Well, I think Allison is a great woman, she is community orientated. I will tell you the difference between Allison and perhaps some other, how shall I describe it – city bosses – that Glasgow’s had in the past. When Allison, because I look at tweets and things, when Allison gets on her tweet, she talks about the people in Glasgow that’s she’s met in the campaign and the priorities they have. When the current city boss [Gordon Matheson] talks in his tweets, he talks about how great he was on television last night, and I think that’s maybe the difference between the two styles of leadership. So I go for community-orientated leadership – I think it is time for a change in Glasgow.”

It has since transpired that Gordon Matheson, the Glasgow Labour leader is not on Twitter!

Let me tell you about “community-orientated leadership” of Allison Hunter, Mr Salmond.

On a SNP work day in Govan, there were four people who turned up to do activism, Allison Hunter, Chris Stephens, Richard Bache and me.

After the work day ended, an SNP branch official turned to me and said ‘you can make your own way home from here, its not far’. Then he, the candidate Chris Stephens and Allison Hunter all jumped into her car and sped off along the long road I had to walk back along.

There was an empty seat but it wasn’t offered to me by Mrs Hunter, the sign of a petty mean spirited individual.

If I was the candidate in that election, I would have walked back with the activist purely as a matter of principle to people who worked for me and with me.

To quote you back Mr. Salmond:

“I think Allison is a great woman, she is community orientated”.

In the Westminster 2010, I was asked by Mrs Hunter, why wasn’t I doing ballot box sampling as a joke I said, ‘don’t I do enough work for the party’.

I was then subjected to a foul mouthed tirade of abuse by Allison Hunter.

To quote you back Mr. Salmond:

“I think Allison is a great woman, she is community orientated”.

‘Great woman’, you’re kidding yourself on son.

This ‘change’ you are going for, is the foul mouthed tirade of abuse of Allison Hunter?

She has my full support to resign after the election on Thursday.

And that’s 110% support.

You better hope that the Salmond bounce continues because if it doesn’t you might have to face up to reality.

I wouldn't waste my breath on her!

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

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