Wednesday 26 November 2014

Labour Leadership Farce

I've been avoiding the usual 10:30pm current affairs slot on the telly but did tune in last night for Scotland Tonight's interview with the contender for Scottish Labour's Leadership, I'm still not sure who the other two people were. Scotland Tonight at least tries to be fair, it doesn't wear a sneer on its face like Scotland 2014. The BBC's flagship current affairs program is an exercise in snide, whether its accidental or because it's coming from the BBC - it loves looking down its nose at viewers.

During the independence campaign, the Yes Campaign was often accused of speaking mostly to itself - and there was probably some truth in that, although I don't think you can ever completely avoid it. Now though, Scottish Labour seems to be suffering similarly Neil Findlay - 

That would be me.

 - said when Nicola Sturgeon spoke this week in parliament; it was all rhetoric. He went on to back the claim up with - you'll never guess - some rhetoric. Much of what they say seems to be the result of focus group meetings stuffed mostly with Labour activists and staffers, their continuing mission is to boldly develop eye-catching policies that only make sense to Labour staffers and be rationalised by people like Duncan Hothersal.

While the SNP aren't perfect, one thing they've learned to do is listen; they try to be proactive. Occasionally they go off on an odd tangent (a good example is GIRFEC) but for the most part, they seem to know that leadership is conditional and the people who put them there aren't stupid. Scottish Labour are more used to setting the agenda for a disinterested electorate, they've held power without question for so long, they don't seem to know how to behave without it - ever since 2007 they've been flailing around helplessly and they're still doing it now.

I would feel sorry for Neil Findlay and Sarah Boyack - 



- but all three claim they'll plough their own furrow free from interference from London HQ - it is a lie no one believes. Although the notion of Ed Miliband leading anything is difficult to imagine, Scottish Labour will always be subordinate because Scotland itself is subordinate - how can it be any other way?

That's the problem with the union, and its why it never works for Scotland. It doesn't matter how often Westminster rent-a-gubs bang on about the pooling & sharing of resources or of the UK being 'one big family of nations' - when it comes to British politics, the main parties work for the maintenance of the British State. If it happens to benefit the electorate - who mostly live in the south of England - its mostly incidental. Westminster's interest in Scotland begins and ends with what it can get away with taking and how little it can get away with giving back.

The Tories fell by the way side in the 80's and 90's and they dragged the Lib Dems with them in the noughties. And after the huge clusterfuck of spin and death that was the trademark of Tony Blair and New Labour - in Scotland, voters are beginning to realise Westminster-based parties don't work for them at all.

Labour has set itself up for the most opprobrium; with the Tories; you know where you stand - they're a bunch of hard-hearted, flinty-eyed bastards and they don't mind who knows it - the Liberal Democrats have simply become Tory enablers whether they meant to or not. Labour on the other hand did something different - they managed to hoodwink people in Scotland in to thinking 'Scottish' Labour was different from 'UK' Labour and that it worked for them.


The truth is, it never did. The steel works stayed closed, electronic manufacturing still died on its arse and more recently big finance was allowed to rule the roost to disastrous effect.

Currently Labour north of the border via Jim, Neil, Sarah and the Daily Record are saying there are two reason why things are so shit: 1) they're not in power and 2) the SNP are. Meanwhile south of the border, Ed Miliband is pushing policies that would keep Labour out of office even if they weren't a bunch of daft gits. We're not supposed to know that though, we're supposed to be transfixed by Jim Murphy's baleful stare while continuing to not realise just how much of a shitbag he is.

We should probably talk about Jim Murphy.



Last night he said (with breathy urgency and incredulous eyes) he would 'like to see' income tax devolved, with it he said he'd reinstate the 50p tax rate. He said if Scotland wanted to spend more money it would have to raise it. What's the problem with that statement? Scotland already raises more tax than it spends. We'd end up paying twice; once for things we don't want (foisted on us by Westminster,) then again for the things we do need (free personal care for the elderly anyone?) Income tax accounts for a small part of Scotland's total tax take, it being devolved is nothing but a sop and we shouldn't fall for it.

I think its fair to say here embodied in one man is all that is wrong with politics in Britain today. A Blairite warmonger with an expenses fetish, a lying revisionist with a grasping sense of entitlement to high office in Scotland. He's a spineless Trident fan-boy who'll say anything if he thinks it'll garner a few votes. Jim doesn't give a shit about Scotland, he only cares about his place in the great British state machine. 

Still, Jim is the anointed one, he's been touched by Ed Miliband. The serried ranks of Labour members - all 14 of them - some unions and most MSP's can vote with confidence knowing that Jim passed muster with Head Office in London.

He'll win this leadership contest, but in the long run Labour in its current form will lose Scotland.



5 comments:

  1. Pa

    A very good analysis of Liebours current plight and the 3 contenders on paper but only one winner, Murphy, Milibands man in Scotland.

    I think you are right that some people have woken up to the lies they have been fed from Labour for longer than I have lived, wether it is enough come next May only time will tell, but some people have started to at least question what Labour have done for them and starting to understand what Labour have done to them all those years.

    I still suspect they have one more fight in them, I hope not, but I suspect they won't do as bad as we all hope next May. They are a cult and it might take a generation dying off in Scotland for this horrible, spiteful movement to be killed off once and for all. Hopefully to be replaced by an honest and honorable socialist movement, I am more and more impressed by the SSP every day and seriously considered joining before opting for the SNP as my means to an end. I still consider myself a Liberal but there is no Liberal party for me to join so the SNP it is for now.

    I agree with you on taxation, I wish the fucking so called journalists would do their job and report that no matter what Scotland does with tax it will remain fiscally neutral to Westminster. If Scotland lowers tax it will receive less, if Scotland increses tax the Barnett formula will be ammended to reduce the amound so therefor Scotland remains fiscally neutral. A totally pointless repsonsibility that will just cost us millions in admin charges from the treasury, family and union my arse.

    In my opinion England only remains part of the Union until Scotland no longer provides it's money, land and resources to be wasted by the scum that any Government in London are. I wish that the Scottish people would wake up and see that, if we had any sort of decent media then it would have happened a long time ago. They will write about jockholm syndrome in the future and marvel that so few got away with so much for so long. Our colonization will go down in the history books as one of the greatest deceptions ever brought upon a race of people.

    Labour I suspect are heading towards being unelectable in Scotland, Murphy should help that along and the sooner the better. The other two are just as bad and equally a waste of time, it now time for that party to die and go away. They have sucked enough blood from our country for long enough, they are scum and worse than the tories and liberals.

    bruce

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agree with Bruce too.

    Thanks both for reading and commenting, its always appreciated.

    Its a hell of a thing, a country brainwashed so it can bank roll the succubus that is Westminster.

    Politics is an industry for people like Murphy, I cannot have a lower opinion of the man.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Haven't a clue why they chose this man.

    Margrit Curran appeared to have grasped the problem when she embarked on her tour of all the Labour strongholds that voted YES in the referendum. (That is all the industrial towns, including all the UK parliamentary seats in Glasgow. In short all the places where they should vote Labour.)

    She said that Labour was moving back to its roots. No more New Labour. Proper working man's Labour it would be... like the party she and Johann joined in the middle of the last century.

    Mind she told them this, while she was busy stabbing Johann in the back for preferment in London.

    I had, though, for a little while, the impression that Labour had woken up.

    They must have, I reckoned, worked out that all these people in the sprawling estates weren't that bothered about nuclear weapons and the state of Syria; they were more interested in the fact that their wages didn't cover the rent and their bus fares, never mind the leccy and gas, some food and a couple of nights out.

    I wondered if we didn't maybe have a fight on our hands. A reinvigorated real Labour for the terrible days that we live in.

    But no... when Johann walked away saying that she thought Scotland should be able to make its own decisions, and not be tied to decisions made by a metropolitan elite in London (but only within the confines of the Labour Party, you understand), the London leadership decided to put forward a hard right wing, friend of Israel, war warmongering, expenses cheating, charmless, intellectual vacuum, who spent 9 whole fucking years at university getting sweet F all by way of qualifications. (Most of my friends could manage a Bachelor degree, PGD, Masters and doctorate in that time, with a year to spare.)

    And London is determined to have him as leader. So much so that the deputy leader, a London based MP, actually stood down so that there could be no chance that both leader and deputy would be in the English parliament. And the BBC treat him as if he already is leader, faithful servants of London that they are.

    To my way of thinking, if Jimmy boy is the answer, then the apparatchiks at Slab have most certainly been asking the wrong questions.

    Outwith his colleagues who, I'm sure you couldn't trust with the truth any farther than you could throw Eric Pickles, I have genuinely never met or conversed with anyone who had one single good word to say about him.

    He'll be a disaster. I hope he gets the job.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I concur Tris.

    They're speaking to themselves - they have to be if they think Jim is the man to renew or invigorate Scottish Labour.

    Like you said, he's universally disliked, creepy and dishonest.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for comment as always and I apologise if you have to jump through any hoops to do so. Its just that, I'm still being spammed by organisations who are certain I can't get it up or when it is up its not big enough or that I don't have anyone to get it up for.

Who knew blogging could be so bad for ones self-confidence?