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Wings Over Scotland


The no-personality crisis

Posted on April 04, 2019 by

We were just going through our last Panelbase poll this morning looking to round up findings we hadn’t yet published when we suddenly noticed an odd thing.

We had of course previously observed that the Scottish Labour branch office manager Pritchard Leopold (SUB: PLEASE CHECK) wasn’t terribly well known in the nation, with barely over a third of Scots able to pick his name out of a list when prompted, despite a year and a half in the job.

But then we spotted something curious about the numbers.

Because the sub-party’s pseudo-leader was recognised more by voters of EVERY other party than he was by his own. While just 37% of Labour voters from the last election knew who he was, a whopping 61% of Lib Dems did, along with 51% of Tories and 41% of SNP supporters.

Or put another way: the more people could identify him as leader, the less likely they were to vote for his party.

And particularly when the extremely underwhelming act you have to follow is Kezia Dugdale, we’re pretty sure that can’t be a good thing.

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Proud Cybernat

The BritNat MSM are slacking.

Ghillie

Well spotted Rev Stu.

And a VERY interesting angle to see it from 🙂

Ghillie

And there’s that Mr Don’t Know again, who pops up so often =) just pipped into second place 🙂

John Bell

A legend in his own lunchtime

Bob Mack

Richard who ? Of Scottish what?

No such things. All rumours.

Ken500

Even dumber. How low can they go? Totally, ignorant and incompetent.

The Westminster unionists in total and absolute disarray. It would be hilarious if it was not so dangerous. The pleasure of seeing their internal combustion. It could not happen to a worse bunch of parasites. Like the rats in a sack. What a total shower of imbeciles. Absolutely appalling. Contemptible.

They are sanctioning and starving people to death. Millions have died because of their twisted, illegal policies. Funds have been cut from women and children illegally on ‘Mother’s Day’. Putting more children in poverty. They have absolutely no shame. Heartless bastards of criminal content. Most of them should be in jail. Hopefully soon. The total collapse of the pychopaths.

Terry callachan

Done on purpose.
They don’t want Labour voters to know who he is.
Why ? Because if they knew who he was and where he is from and who he worked for before he took up his current position they would not vote for him.
There are too many prejudices for his CV to cope with so they don’t sell him
the British newspapers go along with this of course
well it’s easy for them to do so
they are an unofficial political party themselves
acting on behalf of Labour Conservative and Lib Dem
All part of better togethers orders from England’s Westminster
The whole Labour Party discussion in Scotland is always around Corbyn and never about Leonard

Ken500

Independence will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes. For strength and security from the barbarians.

Flying like Wings over Scotland. Flying high. Like an oasis in the desert. Independence will succeed. Bye bye. Coarse, unionist imbecile bums. Off you go.

Astonished

Any report yet in the MSM, especially the daily record and the BBC, regarding the blood on James Kelly MSP’s hands ?

Asking for a moron who thinks the MSM report the news.

Macart

Some folk might be forgiven if they considered the fella (wotsisname) more of a… minder than a leader.

dakk

I noticed that,and whilst Dick Leopold is indeed a ‘hollow man’ ,I think Labour voters in Scotland are also more likely to be low information,monkey with red rosette fodder.

I doubt polling results would have been much different for Katya Catdale,Jolene Lament,Jim Murty,Ian Black,or Glenda Alexander.

Fergus Green

Pritchard Leopold?

Was he not the GMB chappie who tried to stop women in Glasgow getting equal pay from the council, or something like that?

The name rings a bell, but I can’t quite place him.

HandandShrimp

No heather has even been slightly warmed by the current SLab leadership.

manandboy

Richard Leonard is just another of Labour’s plastic bottle politicians helping to make the political world a little more polluted by lies, greed and corruption. It’s little wonder he goes largely unnoticed. Eventually, he’ll be recycled before being placed in a room somewhere and become completely forgotten. Useless irrelevance has consequences.

Robert Peffers

@Fergus Green says: 4 April, 2019 at 12:38 pm:

” … Was he not the GMB chappie who tried to stop women in Glasgow getting equal pay from the council, or something like that?

Nah! Wasn’t that Richard Rennie? No! Wait! Was it not Willie Leonard?

No! No! I’ve got it now – it was Bobby Rennie.

Ian McCubbin

A total waste of eletoral space. Oops he is n’t even elected.
Well spotted that his own don’t even know him.
Nae surprise

Bob Mack

@Fergus Green,

No, that’s Quasemodo !! . The bells the bells.

Mike Cassidy

That low recognition factor among SNP voters.

Is that

1)because he is such an empty vessel even politically aware SNP voters are not aware of him

2)because SNP voters are not as politically aware as we on here might think

3)because a lot of the SNP voters who were asked had a little laugh with their ‘answer’.

I’d like to think 3.

But I could live comfortably with 1!

[…] Wings Over Scotland The no-personality crisis We were just going through our last Panelbase poll this morning looking to round […]

SilverDarling

OT

On Politics Live, Philippa Whitford doing a great job of defending a compromise of FoM and Single market for Scotland within the UK. Especially good on a border between Scotland and England.

winifred mccartney

Well he even has to wear a red scarf to remind himself he is labour and jump up and down in parliament to show he is leader but really he is just a puppet on a string. And yes, he was the GMB person who stopped the women in Glasgow getting their just payments for many years.

Luigi

That’s James Kelly’s line manager, I’ll have ye know. 🙂

Michael Laing

These results surely demonstrate that only the least politically-engaged people still support Labour. Even at the height of their popularity, it was evident that a large part of their support came from people who voted for them for no other reason than that their parents and their parents’ parents had done so. Hence, loads of useless, half-witted Labour MPs who did nothing to protect Scotland from Thatcher, mass deindustrialisation and the Poll Tax.

McBoxheid

John Bell says:
4 April, 2019 at 12:23 pm

A legend in his own lunchtime
___________
Steady on John, I doubt he would ever be that popular

ClanDonald

TBH, I have doubts as to whether all the folk who fill in these online polls are even resident in Scotland. I mean, what’s to stop folk elsewhere signing up pretending to live here, just to skew results?

Would explain a lot of the nonsense you see in polling these days (only 53% of scots want to remain in the EU? Aye right)

galamcennalath

Says something about Labour in Scotland’s legacy voters – they are the least politically engaged, not following politics closely. Which probably explains why they are still LiS voters!

LiS and RL seem to go out of their way to make themselves irrelevant by not contributing positively. You have to be very disengaged to not be aware their only policy is SNPBaaad.

Legerwood

O/T but still Labour.

The Cooper-Letwin Bill passed last night by one vote. Apparently the MP, ex-Labour, ex jailbird, Osanaya voted for it. According to Daily Telegraph.

Ever deeper into the rabbit hole we go.

On-Topic Mr Leonard is hardly … finish as you see fit. Can’t work up any enthusiasm for him.

Jockanese Wind Talker

If you know who ‘Radical’ Richard actually is of course you wouldn’t vote for him (or his Accounting Unit – British Labour in Scotland).

Wee Dick:

Avised GCC to fight Equal Pay for women employees in his capacity with the GMB.

Believes (as does his fellow traveler in GMB, Paul Sweeney MP) that “Separation Shuts Shipyards” when all evidence points to the opposite being true.

Announced he would Nationalise already publicly owned Scottish Water.

Voted to repeal The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 which Scottish Police Federation Vice-chairman David Hamilton said “Personally, I believe the repeal of the Offensive Behaviour Act has had an impact, because I think that some people feel wrongly legitimised to behave in a way that they wouldn’t otherwise behave.”

Says Scotland can’t have a Second Indy Ref under ANY circumstances.

Thinks that the Shadow Scottish Cabinets, Shadow Cabinet is fit for purpose when it includes beauts like:

Lesley Laird, Deputy Leader and Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland
Neil Findlay, Business Manager, Party Liaison, Constitutional Relations
Rhoda Grant, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy
Iain Gray, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills
James Kelly, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Finance
Monica Lennon, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport
Alex Rowley, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Communities and Local Government

Thinks he will be the next First Minister of Scotland.

Amongst those and other things, Richard ‘Radical’ Leontard also thinks our heads button up the back.

mountain shadow

Out of interest, is anyone keeping a note of how the Scottish Tory MPs are voting on the Brexit Bill?

It would be good if we could produce some leaflets come the next election to throw it back at them. For example, the brochure could say..

“Despite Angus voting 55.3% to remain in the EU, your current Tory MP Kirstine Hair voted against your wishes, and voted to leave the EU in Westminster”…

Dr Jim

The debacle that is Westminster politicking has rendered the party political spokesgits of their Scottish branches even more irrelevant than they aready were causing the only actual Scottish party’s position to become more elevated both North and South of the border almost to such an extent that the foreigners in England barely realise that their political choices in England have become nonentities in Scotland for the very reason that they chose them

It’s ironic that the dictatorial FPTP system of government in England has led to an outbreak of democracy in Scotland because we understand and don’t like the obvious results of it

Today at FMQs both of the Labour and Lib Dem spokesgits for their respective parties called on the FM and Scottish government to keep mitigating against the Westminster governments policies effects on Scotland using Scottish taxpayers money to do it yet when push comes to shove both of these parties are quite happy to watch Scotland sink into the abyss along with England who they continually admit to not agreeing with, but under no circumstances in their opinion should we divorce ourselves from the people they themselves complain about

Perhaps we should donate whips and lashes for some self flagellation for the Scottish Unionist parties to save their masters in Westminster getting sore arms from beating them

For any doubts that remain in anyone’s mind about the strength or otherwise of British Unionism in Scotland it might serve well to notice, the sub representatives of these parties in Scotland keep telling us week after week they don’t like British policies one little bit but under no circumstances can you say that, because again when push comes to shove in order to maintain their livelyhoods and lifestyles, you the people of Scotland must suck it up shut up and accept your fate and don’t, don’t dare have the same opinion as them because that would lead you to think for yourself and vote for the actual Scottish party who they keep begging every week to find money from your pockets to keep buying bandages to cover up the wounds their own bosses are inflicting on you from Westminster

And the Unionists just can’t have that, there can be no individual thought, except for them of course, well, they’ve got more money than you so they’re alright Union Jack

Arbroath1320

Would I be right in thinking that he was demanding answers from Nicola Sturgeon as to why so low numbers of people across Scotland do NOT know who he is or what his job is?

Would I be right in thinking Nicola Sturgeon turned to John Swinney and asked “is it just me or did you just feel a blast of hot air?”

Republicofscotland

I’m not surprised at that, Leonard’s woeful performances at FMQ’s and his overall leadership of London Labours branch office in Scotland, would drive any Labour supporter North of the border into a fit of amnesia, or apathy as to who he is.

Fireproofjim

Geeo
You are right re casualties. Sorry. I was quoting from faulty memory.
Still, I believe that the US had the right to go after Bin Laden, regardless of other political considerations.
What would you have recommended if he had crashed four planes into Glasgow and boasted about it?

Fireproofjim

geeo

The last commentvshould be on the previous thread. Sorry

Vestas

Its equally likely that you’re surveying “rump Labour”.

ie the people who have always voted Labour, always will & have no idea why they do that, hence they have no clue about the branch manager or his policies.

Frankly were it not for the BBC* “Scottish Labour” would be a fringe party by now & rightly so.

*its still hard to tell where “BBC Scotland” ends and “Scottish Labour” begins in terms of ex-SLAB, SLAB partners, SLAB relatives nepotism etc etc.

Jockanese Wind Talker

*its still hard to tell where “BBC Scotland” ends and “Scottish Labour” begins in terms of ex-SLAB, SLAB partners, SLAB relatives nepotism etc etc. @Vestas says at 2:05 pm

Also known as the ‘Radical’ Byres Road collective of ‘International Socialism’?

Don’t forget some of Bella Cs contributors fall into this camp as well!

Scott

FMQs today.I noticed there was a point of order raised do any of you know who raised it and what it was about???

Phil

Brexeggadon has arrived! Too much water on the HoC roof!

aLurker

You can watch teh original source video here:

link to scottishparliament.tv

Far better than being left wondering what Auntie Beeb is choosing to not tell you!

Ananurhing

Mike Cassidy @ 12.52

“That low recognition factor among SNP voters.
Is that because….”

It’s probably because of the much higher number of SNP voters who correctly identified Corbyn as the leader of Scottish Labour, as opposed to not knowing who Slick Dicky Leotard is.

Ooooh. Apologies if that puts a picture in your head. I can’t unsee that now.

Breeks

OT
Commons suspended because the roof is leaking. Never rains but it pours…

If only there was a sign….

CameronB Brodie

Some light reading for Richard Leopard (English socialists utilitarians can’t really change their spots – it’s a cultural thing).

Equal sovereignty
On the conditions of global political justice

Abstract
This paper discusses the role of state sovereignty in a just global order. The point of departure is two competing conceptions of global political justice: justice as nondomination and justice as impartiality. The former conception advocates an intergovernmental order of equally sovereign states, whereas the latter advocates supranationalism and play down the principle of equal sovereignty in favor of basic human rights.

The arguments underpinning the sovereignty ideal of justice as nondomination are relatively weak, which makes this position susceptible to powerful counterarguments from justice as impartiality. Since justice as impartiality has problematic features of its own, I here present a stronger case for the equal sovereignty of states, drawing on a strand of republican thinking that Philip Pettit has dubbed ‘Franco-German republicanism’.

Specifically, I argue that instead of conceiving human rights and state sovereignty as core ideas of competing normative conceptions, we should see them as equally important aspects of the same conception. Respecting the sovereign rights of states is part and parcel of respecting the rights of individuals. Although equal sovereignty is not all there is to global justice, we cannot claim to promote justice globally without recognizing the equal sovereignty of states.

link to sv.uio.no

CameronB Brodie

More light reading for Richard Leopard, who really needs to come to the understanding that his utilitarian approach to politics is no longer tenable.

The Relationship between Democracy and Sustainable Development

Summary
At one level, the ideas and reality of sustainable development and democracy overlap and are interdependent.

Common to both sustainable development and democracy is participation – the ability of all people to come together and be involved in decisions about how we live and the goals we want to achieve as societies. There are also tensions and differences between the two ideas which need to be resolved in order for current political democratic systems to adapt in the direction of achieving sustainable development.

Pressures on our current democratic systems, particularly the demand for a very different kind of politics or engagement, and the challenges of tackling complex problems, also imply that our democratic system and practices need to evolve. This paper sets out both the similarities and tensions between democracy and sustainable development, and scopes out the ways in which these tensions might be resolved.

link to fdsd.org

call me dave

@Scott
Point of order. Right at the very end about.

Tom Mason MSP for North East Scotland & Councillor for Rosemount/Midstocket. (Two job man)

He asked the FM a question on teachers shortage.

Seems he might have declared an interest related to the question he asked suggested Stewart Stevenson SNP.

The Presiding Officer thought otherwis.

It’s all here

link to scottishparliament.tv

yesindyref2

Are you sure it wasn’t Lynyrd Skynyrd?

Sleep Hame Laborama?

Patrick Roden

on Labour in Scotland (to the tune of ‘Another one bites the dust’)

Was at a close relatives house last week and she told me out of the blue that she has always voted for labour (we never speak about politics )

But, she added, she is just sick of them and won’t be voting for them again! (she didn’t say why and I didn’t ask )

She then added that she hated not voting but wasn’t sure how she would vote from now on, but that the SNP was closest to how she felt.

I then told her that I always voted SNP as they were the only party that genuinely cares about Scotland and that they didn’t need to toe the line of any Westminster party.

She is in her sixties by the way, and certainly doesn’t do social media, so if people like her are beginning to ‘get the message’ about labour, they are in a very very bad way.

oh well, never mind.

geeo

Fireproofjim re:Bin Laden.

I know what i would not allow to happen, i wouldnt ground all planes bar one, the one allegedly containing the perpetrator and his family.

Bin Laden came from a very wealthy Saudi Family, going after them to get to him, and forcing Saudi rulers to cooperate, in the interests of diplomatic relations, would have been rather a better starting point.

Bin Laden was hiding in a country, so the west targeted and destroyed that countries military infrastructure, despite them having nothing to do with 9/11.

Why was Saudi Arabia not destroyed for funding one of their own terrorists (and 19 others responsible for 9/11, directly)?

Its a legitimate point.

chicmac

Perhaps not so surprising if, as many might surmise, Scottish Labour support has now been condensed down to those who really would vote for a donkey or indeed any other farm animal with a red rosette.

i.e. for that faction, the donkey’s name is of no particular interest.

Al-Stuart

.
Rev Stu.,

Thank you for another excellent forensic analysis and fascinaing post.

You put me in mind of the fact I voted Labour for all of my formative years. A love of a political ideal that led to elected office as a Labour Party member, proposed by none other than one Mr McConnell when 1990s Labour promised so much to help so many with that fine young Mr Blair at the helm from 1994!

Stu., reading your words about SLAB Dick Pritchard, Kezia Dugdale and the amazing fact that an emprty chair gets MORE votes than either “leader”, I despair at all those years of wasted votes. Others on here likely feel that way too.

The SNP is far from perfect, but even at it’s worst, and after 12 years in office, the SNP is 100 times better than the fag-end of the Labour Party.

There is something incredibly sad about the festering pile of excrement into which that a once noble and decent political movement has turned.

Sad but inevitible, inexorable and right.

Please can someone do the decent thing and take SLAB plus JC4PM Lab to the vets for the needle.

G H Graham

Ricardo Leonardo is his stage name.

His real name is Ricard Bottleopener and was affectionately known at school as Zébulon.

Muscleguy

He got the gig simply because he was the candidate most likely to Beat Anas Sarwar. That was his only qualification, not being Anas Sarwar. A distinction he shares with 6 billion other people.

What an achievement.

Muscleguy

I’m not Anas too.

Bobp

Patrick roden 9.19pm. Ah well patrick your doing your best. My big sis in Scotland has just been told, 3 mnths waiting list for hip op. Told her she’s lucky. Over a year down here in dorset. After brexit Scotland better get ready to take the pain. SCOTLAND ‘you have been warned.

Bobp

Chicmac 1.23am. Yup, a bit like the welsh donkeys in newport. Sorry welsh sion.


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