Political Parties rise and fall: Labour Cllr Jackie Burns: Deputy Leader of South Lanarkshire council has been charged by Police Scotland, as well as electoral defeat the party is experiencing a constant run of bad luck, bad decisions and bad news, it is time to show leadership

Dear All

Here is a quote:

“Families are always rising and falling in the America.”

The quote is by a 19th-century American novelist and short story writer Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The same could be also said of political parties, they rise and the fall, how long between each cycle depends on various factors.

Yesterday, I was blogging how things at the top of the Labour are bad, the spiral of just sheer bad luck almost seems like a cycle.

When the Labour Party went through the Westminster 2015, I was sitting on the side lines watching the world go by, I had no choice, I was ill, seriously ill, and for the first time in my entire life, I had wrote a will.

But I lived thanks to the skill of my surgeon and the Scottish NHS; I never thought when I campaigned for Better Together that a few months later I would be calling on their services to save me.

So at the end of 2015, a rather ill shaky George Laird stumbled back out on to the playing field, shunted into Pollok CLP.

Recently Labour Cllr David Fagan was rightly suspended from the Labour Party.

http://glasgowunihumanrights.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/scottish-labour-councillor-david-fagan.html

Party bosses will be rather upset that this issue is happening, and who can blame them, this type of stuff is so toxic that no one wants to be anywhere near it.

Now, we get another bad news story, Labour Cllr Jackie Burns is Deputy Leader of South Lanarkshire council, he is now charged by police after incident last month. When parties have leadership problems at the top, like an army they start to fall apart, the troops become demoralised and a sense of gloom and impending defeat enters their minds.

Police Scotland said:

"We can confirm that a 52 year old man has been reported to the Procurator Fiscal in connection with an alleged offence."

Cllr Jackie Burns represents Larkhall on the council and being a cllr he sits on various committees, including social work, planning, recruitment and housing. He also sits on the board of NHS Lanarkshire.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said:

"Councillor Jackie Burns has been suspended from the party and the South Lanarkshire Council Labour group."

A council spokesman said:

"The council has been informed that councillor Burns has been suspended by his party. The council leader has advised that councillor Burns will cease to represent the Labour party on the council while he is suspended."

A Crown Office spokesperson:

"The Procurator Fiscal has received a report concerning a 52-year-old man in connection with an alleged incident said to have occurred on 18 September 2016. The report remains under consideration.”

And no one apparently at this stage is willing to say what the alleged incident actually is at this juncture.

Being in politics is a stressful gig if you do the job and put the work in, and there is a flood of work, for others, there is no stress because they do the bare minimum and are crap.

The Scottish Labour Party cannot afford to keep suspending Councillors, so they should re-enforce to those who have been elected that yes, they want the highest standards in public office, nothing more than can reasonably be expected.

Apparently some in the Scottish Labour Party have written off North Lanarkshire and Glasgow, now bad news out of South Lanarkshire council.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University