Firestarter Twisted Firestarter By-Election (Part 2)
Counting down the days till the great day when democracy swoops into action.
One of the great things about the Cathcart by-election is the opportunity for Pat DooLally to hurt Charlie Gordon. Schadenfreude is a terrible thing I know - but if that old goat Lally scuppers New Labours nest of vipers, all at 1820 will be chuckling into their trifle like well-oiled diners at the Scottish Politician of the Year awards.
The level of hatred between Lally and Labour can be beaten only by the joyful scene of watching McConnell grimace as he lays his arms around Gordon. Chums they are not. Gordon is a much maligned figure who his enemies have said shares with Gerald Ford the inability to walk and chew gum at the dame time. Labour are busy portraying him as a kind of tough municipal fixer. A sort of Precottesque ‘can do’ guy.
He has the social skills of a mink and, as ex-Leader of Glasgow City Council preside over the biggest slum landlord in Europe. They city is chronically diseased and staggers about with brutal sectarianism, endemic poverty and 100,000 people outside the labour market, two thirds of those on sickness or long-term benefits. So far so good for the labour stalwart. The Clyde is a stinking mess, inaccessible to anyone, and though the Merchant City and Braehead shopping centres will be pointed to enthusiastically by New Labour – the basic infrastructure is rotten, even if there’s a few extra jobs in car parks.
Glasgow features on 16 of the Top 20 Most deprived areas in Scotland.*
In the Second City of the Empire, which Smiles Better, and is remember ‘Scotland with Style’, 118,993 households, 43 percent, receive Income Support or Job Seekers Allowance, paid at the same rate. Income Support is paid at a poverty level rate of £50.45 a week for a single person over 25, £39.85 for 18- to 24-year olds, £30.30 for someone between 16 and 17. In Drumchapel, 69.9 percent of children received free school meals and 89.7 percent clothing grants. 32,653 children, 43 percent of the total school population, received free meals at school. 44,102, 58 percent, received grants for clothing. Free meals are given to children whose parents receive the basic state benefit - Income Support. Clothing grants are given to parents on Income Support and Family Credit -a top-up benefit to supplement the wages of the poorest working parents -and on Housing Benefit. This is Labours work.
Now now Labourite Donkeys will bray, what about Gordon’s great achievements as council leader - routinely listed as: Glasgow’s housing stock transfer (a measure he described as an “epochal redistributive step”); building 44 new schools; and the redevelopment of the Clyde.
If you’re in the Labour Party you will have swallowed this shit whole, so go out and do your duty and vote in Charlie. If not, your brain may still be functioning and you may reflect on the fact that the Glasgow housing transfer was a shameful betrayal of public housing, that the 44 new schools are part of a privatisation process that is tragic and the Clyde’s redevelopment has been endless, fruitless and hopeless.
The riverside is scarred by a walkway that is dangerous. Few bits of the river connect. The bridges have been mismanaged and the development seems to have been co-ordinated by a half-wit. Some of us will also remember August 7th, 2001, when Lord Provost Alex Mosson and Council leader Charlie Gordon, in spite of urgent appeals to do otherwise, stood mutely by as 250 police, aided by helicopters and horses, stormed Calder Street to ensure that Govanhill Swimming Pool was closed.
Mike Watson defends a majority of 5112. Vote for independence, defeat Labour, start a fire.
*according to research carried out by the Social Disadvantage Research Centre at Oxford University.
