An Xmas Card For You!
Here is a card just for you. Any similarity to the First Minister's official 'tomorrow belongs to me' card is purely coincidental.
Labels: politics, scotland, snp, xmas
:: | 8:18 pm |Save This Page | |
| (2) comments
:: Thursday, September 13, 2007 ::
Ray a Drop of Golden Sun
:: | 11:33 am |
:: Sunday, July 01, 2007 ::
Glasgow Airport
Edinburgh city centre was crawling with police last night. When I stepped off the bus in Princes Street I counted 7 on foot and 3 vehicles straight away. The already high security for the opening of the Scottish Parliament has been stepped up.
It is too early to say much about the appalling attack at Glasgow Airport. Many of us will have passed through the area where the attack took place. The school holidays are starting here and the place was full of families, of all races, religions and nationalities, heading for the sun. And two inept would-be martyrs aimed to kill as many of them as possible.
The result has already been a backlash against the asian communities here in Scotland. Meanwhile our first minister and some of the papers are keen to point out that the attackers probably weren't Scottish. So have local muslim leaders including the Muslim Association of Britain. Asian voters are an important part of the constituency of the SNP now and polls have indicated a large degree of support for Scottish independence from that community. The only Muslim MSP represents the SNP. So there is a complex dynamic of race, religion and nationality taking place.
We need to come together and stand against any racist backlash, regardless of the nationality of the attackers. We also need to say once again that there is no place in our society for murderous zealots but that means recognising that perpetrating injustice around the world has to stop.
τ
:: | 4:30 pm |
:: Sunday, June 03, 2007 ::
Free Again
The provision of free and healthy school meals for all children is something the SSP campaigned on for years, presenting bills to the parliament twice. The measure has been proven to make a significant difference to health and to children's behaviour in the classroom. It has been a success where it has been introduced in Scandinavia and closer to home by Hull City Council (though the new lib-dem administration has scrapped it on financial grounds.)
So it is welcome that the SNP administration are introducing a pilot scheme in Scotland. Ironic too, given that they opposed the SSP measures and could have got the scheme through years ago if they had cared about more than short term political advantage. They obviously feel that the coast is clear now with no danger of the reds getting the credit.
τLabels: politics, scotland, snp
:: | 1:25 pm |
:: Friday, June 01, 2007 ::
Rebuilding the Left
John McAllion, respected former Labour MP and MSP and current SSP member, had an interesting article in the Morning Star this week.
Among other points he states:
"Yet, welcome as these policies are, they cannot disguise the dire defeat inflicted on the Scottish socialist left by this election. The forward march of 1999 and 2003 has been brought to a shuddering halt in 2007 with all six SSP/Solidarity members wiped out and the Greens reduced to just two seats.
Yes, the socialist vote was squeezed in a tight election where left voters wanted to maximise the chance of the SNP inflicting an historic defeat on new Labour. Yes, the media coverage and comment was unfair and slanted in favour of the mainstream parties. Yes, they had money to burn where we had little or nothing.
But the reality remains that no candidate standing on a socialist ticket was elected and, between Solidarity and the SSP, we registered just over 2 per cent of the list vote.
It is simply fatuous to pretend that the now infamous infighting that led to the disastrous split into two opposing socialist camps did not contribute to this electoral rout.
The wrecking of socialist unity and the spectacle of comrades opposing each other while standing on exactly similar manifestos guaranteed that voters would not see us a serious political force. In truth, we got the vote that we deserved.
In the course of this campaign, I read an account of a Solidarity meeting at which Tommy Sheridan and George Galloway addressed a wildly enthusiastic crowd of 250 supporters packed into a church in Edinburgh. It reminded me of a similar meeting which I had read about where Jim Sillars had addressed an equally large and enthusiastic group of SNP supporters on the eve of the 1987 general election before going down to a glorious defeat in the following day's election to Tam Dayell, who was elected MP for Linlithgow.
I am sure that everyone at both meetings had a great time. But we are not in politics to indulge our taste for rhetoric or to attend packed political meetings because they make us feel good.
We are in politics to challenge the big business parties' grip on political power and to get socialists elected into positions where they can begin to make a difference on behalf of working people.
This election result has made that an infinitely harder task for socialists across Scotland. There was nothing glorious about Solidarity/SSP defeat in this election.
If we can face up to that bitter lesson and begin the task of putting the Scottish left together again, then maybe there is light at the end of the dark tunnel that we now find ourselves in."
There is no doubt that the division in the left was a huge factor in the collapse of the left vote. All the left parties put together got around a third of what they polled in the previous Scottish parliamentary election. Is unity possible or even desirable? Well in the long term it is unavoidable, there is simply no room for multiple parties standing with similar programs (SSP, SLP, Solidarity...). All it leads to is mutually assured destruction.
But exactly how to overcome division is another questions.
The SSP/Solidarity split was bitter, the worst I have experienced in 25 years, and I've experienced a few. Sheridan has more court cases to come, which will re-open all those wounds. But solidarity faces an uncertain future. They were set up as a project to get Sheridan elected. Having failed to do that, and with his lies unravelling day by day, his fair-weather friends are keeping their distance. One of the biggest components of Solidarity is the SWP, whose English project is Respect. Respect at their last national council meeting voted to set up a committee to explore the possibility of organising in Scotland. The proposal came directly from George Galloway, so the result is virtually a foregone conclusion. In addition the previously friendly press and media types are notably more hostile to Tommy.
If Solidarity still exists in a years time it will look very different to the way it does now and could face yet another rival in the form of Respect Scotland (which most of Solidarity will want nothing to do with.)
The Greens also have to face up to a relative failure. But what is more their party has a few years of their relationship with the neo-liberal SNP to come. It could be a sobering experience for radical Greens.
Rebuilding the Scottish left will be a process that will take years and not months. It will be impacted by the tussle between Holyrood and Westminster and the evolving constitutional crisis, which could include a tory Cameron government in Westminster. It will be blown by the unpredictable winds of struggle and the challenges that will pose all of those organisations.
But with dedicated and painstaking engagement with local communities, trade unions and struggles there is still hope for the left in Scotland. It may have to take the form of a 'unity list' giving different organisations priority in different regions. But that is a long way off.
τLabels: politics, scotland, theleft
:: | 5:26 pm |
:: Thursday, May 10, 2007 ::
If voting changed anything...
I read somewhere that if Venezuela had lost 100, 000 votes then Bush and Blair would be calling for tanks to roll through the streets of Caracas. Here in Scotland it turns out that there were actually closer to 142,000 votes disqualified in last weeks Scottish elections.
Well they have sworn in the new MSP's so the chance of a re-run is slim to none.
You can protest though and call for Scottish secretary Douglas Alexander (a man I once campaigned for to be rector of Dundee University when he was high heid-yin in NUS Scotland) to resign and for a proper independent enquiry. Sign the petition organised by the YouScotland site.
Oh, and we still don't have a government yet.
τ
:: | 3:51 pm |
:: Friday, May 04, 2007 ::
Circus Games
The story of the Scottish elections so far have been dominated by the chaos of the voting system. Most regional votes still haven't been announced and up to 100, 000 spoilt papers have been recorded. Constituency after constituency reported 1000, 1200 or more spoiled papers. In the overwhelming number of cases this will be because of voters making mistakes and voting wrongly, for example marking a cross on their council paper or numbering their Scottish Parliament paper. The decision to have both the council elections and the Scottish parliamentary elections on the same day, with two different voting systems and three different votes was a disaster.
Instead of two ballot papers for the constituency and the regional lists there was one with the regional list on the left (although previously this was popularly known as the 'second vote'. The paper said to mark two crosses on this ballot paper with an arrow pointing directly down to the regional list vote (although it meant one for each vote). Those mistakenly marking two votes on the regional list had their votes discounted.
On Radio Scotland polling clerks and counting clerks are saying that smaller parties suffered worst from this confusion.
Additionally, unlike in previous elections, ballot papers were not supposed to be folded before being placed in a ballot box. This would be confusing for older voters especially. It's not clear whether this would invalidate these votes, though I tend to think not.
In addition to that a new electronic counting system was introduced and there were major problems with the postal voting system. In some constituencies the winning parties majority was smaller than the number of spoiled papers.
It has been a terrible night for democracy.
For the left the night has been bad. In reality our hopes were to get maybe one or two seats. However neither side of the SSP split have succeeded in being elected (there are still some results to come in as I write but this is how it looks like turning out). In the previous Scottish Parliamentary elections the fact that the left was united made it credible and gave it a boost that was more than the sum of its parts. The reverse has proved to be true this time with a divided left losing credibility all round. But probably a bigger factor was the big swing to the SNP and the polarised situation between the SNP and Labour. SNP votes went up in the constituencies and on the regional list. They recovered the list vote in spectacular fashion and smaller parties suffered accordingly.
From here we can only look for consolation in the council election results. After that we need to re-assess where we are politically. A divided left is not viable but overcoming that division could take years. Campaigning will return to the streets, workplaces and communities. A lot will also depend on the outcome of the election. A neo-liberal SNP government will expose their politics although the possibility of constitutional crisis may overshadow that. A weakened labour coalition will lead to a heightened polarisation between the SNP and Labour and the circus will carry on.
τLabels: elections, scotland, scottishpolitics, ssp
:: | 9:40 am |
:: Monday, February 05, 2007 ::
Liberation
From the Tories, to the Lib-Dems, party of government. Well they actually get fewer votes than the tories but make up the junior partner in the ruling coalition in the Scottish Parliament. With elections approaching the coalition partners have to stop being nice to each other and start with the slagging. But there is an interesting twist. What approach will the Lib-Dems take to the question of a referendum on Scottish independence should the SNP take power? Officially they are against having such a thing and favour a "federal Britain". But an internal poll of party members on their website showed a majority in favour (source: a comment in this article). An SNP-LibDem government? An outside bet but not impossible.
τLabels: independence, libdems, politics, scotland
:: | 9:33 am |