South Lanarkshire Update
The Sunday Herald continues to expose the bad blood which exists in Lanarkshire Labour where different factions appear to be fighting like cats in a sack.
I especially enjoyed the comment by one party source that they would rather go the the North Pole to avoid campaigning for Michael McCann.
Now I don't know LizAnne Handibode who is Labour's candidate in East Kilbride for the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections, but I found this interesting extract from a Unison journal from June 2008.
"UNISON LABOUR LINK SCOTLAND - June 2008
"Liz-Anne on Exec Congratulations to UNISONís Liz-Anne Handibode from South Lanarkshire Branch who was elected to the Scottish Labour Executive for the first time along with Dave Watson.
Liz-Anne is a member of the Scottish Labour Link Committee and a Branch Labour Link Officer."
Now back in 2008 the fight for equal pay in South Lanarkshire was in full swing yet the local Unison branch was actively discouraging its members from pursuing equal pay claims against the Labour-run Council.
Unison was also silent during the big Freedom of Information (FoI) case involving South Lanarkshire which went all the way to the UK Supreme Court before the Council finally agreed to release details confirming the huge pay differences between male and female jobs.
Now as I said at the time, union leaders in South Lanarkshire should hang their heads in shame over this craven behaviour and terrible failure to stand up for their lowest paid members against a Labour-run Council.
But standing as a candidate and asking for support in next year's Scottish Parliament elections - now that really does take the biscuit.
"Liz-Anne on Exec Congratulations to UNISONís Liz-Anne Handibode from South Lanarkshire Branch who was elected to the Scottish Labour Executive for the first time along with Dave Watson.
Liz-Anne is a member of the Scottish Labour Link Committee and a Branch Labour Link Officer."
Now back in 2008 the fight for equal pay in South Lanarkshire was in full swing yet the local Unison branch was actively discouraging its members from pursuing equal pay claims against the Labour-run Council.
Unison was also silent during the big Freedom of Information (FoI) case involving South Lanarkshire which went all the way to the UK Supreme Court before the Council finally agreed to release details confirming the huge pay differences between male and female jobs.
Now as I said at the time, union leaders in South Lanarkshire should hang their heads in shame over this craven behaviour and terrible failure to stand up for their lowest paid members against a Labour-run Council.
But standing as a candidate and asking for support in next year's Scottish Parliament elections - now that really does take the biscuit.
Labour candidates go on holiday as party faces election meltdown
SCOTTISH Labour tensions between Westminster and Holyrood have erupted again over two Scottish Parliament candidates going on foreign holidays during the general election campaign.
LizAnne Handibode, who will contest the East Kilbride seat next year, jetted off to the Italian Alps at the same time her party is in danger of losing the constituency to the SNP.
Jackie Burns, another Holyrood candidate in Lanarkshire, also left the campaign trail to go on holiday.
Since 1999, Labour MP and MSPs have fought a series of turf wars that party insiders believe have sapped morale and been punished at the ballot box.
It was reported that one MP, during the 2011 Holyrood election, went on a three-week holiday instead of campaigning for his party colleague.
Michael McCann, elected as the MP for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow in 2010, is protecting a 14,503 majority.
While the SNP has hundreds of local members working on the campaign, McCann is facing a boycott amongst some Labour councillors who are unwilling to help him.
It has now emerged that Handibode, selected last year as the party's East Kilbride candidate for the 2016 election, took a holiday last week in north-eastern Italy.
On April 5, at which point the campaign was in full flow, she tweeted that she was "laughing out loud" reading a beauty article "in a chalet in the Dolomites".
Twenty-four hours later, against a backdrop picture of the Alps, she wrote: "This is where my second ski lesson will take place!"
On April 9, she wrote about having a "fantastic lunch" at gourmet restaurant Rifugio Bioch Hutte, adding: "I could stay here all day."
In the same week, Scottish Labour activists were pounding the streets in a bid to rescue the party's general election campaign north of the border.
Handibode and McCann are understood to be allies and the holiday was explained as a mistake by one senior party source.
"It is a really bad misjudgement," the insider said.
However, another party source: "I would go to the North Pole to avoid campaigning for McCann."
Burns, selected to fight Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse next year, also went on holiday this month.
He is part of MP Jimmy Hood's campaign team, but he told the Sunday Herald: "I took a holiday last week. I took my family away for a holiday that was arranged a year ago. We launched our campaign on the 28th November. I've been working every week since then."
Asked whether the holiday was in Majorca, he said: "I was away with my family, yes."
Hood has a majority of 13,478, but the seat is a key SNP target and the huge swings seen in recent opinion polls would hand the seat to the Nationalists.
SNP MSP Linda Fabiani said: "Labour's problems in East Kilbride continue. It seems that the infighting and battles within the local Labour Party are so bitter that senior figures would rather leave the country to get away from it all than help their beleaguered candidate."
Handibode said the holiday was a surprise trip planned by her husband.
