Glasgow Airport Rail Link

 It is unfortunate that plans for the Glasgow Airport Rail link seem to be back on the agenda. We have made our reservations on these proposals clear on many occasions but would like to take this opportunity to once again look at the problems associated with this scheme.

We fully understand that the scheme would create many jobs both in the construction phase and in the enhanced passenger throughput for the airport, but construction firms tend to use their own on-book skilled labour force so we believe that the benefit to the people of Renfrewshire would be minimal. In return Renfrewshire would suffer all of the social, environmental and economic costs involved in making sure that travellers from Glasgow can get to their flights without ever having to set foot in Renfrewshire. It makes little sense. We also believe that the rail link would be vastly uneconomic unless heavily subsidised in its day-to-day operation and we are unsure what contribution the airport authorities would make towards both the construction and the running of this service designed to enhance the profitability of the airport.

We believe that if such a project has to go ahead, and we are not convinced that it must, especially when every environmental group is campaigning to reduce air travel, then there has to be a radical re-think of the whole thing from the bottom up. It is our belief that any proposed new line should go from Glasgow to Braehead, increasing the footfall to that centre which seems to be a priority for Renfrewshire Council. The line should proceed from there to Renfrew, which would increase the access infrastructure of the largest town in Scotland without a railway station and enhance the economic activity and employment in that area. It should then enter the airport from the Inchinnan end.

This would mean that all of the prospective jobs in construction and in the airport would be maintained and would be of some benefit to Renfrewshire and its people. It would also make the line more useful and might, through increased use, reduce the need for public subsidy.

Reaction Formation and Councillor Terry Kelly

Reaction formation is believed to occur when someone finds an idea in themselves so especially threatening that they deal with it by enthusiastically embracing its opposite, and so it is with the New Labour Party and Socialism.

The stand-out in this field is Councillor Terry (TKMax) Kelly of Renfrewshire District. There is a strong suspicion that Councillor Kelly is a closet Socialist, despite his support for Blair's Government, his support of the selling off of council housing to a private limited company and his latest aberration, the stigmatising of a foodbank user who dared to criticise the policies of the Cameron government. Still, on his blog, he claims to be a socialist. How can this be ?

The councillor runs the most vile, hate-filled blog it has been my misfortune to read. It is filled with spiteful venom and really obnoxious, and often has a special place for the Socialists. But Terry claims to be a socialist and although I do not know him personally, I'm told by those who do that he's 'ok'. So it's difficult to believe that a vile hate-filled, spiteful, venomous, obnoxious person could charm the voters, could they ? Unless they were modelled on Blair. I believe the explanation is that Terry is reacting to his own shame at allowing his own Socialism to be sold down the river for a place at the council table and a pay of around £460 per week. But he says he's a socialist and how could anyone think one of Tony Blair's New Labour people would tell a lie ? I mean, I'm sure that if they live long enough, maybe four or five hundred years, Tony Robinson and the Time Team will find those weapons of mass destruction, right ?

So he embraces all of the Tory policies with enthusiasm, attacking foodbank users, manipulating Renfrewshire's assets for tax avoidance and promoting big business at the Braehead Shopping Development. He gets into bed with Cameron's Tories to fight against independence with more vitriol than the Tories themselves. Nothing is too right wing for Terry, because we believe he has to do it to cover up his embarrassment and shame at having sold his Socialism for a paltry portion of silver and a small sliver of power. Ashamed of his own cowardice he has to try to be a bully, but he's not scary enough. That he has to be obnoxious, and to lose all respect among decent people is a very small price to pay when you have already committed the major act of betrayal of your community and working class heritage, and you can always pass off anger at yourself as strong commitment to principle if you are loud enough.

And as for the real Socialists, he hates us worst, because we are a constant reminder to him of his shame and betrayal. We are the open sore that just wont heal, we wont go away no matter what he does. We haunt him like a bad dream of what he believes but dare not admit because were he to come out of the closet as a socialist by action rather than just words then his leader, Councillor McMillan, would dispense with the services of his court jester as quickly as you can say Gulf War, and then he's off the gravy train.

Kenny McKaskill, al Megrahi and Lockerbie

My views on the SNP are fairly well known, and in Renfrewshire these crypto-facists under Iron Man McKaskill and his protege Beau Derek Mackay have given us, in addition to the police and the special constables, litter wardens, dog shit wardens, taxi rank wardens, traffic wardens, taxi drop off wardens, smoking wardens, street wardens, anti social tenant teams, licenced doormen, street CCTV and a host of other forms of social control, all ostensibly to keep us safe, presumably from each other. All of these strutting uniformed little Hitlers make me despair and what I really want is someone to keep me safe from the increasing tendency of the SNP to impose good behaviour by force instead of education.

You will understand therefore how reluctant I am to give any credit to the Iron Man for anything just in case it encourages him to stay in his post any longer than necessary, but in the matter of the release of al Megrahi I think he has done a good thing.

Leaving aside the question of al Megrahi's guilt or innocence, to release a dying man to see his family on compassionate grounds, to reasonable people, seems to be a no-brainer. The brutality of the Lockerbie bombing isn't a factor. He was released because we are compassionate, not because he was, and I believe that this is important.

My Muslim friends tell me that the Koran is a book of compassion not violence and I have no reason (not having read their holy book) to disbelieve them. The extremist (and I speak only of the extremists) followers of Saudi Wahabi Islam, educated in hate throughout the Muslim world in the Saudi sponsored Madrasahs promote world wide terror and violence. If we can make it clear that their beliefs are a corruption of true Islam and that we can be more compassionate, in the spirit of the Koran, than the hate filled butchers who advocate amputation and stoning for what are social crimes such as adultery and fornication, then we weaken the grip of the Wahabi on the minds of young Muslims and perhaps we can help the more moderate Mullahs to counter the deep divisions which the Saudis promote.

Obama the First has caved in to the right wing Christian fundamentalists in his own country. He knows that the Saudis are the real sponsors of terror, but I don't see him or any of his countrymen calling for a boycott of Saudi oil. The Saudis have much more oil than the Scots, so they boycott Whisky and Harris Tweed. What a bunch of hypocritical cowards.

So although it pains me greatly, credit where it is due, well done McKaskill

Beau Derek and the Council Cuts

Just some more info on the cuts in public services in Renfrewshire under Beau Derek supported by his lib/dem gofers.

4 libraries to close (Gallowhill, Todholm, Elderslie, Bargarran)

5 neighbourhood housing offices to close

£500 p.a. charge for residents in sheltered housing for the warden service (which is being reduced from 24 to 3 hours per day)

Charges for attendance at elderly day-centres

Cost of kids swimming lessons doubled

Cuts in the park ranger service

2 nurseries to close

Apex community centre in Ferguslie Park (Terry's pitch) to close

Rough Sleepers Initiative for the homeless to close

Museum and observatory opening hours cut

Recycle Renfrewshire funding withdrawn

3 day centres for the disabled to close

Education budget cut by the equivalent of 2 teachers per school


And if Labour think they are off the hook on this can I remind them that:

they passed the policy which made warden charges possible

they closed libraries in Kilbarchan, Johnstone Castle, Spateston, Inchinnan,Brookfield, Houston, Langbank, Howwood, and the Johnstone teenage libraries (and we wonder why our kids are poor readers)

they closed and privatised post offices

they closed community centres like the East End community centre for which a replacement was promised and never materialised

they privatised our schools (opposed and now adopted by the SNP)

and they tried and failed to give away our council housing to a crony body, sorry ..housing association.


It's not until you see the cuts listed like this that you can see how the old, the very young, the vulnerable and the disabled are being targeted.

It's a public disgrace.

Rayleen Kelly and the SSP : Accusations of Lying

I have been having a correspondence with the peoples princess over on her blog
and she has accused me of lying regarding her censorship of my comments in a prior conversation (see mine on 31st march). Now I don't claim to be a saint, but to be called a liar by a former Renfrewshire Labour councillor takes the biscuit.

She has, however, run away from the discussion by closing the topic (presumably that isn't censoring comment in the Labour party). Giving yourself the last word is, I suppose, your right if it is your blog. This isn't Rayleen's blog but she can add comments without any censorship, and no topic ever closes.
She is struggling to make her earlier comments sensible and has obviously run out of steam . Sorry Rayleen, but your loss of reason is showing. You can't just assume someone is guilty of something because you saw them being arrested on TV. Every day I see policemen in stab proof vests queueing in snack bars to buy their rolls, so no assumptions can be made from the gear that they wear in any given situation as to the guilt or innocence of an arrested person.

If the police thought them worthy of being charged with an offence, and if any police were hurt or in danger of being hurt, then they should have been given the opportunity to prove their innocence in court, we have no way of knowing if their behaviour was lawful or not if they are not tried.

The arrest of the 80 year old woman at Faslane received plenty of coverage, and for Rayleen to suggest that she deserved her treatment is a disgrace to a decent society.

And finally, Rayleen, I didn't get you started on the Iraq shroud waving, you did that all on your own because you were struggling for a point that you could win. But you are wrong there as well, it is the flag wavers who are the problem and your party is full of them or we wouldn't be in Iraq.

Renfrewshire Labour in Opposition

The shift to a one party right of centre state is never more obvious than when we look at Labour in opposition in Renfrewshire.

Maybe I'm wrong and am just being left behind by consensus politics of the soft right, but I was always under the impression that it was the duty of the opposition to oppose. They did this by holding the ruling group to account and offering alternatives to the policies put forward by that group. This ensured that the proposals of the ruling group were properly scrutinised and compared with an alternative model, that of the opposition. That is the strength of an adversarial system of government.

Labour in Renfrewshire (still in shock at their loss of power and smarting under a new ignominy, they are losing their JPs) are offering no new and innovative policies, they are not even promoting the stale old policies which saw them lose power.

Their stated aim is to ensure that the election promises made by the SNP are kept. But surely it is not the role of the opposition Labour party to ensure that the SNP manifesto is implemented, that is just a stupid thing to say. Labour should be offering a different agenda with new ideas (not the ones which were already rejected by the majority of voters) and fighting tooth and nail to prevent the ideas which they opposed whilst in office from being implemented. That is the duty of an opposition, but they still do not understand that they are the opposition, so they will fight to implement the policies of the SNP and try to take credit for themselves for what goes right, rejecting as not theirs anything which goes wrong.

This is a completely sterile approach to the problems of Renfrewshire, and to think that we paid the dead wood thousands to go away and not prevent innovation. What a waste that was. The new lot haven't an idea between them except to ensure the implementation of SNP policy.

Terry Kelly and Social Housing

I've been trying to ignore TKMax recently as he has become something of an irrelevance even within the Labour group, but when he makes a statement like this:-

How about campaigning for a proper social house building programme instead of capitulating to the racists, there's a novel idea, decent socialists in the party now have to apologise for you, for god's sake go !

then I have to remind people that he campaigned against keeping Renfrewshire's housing in public ownership. He bragged about the number of council houses the Labour council had knocked down, and when challenged about the number of council houses they had built (none) and the number of homeless and the waiting lists for council houses (thousands -- see my post on 19th April 2007) he took the cowards way out, did not respond, and barred me from comment on his site.

Well it's his site, so he makes the rules, but we will have to to add hypocrisy to the previous charges of buffoonery (and he is after all McMillan's court jester), and treat his opinions accordingly

Renfrewshire Labour in Opposition

It looks as if they still don't get it, but just for the sake of clarification, Renfrewshire Labour--you're out on your arse. There will be no more corporate hospitality or freebies, declared or otherwise, you're history, live with it. You made no friends in power and could not form a coalition if your lifestyles depended on it (and they did).

So for Sharkey (the assassin of Rayleen, the People's Princess) to say in the paper that he is committed to working with all of his new colleagues? on the council no matter which party badge they wear is just wishful thinking. They won't let you play because of the spiteful and hateful things your party did while in power. Get it in your heads, you are in opposition, you have a duty to oppose and hold up to scrutiny the policies of the new administration, and to be vilified for it in the same way you vilified the opposition while you were in power.

Iain McMillan, who rules over the ashes of what was once the administration in Renfrewshire, is similarly delusional. He is reported to have hit out at the new coalition for failing to tap into the vast experience of some of his colleagues on the policy boards. He can't really have thought that the duds who ruined Paisley (at least those who didn't take the money and run) were going to be offered convererships and places of influence in the new administration. The arrogance of the man is beyond belief. They still think that they have a right to govern even when they have been shoved out the door by a spirit of co-operation which they could not foster for themselves, and deeply resent in other more progressive alliances.

Renfrewshire Politics, Councillors' Expenses and Hate Mail

One of the local papers the 'Gazette', a weekly, carries a report today of hate mail which has been sent to a Johnstone woman. The letter, which is on what looks like Renfrewshire council letterhead says, 'We would like to thank you from the Bottom of our hearts For the support you gave the SNP Now #### ### and keep your mouths shut.'

The woman who received the letter is married to Tom Gartley and the couple were the focus of attention when they alleged irregularities in Councillors' expenses claims.

Mrs Gartley also says that the local Johnstone police have passed the complaint on to the officer investigating the alleged expenses fraud as ,'they considered the matter to be linked to the fraudulent councillors' claims.'

I'll keep an eye on it and let you all know what happens if anything.

SNP and Lib/Dem coalition

Rayleen (the peoples' princess) Kelly has offered here her latest views on the calamity for Labour in the local elections. She still, like many other Labour supporters and councillors, cannot get her head round the fact that the people of Renfrewshire gave the Nats as many seats as they did Labour, and now wants to re-write the rules so that it is the number of votes rather than the number of seats that count.

Sooner or later they will have to wake up to the fact that it was Labour which formed the rules under which this election (assuming it is worthy of the name) was fought. If anyone screwed it up it was Duggie, the golden one and future anointed.

Labour in Renfrewshire have poured such vitriol on all of the other parties for so long that they had no friends to talk to in coalition talks, and they are still pouring. PR is meant to deny any party total power, and to that extent it has worked. Everyone except Renfrewshire Labour seem to be able to make it work (even Happy Jack the numpty managed to make it work in the last Parliament), so don't tell me it isn't sour grapes.

We didn't do so well ourselves, but we aren't bitching 'it's an injustice' like some Calimero. We take it on the chin and try again, we don't blame the voters for our failure.

We're also kind of glad you didn't get back in.

Glasgow Airport Rail Link and the Racecourse Playing Fields

Renfrewshire Council have received a planning application for new football pitches in the Foxbar area, about 4 miles from the pitches they are meant to replace at the racecourse in Shortroods. The pitches at the racecourse are being ripped up to accommodate the Glasgow Airport Rail Link which will ensure that travellers from Glasgow can get a train to Glasgow Airport (which, for the uninitiated, is in Paisley). The total cost of the scheme is £140 million which will be paid by the taxpayer so that the airlines and BAA can make more money.

But it is the people of Paisley who will bear the social and environmental costs as well as a large part of the economic cost of this project and will be no better off for its completion. This link is meant to serve the people of Glasgow and no others and it is a disgrace that the logical and obvious scheme, to run the link from Glasgow Central through Braehead Centre and Renfrew to the Airport, has been ignored.

Renfrew is the largest town in Scotland without a railway station and the increase in footfall through Braehead shopping centre, if the people of Glasgow didn't have to negotiate the M8, would surely increase substantially.

It is an opportunity lost, and for what reason we can only speculate, but we must doubt the motives of the decision makers. The alternative route is so obviously better that the decision to go through Paisley is distinctly smelly.

The Day the Music (or at least the Alexanders' Rag Time Band) Died

Reading the comment in the local and the national press it is clear that Labour are stunned by the fact that the people of Renfrewshire decided overwhelmingly that they did not want Labour to be in a position of power in Renfrewshire. They just can't believe that they have lost their divine right to govern the district.

The voters gave Labour the same number of seats that they gave to the Nats, but in their arrogance Labour couldn't get any consensus on the way forward for Renfrewshire (hardly a surprise when they can hardly get agreement within the Labour group).

Perhaps they now regret that they allowed the politics of the area to become mired in personal and spiteful abuse (a la TKMax) and found themselves with no friends to do business with when they needed them.

Gone are the hospitality days of the free bars and functions; they now face years out in the cold after so long being pampered and feted by contractors and others.

I am starting to feel sorry for them, is there no counselling service that can help?

Maybe the new SNP/Lib dem administration could set one up as a kindness.

Douglas Alexander and the Election Shambles

I'll get to our own performance in a later post once it all sinks in, but for the moment I can only say that I am very disappointed by the result. TKMax has held on to his place, but the People' Princess has gone. Labour and the Nats are tied with 17 seats apiece on the council, so we will need to wait and see how coalitions form, if they do.

The real problem is that we now have an electoral problem that I thought could only exist in a third world dictatorship. If an election in an African country had resulted in 100,000 (yes 100,000) spoilt papers we would be screaming electoral fraud and demanding that they re-run it. The Electoral Reform Society has called it unacceptable in early interviews, but no doubt when pressure is applied from the big parties it will be accepted.

The real story to come out of all of this is that Douglas 'Duggie' Alexander has really blotted his copybook. The golden one and future anointed presides over what can only be reasonably described as a total effing fiasco. This system of holding 3 elections simultaneously was a Westminster decision by his office. A man of honour would resign, so no doubt he wont, but it wont be because nobody asked him to. I can see Smirky Salmond foaming at the mouth already aboutWestminster's involvement, except that he is, of course, part of the Westminster system

Duggie has made Scotland a laughing stock throughout the whole world and he should be hung by the chads

Terry Kelly's Conspiracy Theory

I'm not sure what I've done to be characterised by being SSP as one of a 'vicious bunch of thugs' by TKMax, but just to clarify my record, I've never been reported to the police or the standards commission for any offence apart from speeding and that was 30 years ago.

I've never been thrown bodily out of an election count for trying to pick a fight with a political opponent, and just to cap it all, TKMax has never in all of his life spoken to me or to any of my family, and that's a promise, so how can he smear me as if he knew me.

Desperation is a terrible thing, but if he sees me as part of a right wing conspiracy then he has lost it completely.

I note that he has not denied the story about the free entry to the fairground reported on 'Terrywatch', and whether he paid for it or just got it as a favour from a grateful fairground operator (who needs the local council on side to be able to get the prime sites) then it is morally and probably legally suspect.

I look forward to the outcome of any police enquiry.

Departure of the Seven Dwarves: Just a Thought

While I was thinking about the seven retiring Labour councillors a thought from something I read (I think it was Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath) crossed my mind. The character says that when he was young he met a farmer taking a cow to the bull to be serviced, and that ever since then, whenever he hears the word 'service' he wonders who is getting screwed.

I think we, the people of Renfrewshire, should, as Terry says, thank all of these councillors for their years of service.

Councillor Terry Kelly and Renfrewshire Council

As some of you may be aware I have been in some discussion with Councillor Terry Kelly over on his blog.
Because I won't post my personal details on the internet (never advisable) he has decided to bar me from posting to his site, nothing, I am sure, to do with the questions he cannot or will not answer. For the sake of clarity, I will copy those questions here, and he can answer if he has the gall. I wont bar him.

Terry-- in that case can we expect in the fullness of time, that you will address the questions I have posed in respect of housing/homelessness, Trident, the Iraq war, Councillor pay-offs and deprivation (where's the pub, where's the bank, where are the jobs, where are the apprenticeships, where is the policing -- the police station hasn't opened its public office for months and even the police station sign is vandalised -- where is the cleansing dept--there is an old mattress lying in a lay-by not 50 yards off your own street in Drums Ave. and it has been there, to my sure and certain knowledge for at least 3 weeks, I pass it going home every day-- do the council's employees who pass sweeping the streets not report anything. Yes, Ferguslie Park certainly has a lot to thank Labour for.



Terry—I said I would do my own research into the housing situation after our last exchange, so here it is :-

April 1st .............. number on waiting list for council housing

2004 ............... 6534
2005................ 7465
2006................ 6719

in addition, in 2006 there were 2820 on the transfer lists.

Are you still pleased about the number of houses you knocked down and didn’t replace?



Terry- If as you say, 'There is only one etc.' then you obviously believe you already have my ID. For me to post it on your site would be to invite the same people who posted your full address on their site to do the same with me. I don't believe that we should do that. If you want to bar me then that's fine--I'll post on my own blog and be just as happy.


Juat added a new post on TK(Max) site:-
Reads



Terry—You’re just not getting it. The old mattress was a symptom of a greater problem, it wasn’t the problem in itself. Getting the thing shifted really shows how effective you are in exercising influence in the council. It might have been more believable if they had shifted the old tyres lying in the same lay-by for the same length of time, however, it’s the thought that counts, and you probably think you are effective.