What represents Leadership in the modern Labour Party, people charting their own course are seen as leaders when in fact they are just functionaries pretending to be, there is no such thing as a fair weather leader, maybe the Labour Party need to learn that concept

Dear All

Do you know what leadership is?

If you look it up online you get:

‘Leadership, the action of leading a group of people or an organization, or the ability to do this’.

Now, do you know what team work is?

‘Teamwork, the combined action of a group, especially when effective and efficient’.

In politics, if helps if you have three things, leadership ability, be able to work as part of a team and last but not least have vision with and the ability to adapt.

The big Labour Councils in Scotland decided that being part of Cosla, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities was a bad thing and detrimental to their areas. So, South Lanarkshire, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Renfrewshire wanted to go their own way, at the time, I thought this was unusual.

Now, we have Eddie McAvoy, Labour leader of South Lanarkshire, saying there "may be merit" in his authority rejoining Cosla.

So, is McAvoy failing to demonstrate teamwork or is McAvoy demonstrating leadership?

Have a think about this and see what answer you come up with!

Scottish Labour in the past has had a rather bad habit of pushing through ideas at various levels in local government only to do rather embarrassing U turns, the one that really sticks with me is former MSP Paul Martin wanting to scrap hospital parking charges brought in under Labour PFI schemes. Now when in opposition he was outrage the charges he helped bring in affecting people actually affected people.

Why was it right to bring in PFI charges in the first place then wrong later on?

Was Paul Martin MSP demonstrating leadership by bring the charges in or leadership for campaigning to get rid of them, did he demonstrate teamwork both campaigning for and later against the thing which he supported?

At present the Labour Party has just come through a very bad leadership contest which solved nothing, Jeremy Corbyn is still the leader as the membership decided rightly to back him over Owen Smith.

I voted for Jeremy Corbyn, it wasn’t on policy or on him as an individual, it was the underhanded manner of 172 Labour MPs who decided as a group that members didn’t matter and that they had the ‘right’ to get rid of a duly elected leader.

Did the 172 Labour MPs who were part of what was termed by some ‘the coup’ demonstrate leadership?

Did Labour member Michael Foster who went to court to knock Jeremy Corbyn off the ballot paper was he demonstrating leadership?

At various levels of the Labour Party, post Corbyn victory there have been calls for unity, but the reality is although there is talk to unite the party, the party isn’t united, there isn’t a strategy all the way up and down the line.

So, why is Eddie McAvoy, Labour leader of South Lanarkshire breaking ranks with Glasgow, Aberdeen and Renfrewshire?

He and others decided on a course of action, remain united, now it seems that the commitment to that concept appears to be deserting him.

In 2017, there are the council elections, after suffering defeat after defeat, the Labour Party in some quarters appear to be planning for defeat, which begs the question, what type of leadership is that being demonstrated?

The phrase ‘managing expectations” is rather telling because it suggests that an air of doom and gloom has entered their thinking, why should people follow leaders who aren’t able to show leadership when the times go bad?

A leader should be able to function even when circumstances are adverse, it seems that some in the Labour Party think that getting elected and kicked out is part and parcel of being on a merry go round, you wait to get your turn.

In the past, the public were used to ping pong politics between the two main parties, while ping pong politics flourished the real losers were the public, with no real external competition no matter who got in the people didn’t get a choice.

The election of Jeremy Corbyn has given people in the Labour Party something that they haven’t had for some time, that thing is hope. Of course winning the leadership of the Labour Party doesn’t mean or translate as being able to win a General election. To win an election you have to have board appeal which is why I want to mention Labour MP Diane Abbott, Abbott recently decided to call Brexit voters ‘Bigots’.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/715235/brexit-voters-slam-diane-abbott

Is Diane Abbott demonstrating leadership?

Is Diane Abbott demonstrating teamwork in that she is promoting the party in the best possible light to future voters?

Stop a moment and think this through.

How did Diane Abbott ever get passed as a candidate to be an MP?

If her comments were a one off, you might forgive and forget, but she has a history of saying stupid things.

Here is an article relating to her conduct:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8994068/Diane-Abbott-White-people-love-playing-divide-and-rule.html

Diane Abbott ran for the Labour leadership in 2010, the Membership marked her down as I recall Abbott was eliminated in the first round of voting after securing 7.24% of votes.

Last night on Questiontime, the columnist Rod Liddle said something rather stark about the leadership of the Labour Party, he said they live in a ‘bubble’, and they don’t give a shit about anyone’s opinions other than themselves. This is strong stuff, in Scotland, the Scottish Labour had to find out the hard way at the ballot box what failing to deliver, failing to lead actually meant, Westminster 2015 was the worst defeat in Scottish Labour history, 2016; the public sent the Scottish Labour Party another message, the worst defeat in the history of Holyrood.

We now have the Council elections of 2017 coming up, if you have been reading the blog for some time, you will know prior to me joining the Labour Party, I made a public commitment to stand as a candidate in the 2017 Council elections. 

After doing a bit of research I decided to look into the backgrounds of those who I maybe colleagues of if I get elected. I wouldn't characterise some people as demonstrating leadership something I was failed recently by the Labour Party selection.

Anyway I found this also:

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/14460171.As_the_SNP_surge__have_Glasgow_City_Council_s__Labour_Lads__already_chucked_it_for_2017_/

Now, do I break a promise I publicly made to stand as a candidate in this election, if anyone thinks the answer is yes, then clearly they don’t know me or what leadership is.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University