Illiterate Labour

My mum passed on to me this rather poor piece of campaign literature from Labour in Clydesdale. Labour are claiming to support the apprenticeships and the Council Tax freeze which they voted against, present falsehoods about NHS cuts, are apparently now against tuition fees which they introduced in government, and are promoting the 'two week cancer guarantee' (sounds a bit scary, but relates to waiting times, which have actually fallen under the SNP's stewardship).

The real sweetie in the letter is in the fourth paragraph. I've noticed before that Labour have a bit of a problem when it comes to literacy. This letter is just embarrassing - two typos in the paragraph which calls for bringing literacy teachers 'back' into schools for goodness sake. The simplest spell checker could pick that up. 

Furthermore, I'm not sure where these imaginary literacy teachers went, or how something which never existed can be brought back; as ever for Labour, the facts just get in the way of a nice wee bit scaremongering. 

If this is Labour's standard of campaigning, I do hope they contact lots of people...  

Skittish Labour's Council Tax Confusion

Things really must be getting desperate over at John Smith House - Labour's recent u-turn on the Council Tax demonstrates how few ideas they have for governing Scotland. 

At Full Council back on the 28th of October, Glasgow City Council Treasurer James McNally proposed a motion saying that a continued freeze on Council Tax was "not sustainable" and called on the Scottish Government to "restore the flexibility to councils to set a reasonable level of Council Tax without suffering financial penalty". All very interesting euphemisms for increasing taxes, I'm sure you'll agree. 

Glasgow Labour were far from the only part of that party calling for an increase in Council Tax, however. Iain Gray had made remarkably similar comments in the Herald on the 3rd of October:

“It does not look to us that the council tax freeze is sustainable... They (local authorities) have to have as much flexibility as possible."

Labour were against the freezing of Council Tax, they said, due to the alleged threat to public services. That threat, if it ever existed, seems to have vanished like yesterday afternoon's snow flurry over Glasgow. 

 

In the Scottish Parliament, they claimed various catastrophes would strike: 

David Whitton (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (Lab): "The cost of the unfunded council tax freeze does untold damage to local authority services, just so the SNP can claim to have helped the average band D council tax payer to save a few pence a week."

Helen Eadie (Dunfermline East) (Lab): "Campaigners in Scotland warned that people would die as a result of the cuts, which councils blame on the SNP Government's council tax freeze."

On the 30th October 2010 Des McNulty made a conference speech claiming that:

"The consequence of freezing the council tax is cuts in our children’s education"

Where do all these spokespeople, Councillors and MSPs stand now? Do they still believe that the Council Tax freeze, which has  helped hard-pressed householders (including those on fixed incomes such as pensioners), is dangerous? Or did they never really believe that in the first place, prepared yet again to put the party political interest before the needs of ordinary people? I think they owe Scotland an apology, and at the very least an explanation.

Budget passed, Labour out of step!

I'm just rushing out to my surgery, but I'm delighted to hear the Scottish budget has passed. Labour failed again to rise above their petty politics for the greater good of Scotland. The other parties managed to find common ground. 

Take it to the doorsteps: Labour do not support the following:

A further £11.5 million to create 25,000 modern apprenticeship places - a 

record high for Scotland;
 

Abolition of prescription charges and the Council tax freeze;

Continuing Small Business Bonus Scheme;
 

Invest an additional £15 million across 2010-11 and 2011-12 in funding 

for college bursaries; 

1,000 additional police officers;
 

£10 million support for SME employment creation – focused on new 

starts, sole traders and small firms to take on new employees by 

assisting with employment and recruitment costs and assist with 

exports;

Provide 7,000 flexible training opportunities for SMEs - 2,000 more 

than originally planned in the draft Budget;

Invest £8 million to provide enough funding for an extra 1,200 college 

places;

Maintain educational grants (EMAs) for pupils and college students 

most in need which were cut south of the border;

Extending the Living Wage of £7.15 to all agencies the Government is 

responsible for and Scotland's NHS; 

Guarantee a probation place for every newly-qualified teacher and 

provide enough teaching jobs for every post-probationer in 2011-12;

New Early Years and Early Intervention Fund, with start-up funding of 

£5 million;

£2m Freight Facilities Grant;

£1m Post office Diversification Scheme;

£12.5 million for Urban Regeneration Companies – increase of £6 million 

on the Draft budget;

£16 million further investment in Housing;

Protect Health Spending and continue provisions for free personal care;

£2.5 billion infrastructure investment programme;

Infrastructure Commitments such as the new Forth crossing, New South 

Glasgow Hospitals project and school building programme;

£70 million Renewables Infrastructure Fund – over four years;

£48 million support for energy assistance package and Home Insulation 

Scheme. 

All this done in spite of £1.3 billion in cuts started under Labour.

Oh, what tangled webs they weave...

I found Newsnicht unusally satisfying last night. It was something of a relief to see that finally, finally, the truth has caught up with the Labour Party in Scotland and bitten them on the bum. 

I've seen it often enough - scaremongering over bus passes when we actually expanded the scheme, saying Glasgow is 'ripped off' when we have the Commonwealth Games, M74, Southern General, the new rail line linking the East End to Edinburgh and new housing  for social rent popping up all over the city (and much more besides!).

The Megrahi affair was particularly distasteful, attempting to make party political gain on the back of Scotland's justice system and the families of the Lockerbie dead. 

All the time, when they had been notching up the fury against Kenny MacAskill for taking the legally and morally correct decision to release Al Megrahi, their counterparts in London had been bending over backwards for some time to help Libya secure his release by any other means. 

Other bloggers out there have made particularly good points on the matter, so I feel it best just to point you in their direction: Joan, Moridura, Pop, and Peat Worrier. This video of the hapless Richard Baker on Newsnicht is a must-watch.

"That leaves you with only three positions; either you knew and have been completely hypocritical, you didn't know and were completely sidelined by London in this or you knew and thought that the Prime Minister, the foreign secretary, the entire Government were unprincipled in the decision they were making and you would stand against them. Which is it?"

Iain Gray - not a statesman (part two)

I missed the final FMQs of the year, but I see from today's Scotland on Sunday that Iain Gray has been at it again. Not content with offending Ireland and Iceland, he has recently been using Montenegro as a means of showing how terrible independence would be for Scotland. 

This is same Iain Gray who, in a recent interview with the Scotsman, stated that:

"What I think the Scottish people don't need at a time like this is a politician like Alex for whom it sometimes seems that photo opportunities in silly hats are more important than taking the serious and hard decisions that are needed for Scotland"

Because picking on other nations in order to do down your own country is mature, grown-up, thoughtful and serious politics. Causing diplomatic incidents just to make a point.

Mr Gray's argument is put thus: 

“...the SNP website where it includes Montenegro: ‘Montenegro shows us just how easy it can be to become an independent country. 40 days is all it took for Montenegro to regain her freedom. It could be Scotland next.’ 40 days, plus two world wars, the Balkan conflict, ethnic cleansing, a war crimes tribunal and a UN peacekeeping operation."

I doubt very much that the people of Montenegro feel their journey to regain their independence was easy, but the process - which I believe is the point - was indeed relatively simple. Unionists like to argue that we would be bogged down for years debating who gets what after independence; if both sides are willing to be mature and sensible, there's really no reason why this should be the case. 

While it's good to see the exposing of Iain Gray's deficiencies as a politician (and indeed as a adult human being), the Scotsman itself has been caught wanting in this whole affair - as the letter published from the Montenegro Charge D'Affairs Ms Zivkovic reveals:

 

"I feel compelled to respond to your report (24 December) which describes Montenegro as "the war-ravaged country". Montenegro, in fact, was the only former Yugoslav republic where neither war nor devastation took place in the last decade of the 20th century.

And not only was there no ethnic cleansing in the country, as proposed by Scottish Labour leader Mr Iain Gray in the same article, but Montenegro opened its doors to the refugees of all nations.

At one point in 1999, refugees made up one fourth of the population of Montenegro, when - in just two days - we provided shelter to more than 100,000 Albanians fleeing from Kosovo.

And, crucially, Montenegro was the first country in the Balkans that renewed its statehood by peaceful means in a democratic referendum organised in full co-operation with the European Union.
 
Marijana Zivkovic
Embassy of Montenegro
London"