The Comic and the SNP Clown, former Scottish Comic of the Year, Leo Kearse is to contest the Glasgow Pollok seat for Laurence Fox's Reclaim Party, the jokes will be flying thick and fast as Humza Yousaf squeals, but the last laugh could be from the Alba Party in the Holyrood 2021 campaign, if they knock out SNP and Scottish Greens list MSPs, when will Humza play the 'race card', all eyes on the former call centre worker of limited ability

Dear All 

The election in the Glasgow Pollok Constituency is  going to be a pretty crowded affair, it is shaping up so far as having 6 candidates. Five candidates so far declared themselves, and a mystery Scottish Conservative candidate to replace Dr Craig Ross waits in the wings. Craig Ross was removed due to comments made about foodbank users which was blown out of all proportion. At election times, parties become hyper sensitive to any criticism or accusation about a candidate, so rather ignore the opposition, they tend to be appeasers and dump their candidates rather quickly. In the case of Craig Ross, he is standing for the Glasgow Regional list now as an independent. He is a real lost to the Scottish Conservatives, as a politics lecturer, he knows politics and government inside out, his inexperience of political campaigning and how what you say can be turned against you let him down. 

The candidates declared for Glasgow Pollok are: 

Humza Yousaf SNP

Dr Zubir Ahmed Scottish Labour

Dr Christopher Ho Ukip

James Spiers Lib Dems

Leo Kearse The Reclaim Party

(to be advertised) Scottish Conservatives 

If you look back at the last Holyrood  election in 2016, only 4 parties stood in the election, SNP, Scottish Labour, Scottish Conservatives and the Lib Dems. The SNP took the seat with 15,316 votes, in second place with 8,834 votes was Scottish Labour. Third place went to the Scottish Conservatives who managed 2,653, not a great showing for them in a national election. This was due to a lack of long campaigning to cultivate their vote. Fourth was the Lib Dems candidate Isobel Nelson, a seasoned campaigner on 585 votes, and last but not least on 555 votes, a group called the TUSC. I remember the 2016 campaign in Glasgow Pollok, mostly for two things, one being the sole Scottish Labour Party activist doing the Govan ward on the Pollok side. Secondly being treated like shit by Johann Lamont of the Scottish Labour Party. Ms Lamont thought it was rather funny to promise me a ticket to the Glasgow count at a CLP campaign meeting. The second part of her joke was to effectively spit in my face and tell me she wasn't giving me a ticket at a later meeting. Incidentally, it was me who proposed both meetings so that she could maximise her vote in the election. 

I have recounted this story on the blog a few times because, I like to tell people the truth, and how I did get to go to the Glasgow count, despite what she done. After starting campaigning for her, it was quite clear in my mind, there was an attitude towards me. On day one of me campaigning, I turned up, walked up to one of the Govan Councillors waited as he finished talking to someone, after he spoke to me, he gave me a pile of leaflets  and walked off, not exactly the gushing welcome. After dropping my backpack and asda bag off with the rest of the activists's belongings at the campaign table at Govan, I found that they had later moved to another location. They decided to setup on the other side of the Govan Road because it was sunny and warmer. I also found out that they had left my belongings, my backpack and a plastic bag with my personal belongings including my laptop, lying on the pavement. When I asked Lamont's election agent,  Kevin O'Donnell standing at the table at the new location why my belongings had been left behind, he didn't know, he also appeared to not know who had moved the table. 

Leaving someone's personal belongings behind on a pavement so that they could be stolen is a pretty despicable thing to do, I have never came across this type of behaviour before until I joined Pollok CLP. It was the day the Labour Party at Govan stopped campaigning due to Paris terror attacks, Saturday 14th November 2015. The SNP had also turned up campaigning, both Labour and the SNP groups did a group photo together, solidarity which didn't include me being asked to take part. In fact, when Johann Lamont decided to stop campaigning, neither she or any member of her group told me, I had to go up and ask what was happening. When I found out they had stopped, I asked people in charge, are we finished, when they said yes, I just turned around and walked away. At a later campaigning session run by Lamont's election agent, Kevin O'Donnell, I was bite by a dog in Penilee which I ended up in hospital, same day getting an operation, he didn't express any interest in my wellbeing despite being the person in charge. O'Donnell left the 2016 campaign early to take a job in London, so a campaign which was run badly by him, really became an utter shambles. 

As in the best movies, in the final act, I appeared at the count because early doors, I had asked another political party if they could get me a ticket. When Lamont and O'Donnell saw me at the council count, Lamont's first words weren't 'hello', rather it was 'how did you get in'? I assume she had judging by the look on her face just worked out that I had made alternative arrangements. Needless to say if anyone had asked me to work for the Labour Party that night at the count, they would have been told to get lost. And that was the gist of Lamont's 2016 election, if I hadn't campaigned in Govan, delivering to 4,000 homes, the Labour vote would have been much lower than 8,834. I did the largest geographical area of any Labour activist, and that also included me working in Cardonald and Pollok. Post 2016, having got her meal ticket on the Glasgow list, I never saw Lamont again at a Pollok CLP meeting. 

As one comedian leaves, up pops another one in the shape of someone who actually is funny, former Scots comedian of the year Leo Kearse is to stand in Glasgow Pollok, Kearse is standing for the Scottish parliament elections as a candidate for Laurence Fox's Reclaim Party. Laurence Fox comes from the famous acting dynasty of Edward and James Fox, effectively showbiz royalty. Kearse according to 192.com, is registered in North London.

Kearse describes himself as a "right-wing liberal comedian' and stands on the platform of  repeal of the Hate Crime bill. His other pitch if elected or mission depending on where you stand is to "expose corruption, incompetence, and systemic wokeness within the SNP". I would argue this sounds pretty positive, point the finger and say, 'see him, he is a fucking asshole'. 

The problem that the Reclaim Party and Leo Kearse has in Glasgow Pollok is a lack of a track record, no history of campaigning, no database to understand where his vote is, no long campaigning, no track record of short campaigning. And, for the most part, he will have limited name recognition politically, if at all, with the people in Glasgow Pollok. You pay your £500 and roll the dice, see what happens, what is certain, Pollok is a two horse race. The other ideas for the Scottish Parliament is in a package of reforms including strengthening the powers of the Scottish Parliament by giving parliamentary privilege to MSPs, as well as splitting up the prosecutorial and governmental responsibilities of the Lord Advocate. As we have seen, the integrity of the Crown Office is no more. 

Kearse said: 

"The police, the church, the legal profession and even us comedians have all expressed opposition to this hated hate Bill. When once we had freedom, Scots now live under the increasingly stultifying boot of the SNP, where even our ability to speak freely around the dinner table is set to be policed by Humza Yousaf and Nicola Sturgeon. With wokeness and extreme nationalism seemingly the only acceptable discourses allowed in Scotland these days, I feel now is the right time to stand up and be counted." 

Another story of interest to get the juices following is, the Alba Party, and as people know, the vote in Scotland is polarised. Alex Salmond's new party is fishing in the nationalist pond. As we have seen the alleged purpose of this new party for PR purposes is to get a supermajority, but given what has happened, if you join Alba, are you really going to cast a vote for a woke SNP MSP in a constituency? Alba has wants MSPs at the expense of both the Scottish Greens and the SNP. Everyone who leaves the SNP as a politician or a member is a political resource gone, money gone, time gone, resources gone, this means that the pro UK parties have a better chance to win First Past The Post constituency seats. This wouldn't be easy but as Alba sucks the SNP dry, it helps other parties. It takes a bit of time to wrap your head round this because you have got to forget the PR pitch and understand what is really going on. When Sturgeon and her crew attack and smear Salmond, it works in his favour, it reinforces the narrative that the real victim in the criminal trial of Alex Salmond was Alex Salmond. You might say, no convinced, so I point you in the direction of a Salmond policy, just one, Salmond supports safe spaces for women. That is a huge fuck you to Nicola Sturgeon personally, and to the lgbt woke brigade. Here is a list of who has bailed out of the SNP: 

Kenny MacAskill MP

Neale Hanvey MP

Cllr Lynne Anderson SNP NEC’s Equalities Convener

Cllr Caroline McAllister SNP its Women’s Convener

Cllr Michelle Ferns SNP councillor in Glasgow

Cllr Chris McEleny SNP councillor in Inverclyde

Cllr Alistair Bews independent, formerly SNP councillor in North Kincardine

Cllr Leigh Wilson independent, formerly SNP councillor in Mearns

Corri Wilson former SNP MP

Eva Comrie  SNP regional list candidate for 2021

Irshad Ahmed SNP regional list candidate for 2021

Cynthia Guthrie  former member of SNP Finance Committee 

I would suggest, this is proof of what the Salmond plan is, drain the SNP of money, resources and people. 

Finally, there are 6 people standing, so in all likelihood, Leo Kearse is looking at being in the bottom 3 of the list. It isn't just enough to send out leaflets, you have to run a ground campaign, that means being rather creative with limited resources. Does Leo Kearse of N2 London have enough contacts to mount a decent ground campaign? We are talking, every day up until election day. Digital campaign can only get you so far, and he certainly will rely on putting out his youtube videos filled with comic observations of him out and about in Pollok. Youtube videos alone however don't an MSP make, so it will interesting to see, if he is a genuine candidate or a paper candidate, time will only tell, much in the same way we will see how the true intentions of Alba will be revealed, once the heat gets turned up.

Yours sincerely 

George Laird                                                                                                                                The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University