The Scottish National Party Election Strategy

I must admit to being a bit, well more than a bit really, unsettled by the latest pronouncement from the Scottish National Party that it will allow ineligible candidates to stand under an independence banner with the support of the SNP.  If they want to amend their constitution to allow new celebrity members to stand then that is a matter for them, but if they are to support candidates from other parties who have been prominent in the independence movement and expect them to take the SNP whip then that is a different story.

It is, and has long been my opinion that every voter who supports the aims and ambitions of the Scottish Socialist Party should have the opportunity of going into the polling booth and placing their cross against the Red Star of the SSP in every election where we have a candidate.  No 'ifs' nor 'buts', we should be sailing under our own flag all of the time.  If we fail to gather sufficient support from the electorate despite having the best raft of policies then so be it. It means we must work harder to get our message across. We can't blame the electorate for our own failings.

But the latest plans of the SNP look like a giant step towards a social democratic one-party state within a capitalist framework and I'm not sure that such a one-party state led by the SNP and packed with the great and the good of independence minded celebrities is a price worth paying for our independence.  We should be thinking long and hard before we get our people involved.
 
We were useful in the referendum campaign and I held my tongue because the end was, in my own opinion, great enough to justify the means, but does everyone remember the howls of protest from the SNP when we were excluded from the Smith Commission despite being represented on the Yes campaign board. Neither do I, but if you lie down with dogs then you get up with fleas and we should remember that duplicity for a long time before we get involved in supporting them given their record of failure to support us.

We have our own vision of independence and it doesn't coincide with theirs except at the most basic level.  That is what we should be standing for and campaigning for.  We should not be looking for scraps from the SNP table

Salmond's Blatant Cowardice on Council Tax

Statement by the Scottish Socialist Party is reproduced below. More mutual back scratching between the main Parties and their robber baron friends. When will working people say, 'Enough's enough' and get rid of the lot of them in favour of a completely new approach to economic, social and political organisation? This is a complete betrayal of their manifesto promise, and for what? So they can go on arse-licking with Soutar, Trump etc.

The Scottish Socialist Party today accused the SNP government of a cowardly manifesto u-turn, abandoning pensioners and low paid workers in favour of the rich and business interests who bankroll their party after Finance Secretary John Swinney told MSPs that legislation to introduce a local income tax would not be introduced in the current parliament.

This is not the first time the SNP has abandoned opposition to the Council tax and watched hundreds of thousands of pensioners and low paid workers who stood to benefit most from abolition of the Council tax lose out.

SSP national co-spokesperson Colin Fox said today;

“The SNP’ cowardly manifesto u-turn means that the super rich businessmen like Brian Souter who bankroll the SNP with their bonuses will continue to benefit while pensioners, low paid workers and millions of those worst affected by the current economic recession, like the thousands of sacked Woolworths workers who would have at least enjoyed some financial relief with the reduction in their Council tax bills, will continue to be hammered by this unfair Tory tax”

“The SNP has again failed to capitalise on the majority support across Scotland for abolishing the Council tax. They have now given up the idea without a fight or even a vote in Parliament.”

“How different their approach to that of the Scottish Socialist Party on this issue.”

“The SSP, with just 6 MSP's, were able to make far greater headway. Our Bill to abolish the Council tax, a bill which incidentally the SNP voted down [on Feb 1st 2006] attracted considerable support across civic Scotland.”

“The SNP's subsequent local income tax plan with its regressive 3p across the board charge attracted much less enthusiasm. Our local income tax replacement by contrast was graduated to ensure the better off paid more as their income went up and the poorer were exempt.”

Financial Crisis Notice of Meeting

YOU ARE PAYING!
WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE?
THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
—your questions answered.
THIS GREED WAS BEYOND IRRESPONSIBLE!
Kirkintilloch Leisure Centre Conference Room
Saturday 7th February, 10.30am– 12.30pm
Facilitated by the SSP co-convenor,
Frances Curran
Speakers—Raphie de Santos— was head of Equity Derivatives Research and Strategy at Goldman Sachs International. He was an advisor on derivatives and financial markets to the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange, London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange and the Italian Ministry of Finance. Raphie has been a guest lecturer on derivatives and financial markets at Harvard and New York universities and the London School of Economics and has spoken at the annual Nobel Foundation conference in Stockholm.
Bill Newman spent most of his working life in banking, latterly as head of economics and then as Assistant General Manager of a City of London bank. For some 15 years he was also editor of and wrote for a journal on international monetary economics.
Bill was also on the Executive Committee and the Management Committee of the Banking, Insurance and Finance Union (BIFU) and a delegate to the TUC.

THE CAMPSIE BRANCH SSP invite your participation in this important discussion. How will this crisis effect YOU?

About the Scottish Socialist Party
While it fights to defend jobs, working conditions and living standards and for houses and health the SSP also demands a new economy.
Such an economy would start the task of harnessing the stupendous technological and material resources which already exist to meet the needs of society rather than the greed of the few.

Link to Campsie Branch of the SSP in the sidebar

Free Public Transport

On Thursday 19th the SSP launched its week of action on free public transport by leafleting and posting around stations and other transport hubs.

I've put a link to the site in 'Some other views from the left' in the sidebar.

Public reaction was very positive, as you might expect from people who are about to have to buy a ticket for an inferior service at an extortionate price to feed the fat cats who operate and mis-manage public transport for their own and their shareholders benefit.

Perhaps more surprising was the number of people who took the opportunity to express their support for our other policies on abolition of the council tax and its replacement by a fair system of taxation, on ending our involvement in American wars, on council housing, and on independence in a socialist Scotland.

It seems that it has taken a global financial meltdown to get across the message that capitalism is destroying itself through its own greed and to make people seriously consider an alternative 'not for profit' system which puts people before profit.

Rayleen and the SSP

Rayleen (the peoples' princess) Kelly has raised some questions about the survival of the SSP on her site. I've posted a reply but who knows if she will publish it.

I can only tell others what I have tried to tell her, and that is that the SSP will obviously have to have a re-think as regards our operational affairs, but we are resolved to be here fighting for working people against their enemies in the Labour, New Labour, Tory, New Tory, Maybe we're Tory but we're not sure Lib/Dem, and Tartan Tory parties.

We are not going away irrespective of how big an embarrassment it might be for Labour to have us reminding them of what they are supposed to stand for and the liars they have become.

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.

The Virtues of Teamwork and Synchronised Rubbish

My blog receives few comments (I flatter myself that it is because my prose is crystal clear and my logic beyond critique) but last night I had 5 different comments in the space of 16 minutes. They came at 23.09 -- 23.15 -- 23.17 --23.20 -- and 23.25.

Four were anonymous and the other came from someone calling themselves 'Jodie'. One supported my attack on the Nats while the others opposed my attacks on Labour and Bliar. One, from Jodie who says she lives in Seedhill, launched a completely out of context attack on the SSP and their candidate in Seedhill. another, from anonymous, tells me that they have lived in the Love Street area all of their lives.

It's all a bit transparent.

I think I've upset somebody. I wonder who it can be?

Colin Fox , Tommy Sheridan, and Bernard Ponsonby

I've just watched the interviews by Colin Fox and Tommy Sheridan with Bernard Ponsonby, and I wonder why TS keeps refusing to grasp the olive branch and talk about some sort of electoral arrangement with Colin and the SSP.
Tommy Sheridan keeps alluding to 'backstabbers' (at least he has dropped the dread word 'scabs') who, he says, he was warned about. while leader of the SSP. It is clear that the SSP has the thought out agenda, which might be because Solidarity are new in the field, but CF seemed much more like a serious champion of working people, and TS more like a personality politician who would demand to be leader in whatever he joined.

Well I'm sorry TS, its time to put up or shut up. Who were the backstabbers? What did they do to you? Who warned you about them? And what was their issue, because it surely, by your description of the events, pre-dates your problem with the NOTW ?

Election Update : Bliar Visits Paisley

My apologies but shift working has meant I've been neglecting the blog.
While I've been away Paisley has had a visit from Bliar and his entourage. You would imagine that, with an election in the offing, he would be keeping a low profile. He is not the asset he once was especially in Scotland. I don't remember seeing his smiling face on any of the candidates' election leaflets, but if I'm wrong no doubt someone will correct me.

Hugh 'Shuggie the Hammer' Henry has apparently decided that, after years of opposing Catholic schools, he is now their champion. My own view will remain my own, but there is a distinct smell of hypocrisy about everything Shuggie does these days.

More shady dealing over Labour election broadcasts with party hacks being drafted in to pose as real people. As if no-one would know that a Scottish Bliar supporter had to be a plant (or some other kind of vegetable).

The smirking fish has been quiet, presumably letting Labour self-destruct.

What else is new, well, the Greens are being green, the Lib/ Dems are being all things to all men, and the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party are deciding where to exercise grey power. The Scottish Christian Party are hoping for a miracle, Solidarity are furiously promoting the cult of multiple personality and the SSP are fighting to hold the line after a bad year.

Free School Meals

The Scottish Parliament yesterday decided that it would not provide nutritious free school meals to all children at primary schools in Scotland, despite the overwhelming support of every informed authority on nutrition and education in the country and the strong views of the Scottish Socialist Party, whose MSP Frances Curran was the promoter of the legislation.

More Labour shame