Self-Praise Is No Praise



Derek Bateman (http://derekbateman.co.uk) gave The Herald newspaper both barrels over its recent clumsy attempt to kick start the political career of Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader.
Now as regular readers know, I have no time for Johann who is a self-styled gender equality champion yet has had nothing of substance to say about the fight for equal pay in her own political back yard, Glasgow City Council, where Johann's husband (Archie Graham) has been a senior Labour councillor for many years.
Nor since becoming Scottish leader has Johann waded into the likes of North or South Lanarkshire where both Labour controlled councils brought the Labour Party into disrepute if you ask me, by introducing pay arrangements which involved widespread discrimination against their female dominated workforces.  
I have to admit I don't know what makes Johann a gender equality champion because I was brought up to believe that actions speak louder than words and in this particular case it all sounds to me just like so much windy rhetoric and hot air.
     

Who’s Kidding Who? - Derek Bateman

The death of Angus Macleod reminded us of the contribution trenchant journalism makes and how so much of what we consume in the conventional media pales by comparison. The thought arose when reading the Herald which contains a piece that marks the inauguration of the campaign to reinstate Labour as a credible party of progressiveness. (What would the Herald be without a regular dose of Bell and Macwhirter?) http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/columnists/lamont-is-right-to-put-focus-back-on-children.25534548 It is a Pollyanna piece in which we are invited to be glad – glad about Johann, glad about her policies and glad about Labour and (furrow brow with mock concern) glad that we can forget all about that dreadful referendum business.
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Catherine MacLeod, former adviser to Alistair Darling, has opened the case for resurrecting both the Tory-reconciled Labour Party and the career of Johann Lamont whose invisibility during the referendum was matched only by her ineptitude when she did appear. That is not only my view, it is widely shared among the Labour-minded who couldn’t understand why MSPs, and especially their leader, played such a minimal role in what is after all a Scottish issue, albeit with UK ramifications.
I know many are tired of discussing the failed mainstream but we should be aware of what motivates them and the MacLeod article delivers, as ever, a clear pointer to Unionist thinking. First, it is to write off the past by dismissing the mendacious, hysterical and anti-politics campaign which the Union ran. It is consigned to history and no longer matters. It is time pretend that never happened. There was no threat, no bullying, no lying, no orchestration of foreign governments, the EU, NATO officials or businessmen. Labour didn’t really work hand in glove with the Tories, did they? Best forgotten.
Second, on the back of an SNP defeat, it is to promote relentlessly the interests of Unionism so it can reclaim the ascendancy and turn the dial back to Everything Normal.
Nominally the column is about childcare and how pleased we should all be that Johann has found the vision to put this grand idea centre stage. But in reality it is to praise the Union and devolution, admire its representatives and brush aside anything that deluded Yessers out there imagine is a changed landscape. When we say Things Will Never Be The Same Again, this piece says: Oh Yes, They Will.
HeraldScotland
Johann Lamont wants to make childcare her keynote issue. Is it because her priority is social advancement? Possibly. Or could it be she needs a shield to fight behind as her leadership is threatened from within? I grant her both in an act of generosity but why is the issue of her besieged position not even mentioned in this article? Is it a figment of every Labour member’s imagination? Hardly. Here is proof from the Herald’s own political staff http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/referendum-news/murphy-backed-for-leadership-but-lamont-has-no-intention-of-resigning.25414376
So Lamont’s personal case is being supported here even as her own side plots her removal and the rest of Scotland scorns her failure.
And wait a moment…if Lamont is to be praised for promoting childcare now the referendum’s over, why aren’t we praising those who raised it first during the referendum – the SNP? Why is it laudable for a Labour leader today to major on a subject raised by the SNP eleven months ago?Surely, the story is Well Done, Johann – You’re Catching On.
Here’s a quote. ‘Ms Lamont’s credentials on social justice and equality are beyond doubt. She has fought for them all her political life. She knows too that the keys to prosperity are good health and education…’
Strange then with such credentials she has described universal benefits as ‘something for nothing’. Strange that she voted against free school meals (allowing there was an independence trap contained in the motion but Labour’s amendment still didn’t back free meals). Strange too that she opposed minimum pricing of alcohol, booze being one of the most deadly forces afflicting families.
As for equality, wasn’t it Johann who complained in the chamber that Nicola Sturgeon was a successful woman married to a successful man? Feminist solidarity, it wasn’t.
And didn’t she use a conference speech to venture to the edge of the acceptable when addressing a childless man… ‘But there is one thing which the First Minister has discovered this year. Women give birth to children. Then they look after them. So when his focus groups tell him women don’t like him he discovers childcare. It wasn’t exactly the same as Fleming discovering penicillin. Splitting the atom it was not but I suppose the First Minister learning anything about how real Scots live their lives is some sort of progress. I’m not going to give any theories about why the First Minister has a problem with women.’ That made many uneasy. Still, in the Herald this is all forgotten as Johann is recreated as Emily Pankhurst.
We could also forget that the SNP has been busy delivering on the childcare front. More than a quarter of two-year-olds get 600 hours a year of nursery care, the equivalent of 38 weeks of morning or afternoon session. All pupils in the first three years of primary get a free lunch.
Free childcare provision is being expanded to every two year-old from a workless household in Scotland – around 8,400 children or 15 per cent of all two-year-olds.
But then this is about Johann, not delivery in government.
One of the imponderables of Lamont’s scheme to limit the costs to 10 per cent of average earnings but there is no plan for meeting the cost yet when the SNP opened its offer this is what Kezia Dugdale said: ‘They’re writing policies on the bag of a fag packet. The proposals are uncosted and ill-thought through.’ I didn’t see that in the Herald…
Never mind, Catherine MacLeod tells us this is such a good Labour idea that Kezia went to Finland – home of a world standard education system to fact-find, clearly unaware that the SNP’s Mike Russell went there four years ago to do just that. In fact, I think he’s been more than once.
I too welcome Labour getting serious about policy issues, if they really are serious. As I say, I smell a subterfuge to defend Johann’s threadbare leadership. What I don’t like is uncritical PR spin which fails to ask why our childcare is so expensive in the first place and why small independent countries have better systems. (The answer is they control all tax and spend and set their own priorities which is what we would have with independence).
So there it is – the unchallenged support for a belated, uncosted policy we are all to salute in order to big up Johann and Labour. At the end of the item is the second part of the message. ‘Great energy was expended by both sides during the referendum debate. Hopefully that energy and political commitment will be channeled in a different direction to deliver the policy changes so many wanted to see.’
In other words, give up and stop your grassroots campaigns, demos and mass movements. Stop joining anti Union parties. Stop asking tricky questions. Leave it to the professionals and let us all go back to our comfort zone. We like to tell you what’s good for you and you should listen. After all, we’ve made such a good job of the country, haven’t we?
This is the classic evidence that they have learned nothing and will not deliver anything that meets Scotland’s aspirations. Labour is not being reborn either here or in England and there may be evidence from today’s by-elections that UKIP isn’t only eating into Tory votes but Labour ones too. The return of tired old Labour under tired old Johann is Unionist wishful thinking and wouldn’t have got past Angus Macleod if he’d been in the editor’s chair.

Thumbs Down for Labour (8 October 2014)



The standing of the Scottish Labour Party is at an all time low these days, largely because people don't really know what it stands for and also because its recent leaders have been a series of 'duds', politically speaking.

Since Jack McConnell lost the 2007 elections and was 'elevated' to the House of Lords three successive leaders (Wendy Alexander, Iain Gray and Johann Lamont) have all failed to make their mark, yet all three enjoyed the political patronage of Gordon Brown who has for years pulled all the strings when it comes to Scottish Labour.

So on equal pay, one of the biggest issues facing Scottish council workers for many years, Scottish Labour leaders have had nothing of substance to say despite the fact that some of them are self-styled feminists and champions of gender equality.

Yet in North Lanarkshire, for example, the Labour led council has been forced to concede that many traditional male jobs were getting paid 60% more than their female colleagues and that these huge pay differences remain to this day, because of the way in which senior managers implemented new pay arrangements in 2006.

Now I think it's shocking that so many workers across Scotland have had to fight so long and hard for equal pay and it's even more shocking that the very worst offenders  have been Labour run councils.

Meanwhile failed politicians like Iain Gray have not retired quietly into the background where they surely belong; instead the former Labour leader has been nominated to represent his party on the all-party Smith Commission which is considering the thorny issue of more powers, or Devo Max, for the Scottish Parliament.    

God help us all!


Labour Leader (4 April 2014)


I listened to First Minister's Questions (FMQs) in the Scottish Parliament the other day and came away embarrassed at the behaviour of the Labour leader, Johann Lamont, who used up all her time banging on about some obscure FOI request regarding Alex Salmond's expenses while on some official visit abroad.

Now this is in stark contrast to the Labour leader's interest in FOI matters much closer to home which I wrote to Johann Lamont about back in 2012 - regarding the non-disclosure of pay information by Labour-run South Lanarkshire Council. 

And this issue went all the way to the UK Supreme Court which ruled in my favour of course, yet throughout this period Johann Lamont had nothing to say on the subject - and nor did her predecessor, Iain Gray.  

Despite the fact that the FOI request in South Lanarkshire concerned people's jobs and livelihoods - not some petty point about the First Minister's expenses while he was on official business abroad on behalf of the Scottish Government.

If the Labour leader believes that Alex Salmond is guilty of some wrongdoing, then why doesn't Johann Lamont put her money where her mouth is and complain to the relevant authorities?

I suspect the answer to that question is all too obvious, but it's to the great shame of the Labour leader (a self-declared feminist) that she has shown much more interest in Alex Salmond's expenses than she ever has done on the subject of equal pay in Scotland's councils.    

Labour's Double Standards (25 April 2012)

I sent a letter by e-mail to the Scottish Labour Leader last Thursday - following Johann Lamont's pointed comments at First Minister's Questions.

Having heard nothing for the past week - not even an acknowledgement - I think it's fair to share what I had to say with readers of the blog site in South Lanarkshire - and elsewhere.

To my mind Scottish Labour's double standards are shameful and spectacular in equal measure - because while they have plenty to say about other people when it comes to Freedom of Information - party leaders turn a blind turn a blind eye when it suits their purpose.

No wonder people get cynical about politics and politicians, but Scotland's voters get a chance to have their say - at next week's local council elections on 3rd May. 


Johann Lamont, MSP
Scottish Labour Leader

Dear Johann

Labour in South Lanarkshire

Please find attached a copy of a letter I sent to the Labour leader of South Lanarkshire Council, Cllr Eddie McAvoy, on 10 May 2011.

As things turned out, the Labour leadership of the council failed to listen to my advice but, as I predicted, the decision to appeal the adjudicated decision of the Scottish Information Commissioner has come back to haunt Councillor McAvoy and his colleagues.

Because in a landmark ruling recently, three judges at the Court of Session dismissed South Lanarkshire Council's appeal and in their detailed written decision Lords Marnoch, Mackay and Brailsford said:

"We say that because, having regard to the Commissioner's findings looked at as a whole, we are satisfied that even applying the stricter test the Commissioner could only have concluded that necessity (of publishing the information) was made out. In particular, he held that the Requester's own interest coincided with a widespread public interest in the matter of gender equality and that it was important to achieve transparency on the subject of Equal Pay. No better means existed to achieve that goal than by releasing the information in question."

In my view South Lanarkshire Council's behaviour is a cynical abuse of the FOI process and a terrible waste of taxpayers' money into the bargain.

I recall that your predecessor as Scottish Labour leader - Iain Gray - was quick to criticise the Scottish Government for failing to immediately comply with a previous adjudication of the Scottish Information Commissioner.

And at First Minister's Questions (FMQs) today in the Scottish Parliament, you referred to this previous FOI case and also accused the Scottish Government of suppressing information ahead of the local council elections on 3 May 2012.

Yet here we have a much better example and one that is far closer to home: a major Labour-run council in South Lanarkshire has been suppressing public information for years, then makes a fool of itself by pursuing the issue to destruction at the Court of Session in Edinburgh, and all at huge public expense.

Up till now Scottish Labour leadership has said nothing about this scandal, despite all the brave words spoken at FMQs, and to many people, myself included, this looks decidedly odd, if not downright hypocritical.

The irony is, of course, that similar pay information is freely available in other Scottish councils without the need even to resort to a formal FOI request.

I believe the voters in South Lanarkshire are entitled to know where the Scottish Labour party stands on these issue before the local elections on 3 May 2012 because - to my mind - the political leadership of South Lanarkshire Council is bringing the Scottish Labour party into disrepute.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Kind regards


Mark Irvine

Councillor MaAvoy
Labour Leader - South Lanarkshire Council


Dear Councillor McAvoy

Freedom of Information

I refer to our exchange of e-mails yesterday - 9 May 2011.

I heard subsequently from a council official, as you will know, and have since been advised that South Lanarkshire Council intends to appeal the decision of the Scottish Information Commissioner.

I have to say I find this an astonishing decision - one which will comeback to haunt the council in future, I hope - not least because it is another cynical delaying tactic as well as a complete abuse of taxpayers money, in my opinion.

No other council in Scotland behaves in this furtive fashion over the pay levels of its male dominated council jobs - such as refuse workers and gardeners.

South Lanarkshire Council's behaviour is epitomised by secrecy and obfuscation - in my experience - yet the council proclaims to support openness, transparency and freedom of information.

To my mind South Lanarkshire Council is putting itself in exactly the same position as the House of Commons when - a few years ago - it tried to prevent the public from learning the truth about Westminster MPs and their expenses - unsuccessfully as it turned out in the end.

I will have more to say on the subject in the weeks ahead and no doubt many other people will as well - including the 2,000 plus South Lanarkshire Council employees who are still fighting for equal pay.

Kind regards


Mark Irvine

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