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To my friends in Labour 455

Posted on September 13, 2014 by

Hello. Some of you will know me, but most of you won’t. That’s alright. That’s not important. All you have to know right now is that I’m just like you. We may well be on different sides in this referendum race – I’m on team Yes – but we are the same.

I come from a working-class family, in a working-class area of Glasgow. My father worked for Glasgow City Council in the Parks department, and I followed him there and spent seven years out cutting grass, planting flowers, picking up litter and raking leaves in the rain.

labourliberty

I joined the Labour Party when I was 17, and was a trade union activist a year later. I was a local branch chair at 21, and I was proud to have worked alongside the team at Keir Hardie House to deliver a Labour government in 1997. The Labour Party was my second home.

In 2001 I decided to go to university, so I signed up for night school and for a year I went religiously, doing three subjects a week on top of my job. I passed them all and chose Stirling, where I quickly became involved in student union politics. In my first campaign for an executive post I was tagged one of “Blair’s Poodles”. I wore my party colours on my sleeve.

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Ears wide shut 71

Posted on March 23, 2014 by

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”

coolhand

It’s one of the most famous lines in the history of cinema. I’ve heard it a hundred times. And lately, to me, it’s a pretty fair summation of everything that’s gone wrong in Scottish Labour’s relationship with both its own members and its voters.

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Reading through the lines 129

Posted on November 09, 2013 by

Sometimes I can be a deeply cynical man. I get it from a couple of sources. Some is from my time as a political activist, when I learned the game in the sewer of Glasgow politics. Some is from my media degree, which taught me (to paraphrase the song) to believe none of what you hear and less than half of what your read. An education heavy on sociology, history and psychology helps too.

easythink

I didn’t grow up with this view of the world. I came to it, over time, and much careful consideration. Yet at heart I remain a socialist, and I believe that people are inherently good. It’s the systems we build for ourselves that skew the perspective, that bend our good intentions out of shape, that make us less than what we should be.

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    • Dan on The thickness of blood: “Still doing it when I try to switch between older and new articles. Sod this, goes off to delete yet…Feb 15, 16:45
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    • Marie on The thickness of blood: “We don’t have freedom of speech and we don’t live in a democracy – that’s why we don’t take a…Feb 15, 16:38
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    • Marie on The thickness of blood: “A trans woman who has a penis? That’s called a man.Feb 15, 16:36
    • Mark Beggan on The thickness of blood: “Brilliant Rev. The plans of rats and she/men.Feb 15, 16:29
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    • gregor on The thickness of blood: “The Whingers here can’t even describe Scotland’s values. They are an utter embarrassment to Scotland.Feb 15, 16:17
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    • Insider on The thickness of blood: “You, and the “trans women” should be made to learn grammatical English and correct spelling perhaps ? p.s Are you…Feb 15, 16:15
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    • Hatey McHateface on The thickness of blood: ““44% of people in the UK now claiming to know a trans person” That stat is misleading unless correlated against…Feb 15, 16:08
    • Muscleguy on The thickness of blood: “Apparently Sandie Peggie declined to setyle with NHS Fife as she wants a declaratory judgement. She also needs that to…Feb 15, 16:04
    • yoon scum on The thickness of blood: “I would like to present a little sernario and I’d like you lot to consider it and to answer two…Feb 15, 16:03
    • gregor on The thickness of blood: “re. “There is many within the “independence” movement who are deeply uncomfortable with freedom of speech Just look at the…Feb 15, 15:59
    • gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “The liberal elite strongly disagree (as usual:)Feb 15, 15:48
    • yoon scum on The thickness of blood: “Okay lets go into your world of chick don’t have dicks What is the answer? Should we ban anyone who…Feb 15, 15:44
    • gregor on For Mridul And Sandy: “Anonymous disagree. Ignore them, lolFeb 15, 15:42
    • yoon scum on The thickness of blood: “There is many within the “independence” movement who are deeply uncomfortable with freedom of speech Just look at the rage…Feb 15, 15:34
    • TheParty1sOver on The thickness of blood: “Chicks don’t have dicks. Women’s changing rooms are called women’s changing rooms for a reason.Feb 15, 15:32
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    • gregor on The thickness of blood: “Freedom of speech does not apply to you lot.Feb 15, 15:28
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