Linwood for the Linwoodians?

A friend of mine from Linwood has just given me a copy of an election leaflet which he (and I ) thinks is strange.

This woman from the local Lib/ Dems thinks she should have your vote because she has lost 6 stones in weight and lives in Linwood. She believes that people from Paisley, Renfrew and Crosslee might not be able to be trusted. It has overtones of the Wicker Man.
I am impressed by her slogan, 'Vote and regain our community back' (sic), but I think I am more tempted to try to protect her from all of that municipal hospitality that has wrought such havoc on the figures of Terry (TKMax) Kelly and Rayleen (the Peoples' Princess) Kelly.

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.

St. Mirren FC, St. Mirren Park, Love St and Tesco

Another day and still Tesco refuse to tell us their plans for Love St. I suspect the worst, but I hope I am wrong and that they have a brilliant plan for the site

Terry Kelly and Hugh Henry Campaign against themselves ?

Terry (TKMax) Kelly and Hugh (Shuggie the Hammer) Henry are on the front page of the Paisley Daily Express today campaigning against the building of a new prison in Paisley.

This is a bit surprising since

1. Labour are in power at every level in this country so it is their proposal
2. Hugh (Shuggie etc) Henry is the justice minister and in charge of policing
3. Renfrewshire Labour councillors sit on the Strathclyde police board so they are responsible for the proposal
4. The Labour majority council can deny the planning application if they wish, so clearly they don't
5. It is Labour policy on crime that has filled the jails with usually the wrong people
6. They don't say where the jail should be built if it is needed
7. If they had been tough on the causes of crime as they promised at election after election then the jail wouldn't be needed

The result of this policy failure is Labour out sucking up to voters by pretending that they are not responsible for their own decisions and policies.

In terms of sheer two faced hypocrisy and opportunism this one has got to take the biscuit.

I have to ask the question (again). How stupid do these numpties think the voters are. Labour should stop acting like low life con men and accept responsibility for their cock-ups.

Wendy (for it is she) the second trumpet in the Alexanders' rag time band is very quick to get her face in the papers when they think (not very often) that they have done something right, even if it is years too late. Still, it brightens up the paper when you see someone smiling but you just know that the smile is so insincere that they will never have laughter lines. That's why Wendy (for it is she) looks so young.

Departure of the Seven Dwarves: GOOD RIDDANCE

I've just been on Terry (TKMax) Kelly's blog where he is singing the praises of the Renfrewshire Labour Councillors who have decided that they have done enough damage to Paisley and are now going to run away (but not before trousering a large wad).

To read Terry you would believe that these people had made a contribution apart from running Paisley into the ground, but they were always only political cannon fodder for the Labour party, they voted for the most part with no real thought for local people, only party instructions, or Paisley wouldn't be in the mess they have left it in.

The bold new initiative from Labour is to reverse the changes that these numpties made to the town centre traffic and parking arrangements and to hope that the damage isn't irreversible. Yet they are allowed to walk away with the money leaving others to clear up the mess. They have not even the decency to apologise to the businesses which had to close or the workers who lost their jobs as they turned Paisley town centre into a desert. I can only say good riddance to bad rubbish.

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 ?

Johnstone Town Centre and the Labour Party

I want to send my sympathy to the people of Johnstone. Labour have decided to re-develope your town centre, according to a piece of election propoganda dropped through my door today. Seeing what they have done to Paisley there must be a dread running through all of Johnstone.

Hugh 'Shuggie the hammer' Henry, the man who single handedly solved Ferguslie's drug problem? has fixed it for you to have all of the skill and expertise which ran Paisley into the ground, and forced it to go back about 10 years and start again with its town centre.

I've had a brilliant idea about how Hugh could solve the drug problem in Johnstone as well. If we let him and the other trumpets in the Alexanders' rag time band run the illegal drug industry then it will be ruined and in crisis in about a fortnight.

St. Mirren F.C, St. Mirren Park , Love Street and Tesco

Why won't Tesco let us into their plans for the re-development of St. Mirren park at Love Street. It would set many minds at rest if they would confirm that they will not merely knock down the existing stadium and add the land, which would then be lying derelict, to their land bank in order to stop another supermarket chain opening a supermarket to compete with the new Tesco planned for Linwood. i.e. to preserve a monopolistic market

If the council know, and we will not be told before the election, then I think it might be fair to assume that the news for the people of Mossvale and Shortroods is bad and that they are to have another scene of dereliction to add to the ones where council houses have been knocked down and not replaced. Why not ask Labour for a straight answer when they come round looking for your vote. Have they made it a condition of planning for the new stadium that a supermarket actually appears on the Love St. site within a specified time, or have they sold out the North End of the Town and sweetened the deal by withdrawing that committment, to save their own face after the other proposed buyers all walked away from the proposals.

Labour's Plans for Paisley Town Centre

Labour's new 'cunning plan' for the centre of Paisley defies belief. They propose to open up the High Street to traffic and stop charging for parking and provide more spaces. This goes against all recent thinking on reducing carbon emissions which they are so keen on, but I seem to remember that their last 'cunning plan' was to close off the High Street and reduce spaces and charge for parking.

How stupid do these numpties think the voters of Paisley are. It is as well that we are rid of some of them even at the cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Roll on May 3rd and we can get rid of the rest of the useless articles.

There is not a word of apology for the businesses which closed or the people who lost their jobs when the High Street was closed off to traffic. No sorry for the frail and elderly who couldn't walk up to their shops and couldn't be dropped off by car. They couldn't have cared less as long as they were catered for in the manner which they thought befitted their status.

These are the same Council who I'm told, when asked under freedom of information legislation about the amount of champagne they bought in the six months before the housing stock transfer ballot, were unable to tell because it was bought 'on consignment'. Quite how much champagne is in a 'consignment' I'm not sure, but I'd imagine it might be considerable and that someone would have to order it, check it in, authorise the payment and draw the cheque, so it was clearly out of control if the means to be exact don't exist. Still, they didn't need it then so it must still be lying in stock, and it will be a long time before they will find anything to celebrate with this lot running the show..

Cost Cutting Contractors and Workers' Health

While I'm on the subjects of cost cutting contractors and the health of workers I want to remind everyone that Friday is Workers' Memorial Day when we remember workers who have been killed or injured in the course of their work.

Many of these deaths and injuries result from unsafe working practices in the pursuit of greater profits for shareholders, but many die prematurely of work related illnesses after retirement, and how many will die in future from uncontrolled environmental damage by major corporations is only to be wondered about.

Forth Estuary, Thames Water, and the Sewage Spill

Having been brought up on the Firth of Forth I feel a bit distressed about the estuary being polluted with untreated sewage as a result of a pump failure in a treatment station operated by Thames Water.

My first reaction to the reports was that the Forth is a long way from the Thames, and if you want to operate local resources perhaps it is better to operate them by means of local authorities, rather than PFI booty capitalists, who have at heart the interests of their shareholders in the City of London rather than local people.

Mechanical breakdowns in machinery are not unforseeable, they are inevitable and predictable given proper inspections and maintenance, and if the back-up systems are not in place to deal effectively with these failures then it is because someone decided not to have these systems. It wasn't an accident, it was a conscious decision motivated by minimising cost and maximising profit.

Sickness Absence and the CBI updated

Just an update to my post on 10th April regarding sickness and absence, did anyone else notice in the Herald yesterday, tucked away at the bottom of an inside page a report that 'Millions of Staff Turn Up for Work Despite Feeling Sick' even at a risk of further and more severe illness. This represents millions of man hours to which employers are not entitled, and millions of pounds which they save on statutory sick pay. So when they tell you about the cost of fraudulent 'sickies' ask them to offset the cost and see who are the winners and losers in the sickness stakes.

PFI / PPP and the Larbert Hospital (specialising in the treatment of burns caused by 'pants on fire'

We were at a demo today at the Falkirk wheel, where Laing O'Rourke, one of Labour's donors and a major player in the £300 million contract to build the new Larbert hospital, were holding a Jobs Fair. We were noisy, but for Laing O'Rourke to fabricate a complete lie about applicants being man-handled and ask for us to be moved on because of it only shows how rattled they were by a group of very wet protesters. All I can say is they must have been easily upset, but for the record, not a hand was laid on any applicant or member of Laing O'Rourke staff. Not a single person was approached in an intimidatory way. They were offered leaflets, most accepted, some refused them, but no one was touched or even shouted at directly. The PA system made shouting unnecessary.

Laing O'Rourke were asked to meet us and explain their allegations (by PA and by invitation via Wheel staff) but refused to meet us or to repeat the allegations which Wheel Staff said were given to them second hand.

I have no hesitation in stating that these allegations were LIES told by LIARS, and if anyone thinks people like that should be running healthcare in this country, then they have my sympathy.

Their profits, their practices, and now it seems their people are obscene.

As for the jobs fair, I've seen more interest in watching paint dry.

Scottish Nationalist Millionaires' Club Membership List

I see from the paper today that the Nats have decided to publish the membership list for the millionaires' club, and what a veritable who's that of Scottish business it is.
It's worth noting that the only one whose business is not stated is Souter (feeling a bit guilty?)

Surely no one can go on refusing to see that where the Tories have been unable to get the sort of power which will allow them to screw the people of Scotland they have decided that their natural home is the Nats. Tartan Tories right enough. But you can't fool all of the people etc.

Scottish Nationalists and the Millionaires' Club Again

Well there we are then. It's out in the open as predicted. We know now what Souter wanted from the Nats and it wasn't a positive favour, it was a negative one. No return to public ownership of buses. I was assured that the policies of the Nats would not change to suit the millionaire backers. This policy was unanimously adopted at their conference but where is it in the manifesto. Posted absent. I was assured that the party members of the Nats would have to approve any change to policy. Where did that consultation go? It was not expedient.

It is a grim reminder of the dark days of the Labour Party when we were told that we could vote for whatever we liked but it would not bind the parliamentary party. That's a bit like caffeine-free diet coke. What's the point? The career politicians are completely cynical , both Labour and SNP, and care only for their personal power and pockets and the smirking fish is a first order user of people. Everyone knows that including the wee lassie, but they will suffer any indignity to be able to keep their jobs and enhance their incomes.

The stink of hypocrisy is palpable, but never mind, we'll be there for the Scottish people when Salmond and Sturgeon let you down and you find that the increase in prosperity which they forecast is their prosperity, not yours or mine
It's good that the disenfranchised millionaires living at home or in tax exile have someone to look after their interests in Parliament. The Millionaires' Club wing of the Nats. But someone has to look after the rest of us and keep on fighting for a fairer society.

Honesty's the Best Policy ?

There is just one other thing I forgot to mention about last night's hustings. That was the honesty of the SNP candidate who when she couldn't remember what her party's policy was on one particular issue admitted that she couldn't remember and simply refused to offer an opinion at all.

Remarkable honesty, for a Nat, but God help the next Nationalist who tells me that I'm a Stalinist who can't think for himself and simply follows the party line. I might be able to reply without referring back to HQ.

At the Election Hustings in Paisley

I had never attended a hustings before and I was assured that it would be interesting. I wasn't disappointed'

Like everything in politics we started with a tea break before a blow had been struck, and whilst it was very good (fair trade) stuff, and a credit to the churches which provided it, perhaps they should have asked the candidates to do some work first.

As to the parties, well Labour did not show up due to illness, which disappointed a lot of the audience who had clearly come to give the Labour candidate a good kicking, so perhaps his illness was tactical. If not then I apologise for my cynicism; Labour made me this way.

The Tory was a revelation. I had heard rumours of their existence in Scotland but had never before seen one in the flesh as it were. I believed that they existed like unicorns or yetis. Something to frighten children with who won't behave. He was clearly under some pressure on the issue of Trident when he told us that we had to have nuclear weapons to defend ourselves from the U.S.A. I rather switched off at this point and pretended not to be listening because I didn't want to embarass the man any further. I hope his carers managed to find him because he seemed nice, if unhinged.

The Lib/Dem, in a typical Lib/Dem compromise, torn between nuclear and non-nuclear, decided that she would get rid of half of our nuclear weapons and keep the other half just in case (of what I'm not sure).

The Scottish Nationalist candidate decided to promote their new 'ethical foreign policy' which considering their attitude to the English and the fact that their domestic policy is ethically questionable (they took the Souter money) seemed to be just a bit opportunistic. She also mentioned on two or three occassions how her party's policies were fair and just. She talked a lot about economic growth and increased prosperity, but she didn't tell us how this new found wealth would be shared out. I think she is just offering a rich boss with a different accent and all of her blethering about just and fair society is a smokescreen. There will be increased prosperity with independence, but if the Nats have their way it will all go into the same pockets it goes into now because the Nats offer no real social change. That's why the rich love them. This is not my kind of independence.

Solidarity put up a good candidate with really sound socialist policies, but they didn't seem to be very well fleshed out with specific policy committments. Perhaps it is early to be looking for that, but their man looked uncomfortable and I think he knows he has backed the wrong horse.

The Greens were green, what else can I say.

The Scottish Socialist (and my loyalties are no secret) was an old hand at hustings. He played his cards with some style, and he had the big cards for this audience. End trident, stop the war, build council houses, free public transport, scrap the council tax, and challenge big business to accept their share of social responsibility--I think we had the best of this evening.

The Chairman, parachuted in from the University of Paisley did a fine job.

Day of Action on (Free Public) Transport

For my sins I have been given the dubious honour of getting up early tomorrow and going to the railway station to accost innocent members of the public on their way to work and force our free public transport policy on them. It is the policy which has been best received in this campaign so far and people seem to engage with it for more than selfish reasons, which is always a good sign.

So if you should see us at your local station, because this is a nationwide action, have some sympathy. Seeing as how Terry Kelly (TK Max) believes that we are all middle class, property owning intellectuals who have never done a day's work in our lives, 8 am seems awfully early, still I'll give it a try. It will be a change from my usual 7 am start and 12 hour shift. Some day when I'm a worker? like TK (Max) not an intellectual I can swan about the council offices all day eating £7 free lunches while denying a nourishing free lunch to schoolchildren, instead of working my ass off.

Scottish Tories (the Blue Ones, not the Tartan Ones)

I've just noticed that in my election update I forgot the Tories. Nothing new there then.

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.