Dear All
In politics, we would like to assume that
everything is fair and above board, the reason why is that trust is absolutely essential.
The Labour Falkirk row is extremely messy;
it should have been dealt with by the Scottish leader Johann Lamont and not farmed
out to Ed Miliband.
What is the point of a leader if you don’t
take charge?
If it wasn’t for the problems of Eric
Joyce, the scandal in Flakirk would never have happened, but it did, and now we
see that the chairman of the Scottish Labour Party has been dragged into it, as
it appears he was directly involved in the campaign to sign up union members.
It is said that this was done to influence
the constituency selection battle.
Vote rigging isn’t new in politics, if you
type in SNP Vote Rigging into Google, you come up with this:
Osama Saeed was a former adviser to Alex
Salmond.
And then read this:
Alex MacLeod worked for Alex Salmond.
Time for part of a quote by Alex Salmond:
“My problem is that I have too many
talented people”.
Back to Ms. Lamont’s problem, Emails reveal
party chairman Jackson Cullinane chit chatting away to leaders of the Unite
union during their epic attempt to secure the selection of its preferred
prospective parliamentary candidate called Karie Murphy. She has had to stand
down as the storm raged overhead.
Is it right that the Unite union should try
and attempt to pack the Falkirk Labour Party with its supporters?
Is it right that people were even signed up
as party members without their knowledge?
No and no!
If people believe that a vote can rigged
then why should they act in good faith?
Why should they be activists?
One time an SNP branch official said to me
that the SNP has the best election system that money can buy.
He laughed at that joke but make sure you read the links above.
So what should Labour do, what does Ed
Miliband and Ms Lamont need to get their head round?
Ordering an inquiry into what went on, it
doesn’t have to be public, but it does have to restore trust so that rank and
file members know that if they put their names forward then the election can’t
be bought out from under them.
Alistair Darling says that questions need
to be answered.
Looking at what passes back and forward
between certain people, must raise some eyebrows, particularly:
"Of course, joining a member by
cheque, and one they haven't even written themselves, will mean a lot of
drop-off after the first year, so it's not ideal in the long term but should be
okay for the selection."
“Okay for selection”.
This stinks!
Unimpressive SNP MSP Annabelle Ewing said:
"This is a damning revelation, and
means Johann Lamont can no longer get away with saying nothing of substance on
the issue”.
The SNP did nothing about the vote rigging
except to move the date when it became public, and a spokesman said what went
on broke no party rules.
Ewing added:
"Despite the fact she is supposed to
be leader of the whole Labour Party in Scotland, Ms Lamont has stood by and
watched her party implode in Falkirk without doing anything. Given this new
evidence, she can no longer leave this matter to her party bosses in
London."
In Scotland both Scotland’s ‘jolly fat man’
Alex Salmond and Scotland’s unpopular Deputy First Minster Nicola Sturgeon didn’t
change the rules to end SNP vote rigging, the people involved in buying
memberships for members of the Asian Community were close to both of them.
The SNP is a party within a party and their
hypocrisy is laughable, the SNP is a clique, run for the benefit of a clique
and as such there isn’t a lot of talent in it, just check out the Scottish
independence campaign, an utter shambles.
One thing is certain, if the members of the
Labour Party can’t trust their own selection process then how can the public
and that is why an inquiry is needed, and a total ban on the buying of
memberships via third parties.
If you want to be a member of a political
party, you buy your own membership.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow
University
Ask Wee Eck how his "personal" assistant Joan McAlpine managed to bag MSP. Activists in South Scotland had never heard of her until she appeared on the list. Well thought of by Eck she has her own couch at Bute House.
ReplyDeleteWell some say it's the couch, others whisper the truth.