Dear All
It seems that the Labour Party isn’t a very happy ship at present; they suffered their worst result at the Westminster 2015 election since 1918.
And Holyrood 2016 isn’t looking too good either for Labour, and if the trend continues, then 2017 could see the SNP win the Glasgow City Council.
Of course nothing is set in stone, events, dear boy events.
If you are a Glasgow Labour Councillor, you might lose your seat; obviously this has crossed the minds of some of them down at the City Chambers.
Panic may or may not set in, depending on whether the Labour Party intends to make a fight of it, since the 4 by-elections in the City; the Labour Party hasn’t been very active; their last bit of campaigning was the Tax Credit campaign a few weeks ago.
Russell Robertson is a Glasgow Labour councillor until today I never heard of him, but I recognise the face, I guess he has still to make an impression with me. Anyway he has come out in support of Scottish independence. Maybe he has a plan to fix the massive black hole if Scotland did become independent, if so, he should trot it out, I like a good read.
So, he has gone from campaign against indy to campaigning for indy, and it is alleged that the councillor for East Centre has also privately discussed following his former Labour colleague Stephen Dornan into the SNP.
Oh what a mistake, joining a 'rat ship', what happened to brains?
If he is going to jump he should jump now with Xmas coming up, if he wants to book his place at the table for whichever party he is in. Apparently, he has done an impassioned Facebook post.
He stated:
“I am fed up to the teeth with London lording over me – the Tories stink, the House of Lords stinks, the establishment stinks, the anti JC (Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party leader) agenda stinks, the blood lusting to bomb Syria stinks, the rule Britannia mentality stinks. We are a nation and must govern ourselves – warts n all.”
He added:
“The current landlord arrangements by a contemptible, detached, and outdated Westminster has to go.”
So, what should Labour do about Labour Councillor Russell Robertson?
That is an easy question, he should lose the Labour whip at Glasgow City Council, and Frank MacVeety shouldn’t even think twice about that.
However if Robertson does leave Labour or gets booted out, he might not get a home in the SNP it seems, former Labour Councillor Stephen Dornan got taken in but we should remember, at the time the SNP had no representative in ward 5 which is Govan following the death of Allison Hunter.
I stood in the by-election that followed her death; I came 7th out of 14, with only 17 days of campaigning and polling day itself. I managed to come 7th despite SNP members trying to cause trouble at the polling station for me.
Anyway Dornan did a bit of campaigning for indy along with John Flanagan, another former Labour councillor who was kicked following the cull of Labour Councillors prior to the 2012 election. Dornan then stood as a candidate under the Glasgow First banner along with some other de-selected councillors; he got in, the rest failed to win their seats.
An SNP source said on a possible jump by Robertson:
“If he did apply we would want to check it's not just an attempt to keep his seat”.
How exactly would they do that task?
I mean it isn’t like they are terribly clever, would they tie in to a chair and beat him with a rubber hose, wire up his goolies to the electricity, pull his fingernails out or just use sleep deprivation while screaming confess!!!!
Scottish Labour says party leader Kezia Dugdale is relaxed about elected members being pro indy and said Councillor Robertson would not face any sanctions.
Isn’t that terribly nice of her, I am sure that Robertson undermining Labour using Facebook in the run up to possibly another damaging election, this time for Holyrood will probably be forgotten, seems that Labour have bigger concerns.
Councillor Robertson isn’t responding to requests for comment at present since he made a fool of himself, one can only wonder what his branch members will think of this come selection time.
Apparently Council leader Frank McAveety is “not happy” about Councillor Robertson at present which strongly suggests he won’t be sending Robertson a Xmas card.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
3 comments:
Mr Robertson is on the left of the party having previously supported Neil Findlay for the Scottish Leadership, and Jeremy Corbyn for the UK Party role. I have heard this line from a number of hard-left quasi-Marxists that independence would allow for a hard left socialist regime to be introduced on a permanent basis in Scotland. While left wing politics are undoubtedly more popular in Scotland than in England, this seems to be based on the notion that someone else will pick up the (sizeable) tab for this. The phrase 'scandanavian polcies with a Texan taxation system springs to mind. The answer is always 'tax the rich' in order to fund ever increasing levels of public spending, ignoring the fact that the richest one per cent in Scotland already pay around a third of the taxes that pay for the public spening that already equates to over £10,000 for every man women and child in the country. The fact that the UK is currently running a budget deficit of around 8% of GDP and that Scotland would need to run a budget deficit of at least twice that to fund existing expenditure, never mind the increases to Health, education and spending that will filter through the Barnett Formula on the back of the recent UK Govt spending review, seems to be irrelevent in the purusit of this socialist utopia. Independence is even more crucial to this socialist nirvan now that Jeremy Corbyn is beinbg deliberately discredited (and hence being made unelectable) by the media and establishement, when in fact Corbyns conduct since taking over the labour leadership has thrown in more material than could ever be dreamt up in the finest dreams of the right wing press. So the only option now for socialism seems to be an independent scottish 'socialist democracy',ignoring the fact that any one with any wealth would move out of of reach of the governement prior to any ascendence of such a government through massive capital flight, with the best brains and talent also crossing the border at Gretna and Berwick. Economic reality doesnt seem to exist in this socilaist enclave where everything is fair, everyone is equal and the nasty torie are run out of town.
Re Anonymous post about the like of Robertson and his ilk taxing the rich, where would that leave the likes of McColl, Souter, the Weirs, etc, etc....
The first thing that would happen if the hard left got their way would be an exodus, and capital flight.
To be fair, Corbyn, MacDonnell & Co don't take much discrediting, given their past comments, they have given their opponents plenty of ammunition.
If it had not been for the harm it would cause, FFA might have given the Nationalist cause a welcome (and long overdue) dose of reality.
I would like to know what Mr Robertson's views are on the story regarding the Fire Service in Scotland. It appears that some tenders are unmanned due to a lack of funding. If independence was going to happen next year, where on earth would the money come from? Scotland receives a hefty chunk from the UK, which would be considerably less had we voted for independence last year.
I have yet to hear a coherent arguments from the socialists about how all their plans would be funded.
Slightly aside, it appears that the nationalist critic of the BBC News is now targetting fictional series, claiming it is inaccurate and shows the Celts in a poor light. FFS some people really need to get a life. One commentator even said that it is a deliberate attempt to brainwasj the Scots. This pish is exactly the same type of comments about given by the SNP about Robertson. Unless you have Alex Salmond's face tattooed on your arse, it seems that they trust no one.
And these clowns want to rule Scotland?
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