The Scottish Labour Goodbye
Posted on
October 25, 2014 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Iain Gray, leader of Scottish Labour, at First Minister’s Questions in March 2011:
A few weeks later, Gray had resigned after just barely holding onto his own seat by around 150 votes as Alex Salmond led the SNP to a historic landslide victory.
Luckily, Gray’s successor learned from his embarrassing hubris, for if there’s one thing Scottish Labour ensure us they’re really good at, it’s learning lessons.
So here’s Johann Lamont, leader of Scottish Labour, at FMQs in September 2014:
A few weeks later Mr Salmond had indeed handed in his notice, but will still be in office at next week’s session and for more beyond it, while Ms Lamont… well, we already know how this one ends.
“When the First Minister is long gone, I will still be doing my job on behalf of the people of Scotland.”
Please let there be video of that quote.
Maybe she meant to say Pollok rather than Scotland? She’ll still be an MSP for 18 months. Well, presumably…
What happened next: link to thefilmspectrum.com
I am not a Labour Party supporter but I hate what the London Labour Party has done to Ms Lamont and the Scottish branch.
This article is worth a read:
link to theguardian.com
[…] The Scottish Labour Goodbye […]
but what has really struck me (sharp focus), from the events of the last 24hrs, was/is so little respect for the sovereignty of scotland, as a unique and very different country, compared to the other unique countries of the r.uk, and indeed the rest of the world.
to be done too, rather than engaged with.
the people are excluded from their imperialist club, soap opera, drama.
they act with collective cognitive convergence totally detached from who they are supposed to serve.
we’ll tell you what you are thinking or going to say.
it is absolute control freakery
testament in the virus remarks or not genetically programmed, crap.
they know best, we know nothing, and we need to be led.
in total failure to acknowledge the political engagement that has just taken place, all over our amazing country, where our voices were heard, for many, perhaps for the 1st time ever.
Some advice for the Labour MSPs at Holyrood:
Break away from your London masters and support DevoMax.
Fail to do this, and the whole lot of you will crash and burn, just like your (ex) leader.
From the SNP website:
“The SNP has today highlighted a report in the Guardian newspaper, revealing that Ed Miliband barred Johann Lamont from speaking out against the Bedroom Tax for a year while he pondered what Labour’s policy on it should be.
The Guardian reports that a source close to Ms Lamont said: “They told Lamont not to condemn it (the Bedroom Tax) for a year while Ed made up his mind.”
Goodbye and good riddance, don’t let the door hit your arse on the way out, hopefully we can get rid of the rest of them soon.
@ JimnArlene.
Some of them are doing a good job getting rid of themselves.
link to en.wikipedia.org
and scroll down.
Alex Salmond resigned because he knew it was for the good of Scotland and the people of Scotland that the mantle be passed on. I don’t think JoLa resigned as she has no principles it defo looks like she’s been pushed in an internal shake up for the good of the labour party although she has restored some respect with her parting shot which they surely didn’t expect.
Johann and Archie’s “Grand Plan” was that she was to be crowned Queen of Holyrood and in charge of policy. She was to hand massive powers and lots of money, to Local Government, especially Glasgow City Council, where Archie(her hubbie) was to depose the unstable leader Matheison.
They were to become the new “Posh and Becks” of Scotland. But it didn’t quite work out like that. The Scottish electorate saw right through Scottish Labour and told them so at the polls.
Scottish Labour are like a dying star, ready to implode and disappear into a black hole never to be seen again.
@ Caz -M.
Oh dear, how sad – – – never mind!
When I heard the news my first reaction was sympathy for Lamont. She had been stabbed in the back by Ed Miliband and all his Westminster Scottish crawling sycophantic London-loving ragtag.
But rather than fight it behind the scenes, she could have brought it right out into the open, and had support, maybe not from most of her MSPs who would have been looking fearfully sideyways, but from the public.
An example is that apparently Miliband silenced her for a year over the bedroom tax while he dithered about which way he should go on it.
Silenced her? She has a mouth, and could have taken her own stance on it – against – fukky against – and earned respect. Well, she didn’t, she too played the Westminster game and is now passing into the west.
Elaine May Smith
What happened next
????????????????????????????
Elaine May Smith
What happened next
????????????????????????????
It is getting really interesting now. Labour in Scotland seem to want to be more left than the SNP while South of the border they need to appeal more to middle classes to win the marginals. I can’t get a handle on the Wales branch but I have a feeling they have a different approach to socialism than red Ed. It’s difficult to see how they can possibly put forward cohesive UK wide policies for a GE that would make sense. I believe labour are about to pull themselves inside out trying.
At least Jola got it- too late but she has been able to articulate what we all know. That Scotland has different politics from rUK and, despite the No vote, it’s not going back in its box.
If she chooses to stand again as an MSP in 2016 she will likely be thrown out anyway by the electorate.
If I was her I would stand down before being further embarrassed.
yesindyref2
exactly, she has betrayed the scottish people and then moans that she has been betrayed.
I have been trying to get more info on this secret society within Scottish Westminster Labour MPs called the “Network”.
According to Michael Connerty MP, it is a right-wing faction within the Labour Party and includes Jim Murphy.
I have wrote to my MP Douglas Alexander and have asked him if he knows anything about the “Network” and if so, is he a member of it.
So Johann had to zip it for a year and say nothing about the bedroom Tax.
Let’s get real here.
How many Scottish politicians have colluded for 40 years with Westminster and the City Elite and kept quiet about Scottish Oil & Gas.
gerry parker
“Oh dear, how sad – – – never mind!”
I tried to finish with a happy ending for Scottish Labour, but there isn’t one.
The whole Scottish labour party is a sham, as is Scottish Torys, and Scottish fib dems, this is proof that westminster runs the fucking lot of them. And I will go even further, THE ENGLISH RUN THE FUCKING SHOW. Becouse the Welsh and the Irish partys are in the same boat. ALL RUN BY ENGLAND. There now I have said it. The uk my ares, A union my arse, we are all being controlled by the English london westminster.
When I heard the news my first reaction was sympathy for Lamont
I do worry about that as she doesn’t deserve any sympathy and neither does her party but the daily retard and the EBC will try and spin out the sympathy card to make folk feel sorry and so forgive labour, this cannot be allowed to happen so if you feel yourself having sympathy for them stick some forks in your leg
A couple of things about Johann Lamont;
1) She complains that the SLAB are treated as a branch of the party, ignoring the fact that it IS, as opposed to a party in its own right.
2) She is going IMMEDIATELY, as opposed to a controlled handover. (Alex Salmond is stepping down, but in a controlled manner.) Did she fall or was she pushed? It seems that she is full of vitriol for a simple resignation, as opposed to being kicked out.
3) She is now making statements about the party that everyone else has been saying for years, and that she was deliberately ignoring previously.
If it takes ‘Red Ed Miliband’a year make a decision on something as abhorrent as the bedroom tax, then we can only hope and pray that he gets to be PM with an urgent task. A fecking year!! It shows the levels that Labour have sank too with fruitloops like him in charge. Is he really the best that Labour have got? Cameron’s nae great shakes either, is he really the best the tories have got? The UK is really royally screwed. Couls Alex Salmond no do us a favour and be the PM as he’d do a far better job than these F*@wits put together…
link to bbc.co.uk
7mins35 in JPFife 🙂
Can anyone here make one of those songs out of her? Like the one they did for Clegg “I’m Sorry”.
fred blogger says:
but what has really struck me (sharp focus), from the events of the last 24hrs, was/is so little respect for the sovereignty of scotland, as a unique and very different country…
The No vote last month officially made Scotland a region of the United Kingdom. Until such times as that result can be changed, we have to accept that, as far as anyone in any position of power down south cares, we are nothing but a region and will be treated as such.
@caz-m
This so called “Network” faction in the British Labour Party rings a very vague bell. It sounds vaguely familiar.
These Slab leaders (I include previous ones), so they are unhappy at London pulling all the strings, all the time. Now Lamont spills the beans and others back her up.
Aye, but while in office they all put their party’s fortunes before Scotland’s. In some ways, it wouldn’t be quite so bad if they put the UK and Union before Scotland, that might be considered acceptable Unionist values. However, not even that – it’s their London-based London-centric party they put before everything else. Shocking beyond belief.
A few years ago it might have surprised me, but after the way the referendum campaign was run, no political depravity surprises me.
I think the post of “Scottish Labour” leader is an impossible one.
At present, it will always answer to London. It will continue to do so, cue having having “leaders” quit in short succession when they have had enough of having the rug pulled from below their feet/ stabbed in the back by Westninster colleagues/ Labour UK leader. It will alway remains that they are a creature of the British LP.
The other alternative to have a Westminster MP in the position will only make it obvious that London is in charge, and LP will continue to fair badly in the electoral mind when it comes to looking after the interests of the people in Scotland.
The only 2 credible solutions to this are-
a) full indepdendence for the SLP, supplying/ give support for the British LP (but sovereign in their own right to chose what they support), but able to dissent from British opinion & form a distictive Scottish policy base. It could continue to support the concept of the UK within that concept. The problem is that London based LP is too much of a control freak zone to let this happen, let alone the Red tory Westminster MPs that only see to it that they are to be kept in themanner to which they are accustomed- Lots of money, no responsibility.
b) campaign to abolish Holyrood takes hold,so as to do away with the West Lothian Question and EVEL. A strong option in the mind of many of the Westminster group of Scottish Labour MPs. Not going to be popular in Scotland, but when did they ever listen to anyone in the Scottish party?
Both of those options are possible. However it is likely that this current turmoil may split what is left of the LP, with part campaigning for real Devo-MAx or independence, both of which may save the party from extinction.
@Caz-M
Keep us posted on any info on the ‘network’. I heard that this morning too, and I’ve never heard of the ‘network’.
I wondered if it was what I call the labour cabal, the bbc, DR and GCC and their ALEOs pals.
Curious none of us have heard of it.
@Thomas William Dunlop
Both options are possible, but the second one would surely finish off Labour in Scotland. I posted on the Guardian that British Labour’s best bet would be to support full Devo max for Scotland, support EVEL, reverse their opposition to PR at Westminster, support significant regional governments for England, and give more powers to Northern Ireland and Wales. Now folk would say that it would be suicidal for Labour to support Devo max for Scotland and EVEL, but a Conservative victory in May would make the latter inevitable anyway. If it is going to happen anyway, surely they would be better to try and seize the agenda. They will not support these things of course, but it is the only realistic plan for them imo.
Poor Ms Lamont
She can always tune in, turn on and Switch Off with the BBC Bias VII live stream tomorrow starting at 2pm… link to new.livestream.com
Followed by some Spooky fun with Overheard in the Westend… link to new.livestream.com
Enjoy Johann you deserve it!
The one thing for sure in this is she was pushed because she was a liability demonstrated by her lack of presence during the lead up to the referendum and the BBC’s James Cooke slap down that her career had been a failure. Then the more recent fatuous statement she wanted to be the next FM despite losing support in droves under her leadership. The good thing that she has done for Scotland and Scottish Labour is bite back to try to ensure that control of the SLP is wrested from WM and that the SLP will become ‘independent’. This will be needed to have balance in Holyrood with an effective opposition!
[…] The Scottish Labour Goodbye […]
although she has restored some respect with her parting shot which they surely didn’t expect.
One swallow maketh not a summer Croompenstein!
They were to become the new “Posh and Becks” of Scotland.
Oh Caz!! Please!! A more utterly utterly inept comparison I can’t think of!!
Hahahahahah!
How ’bout ” the new Herman and Lilly Munster?”
pete says:
25 October, 2014 at 6:03 pm
The whole Scottish labour party is a sham, as is Scottish Torys, and Scottish fib dems, this is proof that westminster runs the fucking lot of them.
Well Pete, who would have thunk it! Gosh!!
Dinnatouch says:
25 October, 2014 at 6:15 pm
fred blogger says:
but what has really struck me (sharp focus), from the events of the last 24hrs, was/is so little respect for the sovereignty of scotland, as a unique and very different country…
The No vote last month officially made Scotland a region of the United Kingdom. Until such times as that result can be changed, we have to accept that, as far as anyone in any position of power down south cares, we are nothing but a region and will be treated as such.
+1
‘In the real world’
That’s going to be some Grand Labour Gala on Thurday 30th in Central Glasgow. (They even have to keep the venue secret). They sacked the guy who organised it. Ian Price? Eat humble pie.
Well at least we know who the leader of The Scottish Branch will be. Ed Miliband.
wee Jonny says
“Elaine May Smith
What happened next
????????????????????????????”
Well you asked for it!
link to youtube.com
I tried, lord knows I tried.
They won’t be treating 3 million people (the majority) in Scotland like a region. They can get lost. There is an election ahead to start campaigning for until every food bank is gone and people can live with dignity.
Wonder what the 70% of Labour NO voters think now, especially about the ‘Bedroom tax’.
Scaring old grannies have come back to bite the Labour Granny clones.
Re: The “Network”
As long as this group exists, Scottish Labour will never move forward. They will always be under London Rule.
London will have the final say on EVERYTHING.
And with a Westminster MP as leader of Scottish labour, like Sarwar, it is only going to distance them from their supporters even more.
I wonder what JoLa’s hobbies are as she has been trying to get a dig at the FM for playing golf, could she be a wind surfer, a white water rafter, a bog snorkler? nah probably derts and dominos doon the local labour club 🙂
Folks, a lot of this is bullshit. I heard from someone who works for Labour in London that Lamont was a goner nearly two weeks ago. She may have been allowed to resign and she may have thrown a hand grenade over her shoulder but she was ‘fired’!
Possibly the greatest asset Alex Salmond ever had. Nicola will be sorry to see her go. I only wonder why Labour didn’t do this much, much earlier.
nigel at 6.55
Exactly.
I can’t imagine why anybody on here would hope for a independent Scottish Labour Party forming. We don’t need one and it would only provide a very convenient bolt hole which would allow some of the rats of the present Labour party to slip into it away away from their guilt
I saw a clip on TV earlier, with Lamont giving a speech and Ed Miliband looking totally unimpressed and I thought of him after, approaching her to give appropriate congratulations, and these words from Tom Lehrer went through my mind:
“I take your hand in mine dear
I hold it to my lips
I take a healthy bite from
Your dainty fingertips”.
So wrong on so many levels, and yet so right.
Can i take this opportunity to expose Lamont, and anyone else
with selective memory problems.
link to snp.org
Re – Lamonts Lament: (or parting excuses if you like).
Lamont claims she was ordered to keep quiet on the bedroom tax.
Lets see if the sums add up.
Out of 258 Labour opposition MP’s at Westminster,
47 failed to show for the bedroom tax vote – including 10 from
Scotland. Looks like your successor will be one of them.
Anyhoo, lets just remove the 58 from the 258 Labour politicians
at Warminster – that leaves us with 200. What did they do?
Yet YOU, ya skank, so-called leader of the Scottish office were
quite happy to kiss ass, run with the big guns and to hell with
any “socialist” principles.
And for the 3 years you were in the post you continued to kiss
your way up the Warminster ladder culminating and collaborating
in the mother of all sell-outs. You sold your sole to the devil
and jumped into bed with a tory directive, as did every other
Labour politician – in pursuit of their own greed.
When this back-fired and it didn’t quite work out as your masters had intended – with the backlash against all your
partners in crime (BBC & Daily Rectum etc) – you decided to
jump ship for one reason and one reason only.
You know Labour in Scotland have messed up big style and you,
ya skank, don’t want to go down in history as the Labour leader
in Scotland who presided over THE biggest humiliating election
defeat (2015) in the history of Scottish politics.
A defeat which will ultimately wipe Labour out in Scotland.
You have had 3 years to speak out and do something about it, but
the truth is it was all going well for you, wasn’t it, until you
finally kissed the wrong arse.
Your successor will be no different – impotent and dispensable.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Re: The “Network”
X_Sticks
“I wondered if it was what I call the labour cabal, the bbc, DR and GCC and their ALEOs pals.”
You might be onto something there. It could also be the remaining right-wing Blairites that are still in the Party.
No doubt Douglas Alexander will clear it all up when he responds to my email.
I think we should start referring to the “English Labour Party” – ‘ELP.
nigel says
“They were to become the new “Posh and Becks” of Scotland.
Oh Caz!! Please!! A more utterly utterly inept comparison I can’t think of!!
Hahahahahah!
How ’bout ” the new Herman and Lilly Munster?”
Or
link to newsimg.bbc.co.uk
If, as is hoped for, there are 20 or more SNP MPs in next year’s General Election, and a hung parliament at Westminster. The SNP may be called to support a governing party, would it not be the case that Alex Salmond MP may be the next Deputy Prime Minister of the UK?
Stranger things have happened. Clegg was gifted that job, and by goodness, Alex Salmond is head and shoulders above any of the Westminster pygmies in debate and parliamentary skills.
I would give my right arm to see Alex Salmond as Deputy Prime Minister. Oh how that would shake things up in the House of Common Expenses. Also I reckon Deputy Prime Minister Salmond would do our cousins south of the Border a favour by helping run the UK as well as he and Nicola et al have run Scotland over the past 7 years. As the man said himsel – from his Bonnie Dundee quote – you’ve no seen the last o’ me 🙂
Totally agree about any kind of reinvented SLab, who needs it. They should forget about it for at least a generation. Do the decent thing, and give the remnants of the party a decent burial, and refund any members that are left, before someone does you under Trades Description laws.
Ballie no more, Lamont no more
Murphy no more, Curran no more
Alexander no more, Brown no more
Dugdale no more, Sawar no more
Proclaimers
nigel 6.50pm
How ’bout ” the new Herman and Lilly Munster?”
LOL. Wee Erchie and Johanne will be the talk of the Toon tonight.
And the only question that will be getting asked in Labour Clubs all over Scotland tonight will be,
“what was that SNP telephone number again, 0131…”
Are we starting a petition to reinstate Lamont? After all she is our biggest idiot, I mean asset.
Dougie Alexander, Margaret Curran and John Reid meeting with James kelly weeks ago about taking over the Slabour, cos Millipede wanting a man to take on SNP.
That would not surprise me.
@john king –
Father Ted and Mrs Doyle ?? 😀
Will we miss her??? ….anyone?
Too funny. Whilst Cameron says the EU are ‘clubbing the UK with a lead pipe’ over the surcharge, it appears Gideon knew about it 2 days before, and just neglected to tell Dave, before he started shooting his mouth off!
Ed’s inner sanctum revealed in the “History” tab of Scottish Labour’s website (link to archive.today)
“In May 2011, Ed Miliband commissioned Jim Murphy and Sarah Boyack to undertake a root-and-branch review of Scottish Labour in order “to achieve an effective, modern Scottish Labour Party, better able to earn the trust of, and deliver for, the people of Scotland.” Four months later, Murphy and Boyack unveiled the largest package of reforms to the Scottish Labour Party. The proposals, which included the creation, for the first time, of an elected Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, were approved by a special conference in Scotland on 29 October.
In December 2011, Johann Lamont won the contest to become the first overall Leader of Scottish Labour.”
The leadership contenders have to include Slim Jim and Super Sarah,surely?
If this is true about Lamont being told to keep quite about the Bedroom Tax, then this is absolutely shameful.
How many tenants did she watch getting evicted from Labour controlled councils, like North Lanarkshire because they could not pay the Bedroom Tax. Some even taking their own life in Glasgow because of this Tax. (fact)
Shame on you Lamont, what kind of woman are you, have you no feelings what so ever. Party before People. (Scottish People)
James Kelly – OMG that would be even more hilarious – he is a total eejit
I suppose she will be able to wear her ain teeth now.
O/T
Can any one recommend a good,nationalist leaning pub in Edinburgh,Glasgow and Dundee please?
@Thistle – keep up the good work Kevin have sent another wee contribution your way. Lets’ get this over the line…
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/scottish-independence-live-events–2
@Alex Grant
“She may have been allowed to resign and she may have thrown a hand grenade over her shoulder but she was ‘fired’!”
Not sure you have that right Alex. The writing seemed to be on the wall at least a month ago when there was talk in the MSM of Jim Murphy or Gordon brown becoming Labour leader in Scotland.
I suggest that it seems more likely that she refused to resign and was finally pushed, hence the sudden departure with immediate effect.
I really don’t care as ineffectual as she was I can think of no one in the Labour party who will do any better. Buying time with counterfeit money doesn’t win anything.
Will there be a Scottish equivalent to this, or will Ed continue to tell the Scottish leader to keep their mouth shut until he says otherwise?
link to labour.org.uk
@Alex Grant
Just made a total erse of myself. I totally agree with you! Sorry.
So Lamont hauded her wheesht for A YEAR (!) over the bedroom tax, solely because the gormless Milliband had not made up his mind?
Principles????
Johann Lamont, you are a witch and a first-class BITCH. Like all Red Tories, you only dream of being rich, yet have the moral compass of a snake born in a ditch!
A “Labour” politician afraid to speak out against the bedroom tax. I repeat, Johann Lamont, you are a BITCH who is hated by the people of Scotland. I hope you visit this page, see my comment, and ask to sue me in court. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.
Bye, bye, bitch Lamont, who was jumping up and down on the BBC outside ASDA: “They’re ginnie put up their prices! Pensioners willny canny afford to buy bread! Hurrah!”
Croompenstein says:
I wonder what JoLa’s hobbies are?
Just read on Telext or whatever it is called now-a-days is that she is a keen runner and to sort of de-stress from Labour Leadership and Holyrood she does a lot of that and watches Coronation Street.
Let me think….. did YES win the referendum. None of the Unionists deserve or should get any sympathy. Time to get tough. Remember their involvement in project fear.
@Ken500,
The Labour Gala Dinner is taking place at the Grand Central Hotel, Gordon St, Glasgow. Miliband and Lamont were meant to be hosting but I suspect Johann might be a no show, though it would be wonderful if she got wired into the champers and told everyone what she really thought of them.
A protest is scheduled to take place outside link to indyscot.info
What next….
Baroness Lamont.
“Labour invented Scottish devolution. Why can’t it devolve?”
Brilliant wee read in the Spectator today, it sums up what has went wrong with Scottish Labour since Devolution in 1999.
link to blogs.spectator.co.uk
@ann – she is a keen runner
It must be like this….
link to youtube.com
Peter Mirtitsch… Excellent comment…. like so many comments on here in praise of that great Scottish political evangelist… johann…. who I am desperately sorry to see leave the stage with so little applause…. when she has given her all in performance after performance under the malignant direction of wee ed…
Who can forget her inspiring speech at the labour party conference which was deemed by the critics as ” forgettable “…… -or those carefully stage managed performances at the bbc … all that rehearsal before FMQ… only to find she had been upstaged by the Uk’s greatest performer… A.S…. no…its a tragedy to see such an incapable undervalued bit player so humiliated when she had only recently given her enama winning lead performance in the no saga’s… where will we see the likes again???
@pete says: 25 October, 2014 at 6:03 pm:
” The uk my ares, A union my arse, we are all being controlled by the English london westminster.”
Ah! Pete, I’ve been trying to get that idea across to everyone since devolution first raised it’s ugly head.
The, “Treaty of Union”, is a document with only two signatories. Those two signatories are, “KINGDOMS”. Which is why the resultant union is described as, “The United KINGDOM”.. It is not a country it is exactly what it claims to be A KINGDOM”, and a kingdom is a royal realm. However, The kingdom of England annexed Wales in 1284 & Ireland in 1542 so the Kingdom of England has three countries. In 1603 the Two independent kingdom crowns ended up on one monarch’s head but he couldn’t form a United Kingdom. Then, in 1688, The English parliament deposed their king and instated King Billy & Queen Mary, (but removed the Royal veto over parliament from them and thus made that kingdom a, “Constitutional Monarchy, but as the two Kingdoms were still independent that kicked off the Jacobite Uprising as the Scots were still independent and the English Kingdom Needed a Treaty of Union. It was signed in 1706/7 and was/is a bipartite union.
Now Westminster has split that bipartite union of kingdoms as a quadratic union of countries but retained for the country of England Westminster as the de facto Parliament of the country of England. So you are 100% correct it is indeed the country of England acting as the master race and devolving what are now English powers to their three subservient devolved parliaments.
If the UK is to survive then it must either return to being a bipartite United Kingdom or become a proper Confederacy with England’s parliament right out of the Federal Parliament of Westminster.
Its all becoming like the `House of Cards`!.
@ann says:
Just read on Telext or whatever it is called now-a-days is that she is a keen runner and to sort of de-stress from Labour Leadership and Holyrood she does a lot of that and watches Coronation Street.
Ooh she’d make wonderful Ena Sharples would Jola.
You could not make this up.
EWatching the World Championship Boxing bout on tonight. They have this french woman singing god save the queen. They couldn’t shut her up she sung all the verses. Even the verse about SCOTS to Crush. Haha unbelievable, the English fighter was trying hard to walk away.
Diz anybody here want Kelly K E double L L Y ah squint in the ein an a fit in the mooth, he,s goat ma vote.
Ye shair that’s whaur Slab’s big swally is? Grand Central? If they’re somewhaur else, we’ll no hauf hae egg on wur faces. Unlike yon Murphy wha’ just goat a wee bit oan his shirt!!
@Greg says: 25 October, 2014 at 6:08:
“Can anyone here make one of those songs out of her? Like the one they did for Clegg “I’m Sorry”.
You could probably do something along the lines of, “Come Rain or Come Shine”, First line – “I’m gonna love, (leave
), you like nobody’s , loved, (left), you come rain or come shine”.
The Record View on lamentable getting the heave-ho…bloody laughable!!
………………
“It is a rare leader who calls it a day while in office.
Most politicians are dragged out of office by their fingernails or dumped by an ungrateful electorate. Few are made of better stuff.
Johann Lamont may have shocked her own party and Scotland with her resignation but she leaves with dignity and with her head held high .
She gave of herself to lead the party when it was at its lowest ebb in Scotland in 2011 and managed not just to halt nationalist advances into Glasgow in 2012 but broke the SNP narrative in by-elections, in European elections and finally in the referendum itself.
When others were running for cover, Lamont stood up, did the decent thing and took over a party on its knees.
And she did a much better job than her critics expected.
She had the measure of Alex Salmond and got the better of him in some fiery exchanges at the Scottish Parliament.
Importantly, she had the benefit of having a job in the real world as a teacher before she entered politics.
None of the photocopier generation of political leaders who only had jobs as party hacks before becoming elected can claim that.
She had roots in industrial Glasgow but also an island background that made her more informed about the whole of Scotland than many of her Labour colleagues.
Lamont is right to be furious at the internal sniping which has been the backdrop to her leadership – much of it from people who didn’t have the guts to say in public what they were happily briefing in private.
Attempts by the party in London to oust It is a rare leader who calls it a day while in office.
Most politicians are dragged out of office by their fingernails or dumped by an ungrateful electorate. Few are made of better stuff.
Johann Lamont may have shocked her own party and Scotland with her resignation but she leaves with dignity and with her head held high .
She gave of herself to lead the party when it was at its lowest ebb in Scotland in 2011 and managed not just to halt nationalist advances into Glasgow in 2012 but broke the SNP narrative in by-elections, in European elections and finally in the referendum itself.
When others were running for cover, Lamont stood up, did the decent thing and took over a party on its knees.
And she did a much better job than her critics expected.
She had the measure of Alex Salmond and got the better of him in some fiery exchanges at the Scottish Parliament.
Importantly, she had the benefit of having a job in the real world as a teacher before she entered politics.
None of the photocopier generation of political leaders who only had jobs as party hacks before becoming elected can claim that.
She had roots in industrial Glasgow but also an island background that made her more informed about the whole of Scotland than many of her Labour colleagues.
Lamont is right to be furious at the internal sniping which has been the backdrop to her leadership – much of it from people who didn’t have the guts to say in public what they were happily briefing in private.
Attempts by the party in London to oust Labour’s Scottish General Secretary Ian Price without even the courtesy of a phone call to Lamont say a lot about the way the party operates.
No wonder Lamont has had enough.
She took the job on not for personal advancement (a rarity in modern politics) but because it needed done and no-one else would do it,
Her resignation interview with the Daily Record is searingly honest. She could have pretended she was leaving to spend more time with her two teenage children.
But she didn’t. Instead she told it like it is. She is quitting because her leadership has become the story – thanks in part to internal critics who should have known better.
In other words, so strong is her commitment to Labour that she feels that the party, her party, is better off if she resigns.
What a principled exit
Whoever takes over faces the difficult task of banging Labour heads together with just six months to go before the UK general election.
It will mean telling a fair few Scottish Labour MPs to snop sniping at their Holyrood colleagues and get on with fighting for a better deal for working people.
As Lamont says in the Daily Record today: “The job of the Scottish Labour Party is to represent working people and represent Scotland.
“If you are in this game for the trappings of office my advice is get out.”
What very wise words of advice for her successor. Scottish General Secretary Ian Price without even the courtesy of a phone call to Lamont say a lot about the way the party operates.
No wonder Lamont has had enough.
She took the job on not for personal advancement (a rarity in modern politics) but because it needed done and no-one else would do it,
Her resignation interview with the Daily Record is searingly honest. She could have pretended she was leaving to spend more time with her two teenage children.
But she didn’t. Instead she told it like it is. She is quitting because her leadership has become the story – thanks in part to internal critics who should have known better.
In other words, so strong is her commitment to Labour that she feels that the party, her party, is better off if she resigns.
What a principled exit
Whoever takes over faces the difficult task of banging Labour heads together with just six months to go before the UK general election.
It will mean telling a fair few Scottish Labour MPs to snop sniping at their Holyrood colleagues and get on with fighting for a better deal for working people.
As Lamont says in the Daily Record today: “The job of the Scottish Labour Party is to represent working people and represent Scotland.
“If you are in this game for the trappings of office my advice is get out.”
What very wise words of advice for her successor”.
………
Boak !!
Hiz Johann got tae gie up the debater of the year award tae,noo we know she wiz under direction fae Milliband.
The Labour party are fighting each other like Rats in a Sack.
Lament for Lamont anybody?
Where everybody knows your nayhhame, WHO?
“CHEERS”
caz-m
You might have warned us it was a Hamish MacDonnell article, although I have to admit it is a fair summary of Labour and devolution.
What a difference from his usual diatribes against the SNP and alicksammon!
Ref: Lab and the “Network”
@caz-m, @muttley etc.
I’m not too clued up on the Labour party constitution nowadays but seem to remember way back in the 80’s Will Hatton and Militant Tendency being expelled from the Lab party for being “…a party within the party…” and having their own agenda (ok being socialist, didn’t help either).
Just wondering whether “Network” might constitute the same ‘party within the party’ criteria and therefore be deemed unconstitutional/illegal under Lab party rules.(Not that I want to stir the sh1t or anything, you understand).
@X_Sticks says:25 October, 2014 at 6:27 pm@Caz-M
“I wondered if it was what I call the labour cabal, the bbc, DR and GCC and their ALEOs pals.
Curious none of us have heard of it.”
What makes you think it is just Labour? Seems to me the top people in all Unionist Parties come from the same background – Private prep-school – English style public school, particularly Eton with Harrow more for top military types then on to Oxford or Cambridge. Next step is an internship with a political party and a safe party seat.
The Establishment is composed of all three main political parties plus the civil service, milirary, CofE, BofE and such state groups as the BBC. There is also a strong strain of Masonic Lodge and perhaps even the OO.
I don’t see that dissolving Holyrood would resolve the West Lothian Question (not wholly anyway). The existence of Holyrood might have exacerbated the issue as there are many more areas in which Scots MPs vote on things that don’t (directly) affect Scotland now, but the WLQ has been a ‘thing’ since the 1970s and would still be a ‘problem’ in Tory eyes. I feel sure they would *still* harp on about it either way.
Dissolving Holyrood would get the unionist parties out of the mess of having to have C-squad branches there, though, and would mean they wouldn’t have to bother making even the utterly fake attempts to pretend they give a fig for Scotland that we are currently subjected to.
Good piece today on RT’s Going Underground.
An insight through Robert Clough’s new book,
Labour, A Party For Imperialism
link to rt.com
About 16/17 mins in.
There is some quite good stuff about Milliband before the Robert Clough piece.
[…] link to wingsoverscotland.com […]
Whoever’s up for Thursday, Glasgow Central Hotel, 6 p.m. onwards, please leave a wee message on Off-Topic:
link to wingsoverscotland.com
This is shaping up to be a big one – there is a foodbank drive organised, so please bring whatever suitable goods you can. This is a brilliant, perhaps unique opportunity to let these troughing losers know what we think of them. Unelectable Ed will be there.
We need as many folk as possible to bring banners, posters, whatever they can – the MSM will ignore our protest, but we’ll have more than enough capable people to document the event in full. It will be busy, bright, good-natured and peaceful, but the message should be loud, and as clear as we can make it:
SLab/Miliband?
Yer Tea’s Oot!
The Record should appreciate that Lamont was a puppet for Labour England. She deliberately endured the affliction of the bedroom tax on the people of Scotland and said nothing because dim Ed wanted time to assess his options, and all the time she bombarded Mr Salmond about what the Government was doing to alleviate the hardship it was causing. Unprincipled dishonest self serving piece of flotsam. It was self preservation on a grand scale and nothing else,and I for one am glad she has left before being booted out anyway by the real masters in Westminster.
Re the “Network”. It was/is a Blairite group that originated when he was PM.
Re Johann & SLAB. There is no chance of them being allowed full autonomy or adopting devo-max. I know we’re only 24 hours from Johann’s resignation, but if anyone doubts where SLAB stand, go onto the Labour Hame website (recently rated the no.1 political site?) & read the articles from various contributors. It’s an eclectic mix of ‘we are progressives/socialists’, ‘time to move on from the referendum’, ‘policies not the constitution’, & His Lordship George Foulkes still fulminating against nasty nationalists.
In short : they don’t get it. And they will never get it as long as they remain a unionist party.
Great time to enjoy that “SNP are a busted flush” post on NC by Bothersall again. 😉
@Croompenstein says: 25 October, 2014 at 7:28 pm:
“I wonder what JoLa’s hobbies are as she has been trying to get a dig at the FM for playing golf, could she be a wind surfer, a white water rafter, a bog snorkler? nah probably derts and dominos doon the local labour club”
Would you believe, The Gym and Running?
Mind you I think I read that on a BBC web page somewhere and you know the claptrap they spout.
sort of re-blogged this post and “You just can’t make this stuff up” here
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
O/T link to dumbartonreporter.co.uk
It always comes back to the same old question….”are you Scottish or British?”
Croompenstein says:
25 October, 2014 at 7:28 pm
I wonder what JoLa’s hobbies are as she has been trying to get a dig at the FM for playing golf, could she be a wind surfer, a white water rafter, a bog snorkler? nah probably derts and dominos doon the local labour club 🙂
_____________________________
HAW YOU, whits wrang wae ah bit o derts n doms?
Ah’m quite partial tae strong weemin an ah wee bit o derts.
link to youtube.com
🙂
Good riddance.
I have no sympathy with someone who denigrates the poor, cheers when ASDA and the like threaten prices rises & tries to say ‘but I was silenced’ over Bedroom Tax.
If she was so upset over being ‘silenced’ she should have resigned there and then or blown the whistle. Stand up for your principles and you might deserve some respect. Even mad professor Tomkins (I can’t stand the man) had the bottle to stand up for his weird views by posting on Bateman. I might totally disagree but congruence gets a couple o brownie points ffs.
Thank christ my attention will be focused on the BBc demo tommorow ah canny stand these long goodbye,s for JoLo
hi all just back had to get away from it all so i went to the RoI for a while i would recommend it to anyone wanting to see what a free nation can do away from westminster rule lovely place.
So Jola has resigned yea right more like got sacked well i for one will lose no sleep over her demise good riddance to bad rubbish.
Lets be straight about so-called “scottish labour”, each and everyone of their MSP’s and MP’s have spent the last two and half years hand in hand with the tory-libdem westminster government ripping the shit out of Scotland and its people.
They have told the world that Scotland did not deserve to be an independent nation again and again, they told their own people they were not capable of running their own country and any of its institutions.
The fucking so-called leader of “scottish labour” stood shoulder to shoulder with the head of ASDA, grinning as he anounnced prices would rise if Scots voted YES. Who the hell would have any sympathy for her and the rest of the red tory smarmy bastards.
If she had, had any morals or dignity she should have went before the vote not after. It will not matter who replaces her, because their role will just be the same, do what your London masters tell you, and take your thirty pieces of silver.
Maybe finally Scotland will wake up and see that all the unionist parties are ruled by Westminster and always will be until independence.
Re: “The “Network”
It’s starting to make sense now. Tony Blair is still dictating Labour Party policy.
And the rest of his puppets, like Miliband, Alexander and Murphy just follow orders.
Who in turn, pass down these orders to nonentities like Lamont.
What an absolute affront to democracy.
The circus is in town.
link to youtube.com
Ronnie Anderson
Are you going to the BBC protest tomorrow?
Umbrella recommended.
@Robert Peffers says:
“The Establishment”
Funnily enough I have heard rumours of activity in Masonic Lodges on the 18/19th of September.
You could be on to something..
@Caz_M just of the phone to wee ginger dug Paul gave me the weather forcast ( not Good ) so wait & see.
Sunday Herald front page
link to twitter.com
@ Marcia brilliant front page thanks.
Excellent front cover but I see they are still touting Murphy as the man to lead Scottish Labour. As I can’t see him quitting the £200,000 expenses habit if he takes the job it will be from Westminster which will do nothing to allay the impression that London rules.
Weather forecast for tomorrow is not good. Amber warning for excessive wetness and windiness or something.
@Cynical Highlander at 10.37
Thanks for that lovely circus video – have inserted it right up front in my post about the lamont and the british leibour party in scotland
link to eurofree3.wordpress.com
Buying that SH. First paper in years. Ya beauty. Now to rid Scotland of the dinosaurs.
The majority in Scotland didn’t vote No. 5.2million in Scotland. Only 2million voted No.
The Guardian printed a photograph of Curran rather than Lamont – now corrected – mistaking Curran as group leader resigned. “We love you, Scotland,” aye, but you Scotch all look alike.
Another one down. Just another push, over the tipping point.
What great front pages on the SH.
Everyone worth framing.
I would love Murphy to become head of the Scottish Red Tories. I wonder if he would be persuaded to take over and, as a reward, be fast-tracked for a ministerial post “when Labour takes power” [rolls eyes]….
I sincerely believe Murphy leading the Red Tories would be their death knell in Scotland. He will be crucified by Sturgeon at Holyrood…. and it will mean the end of the career for this revolting abortion of a politician. So, basically, a win-win-win situation!
That Big Building Clyde-side will be in mourning as there newsroom will be bereft of anti SNP stories to broadcast on the hour. Happy days.
@GB – The Guardian printed a photograph of Curran rather than Lamont
Might have been the eyebrows that done it!
In other words, so strong is her commitment to Labour that she feels that the party, her party, is better off if she resigns
And therein lies the difference between a political pygmy and a political giant like Alex Salmond who resigned for the good of the Scottish people. Oh and she never resigned…
Yeah – all Scotch wimmin look like Jola and/or Magsbaw.
Good job Grauniad!
Thanks Marcia 🙂
For all going to the Lab Big Dinner, we are also meeting in the YesBar Drury Lane opp the Horseshoe bar.
I used to think this guy was a wank but this is brilliant..especially the last statement about the EBC
link to youtube.com
Sorry that should be Drury St, the Lane is in London
So Lamont was agin the bedroom tax but was told to keep schtum by Ed. And instead of behaving like a human being with integrity and independence, she did what she was told. She was just obeying orders.
Aye – the myth of social conscience in the labour party right there.
Juxtapose her actions with the SNP who moved money to mitigate this punitive and vindictive tax. My party don’t get everything right but by God they have their priority right – the people of Scotland.
I wonder if we could crowdfund a barnstorming memoir of JoLa’s time at the helm of the Titanic.
“Iceberg dead ahead Captain!”
“Ocht, that wee thing?”
liz
Is the Demo planning to meet outside the front door of the Grand Central Hotel?
I have heard Labour have re-named their get together, “The Last Supper”. In memory of lost comrades.
Boom! Boom!
Sophisticated piece
link to tinyurl.com
@caz-m – not sure but there was some doubt as to the venue.
The Lab website said central Glasgow but didn’t seem to mention the hotel, so some of us r meeting in the Yesbar before the event.
Will let u know when get more info.
Love the last supper mention!
Its like we actually are now an independent country and Labour are only getting shot of their hasbeens and losers, replacing them with them who knows what. And yet the blue Tories sail on like champs for the simple reason that Naw thanks was a tory victory over the Scottish working class. Hence the queen purring etc.
Come on Scotland for christs sake!
Croompenstein
Thanks – may be the most uncomfortable interview Evan will ever have. Loved it. The BBC will think twice before they let Russell on again I think!
I am not sure if he was up here at any point during the campaign – might be worth asking him to speak at one of the BBC protests or rallies
Can a kind soul access the Herald’s Edinburgh News article on the ongoing major crime incident in Cockburn street, please. I’m only able to view the first few lines and then there’s that huge square blocking thingy.
Is Conan in the Albanach, if so he could maybe update us?
@heedtracker – the tories are the Brit establishment, both Cameron and Gideon are related to the queen.
The Bullingdon club was/is the elite of the elite but Lab lost their way.
I do believe T.Blair was a plant – there is a lot of stuff on the net just now which can’t be proved but it appears that folk were recruited who could be blackmailed – whether any of this will come to light or not is hard to say but probably the main culprits will escape.
Lab should have remained true to their roots but they were seduced by the trappings of privilege.
Think of Michael Martin, working class Glaswegian, ended up as speaker with a grace and favour apartment in the Palace of Westminster – you would have to be very strong not to give in.
Who knows how this will pan out but Scotland has certainly shaken the roots
@liz/Caz-M
re Thursday, SLab’s Final Glasgow TroughFest Gala Pig-Face-Stuffing, starring Ed ‘Who, Me?’ Miliband:
Surely, there’s someone who works there, or knows someone who knows someone, who can confirm the details once and for all?
It’s a measure of how twitchy these people are that they daren’t expose such basic information to the public who pay their fucking wages.
Thursday. 6 p.m. Glasgow Central. That’s the assembly point. Anyone know differently?
If so, please speak up ASAP.
TJenny, this is all it says
“Around 50 police officers, some carrying riot shields and wearing balaclava masks, were dispatched to Cockburn Street in the city’s historic Old Town.
The street was cordoned off, and sniffer dogs and fire engines were also on site.
Crowds gathered at around 10pm as police helicopters circled with area with spotlights.
Bystanders were told to keep back by officers on the scene.
Police also carried out a floor-by-floor search of the old Scotsman building.
On Twitter, one onlooker, Rudra Kapila, said: “Area is a mini war zone.’
Another bystander Abbie Jessie wrote: “All the streets have been blocked off by police and helicopters.”
Police Scotland would not comment on speculation that there had been a shooting.
However, a spokesperson did confirm there was an ‘on-going incident’.”
Remember to put your clocks back one hour tonight/this morning.
@Tam – Juxtapose her actions with the SNP who moved money to mitigate this punitive and vindictive tax
they tried to take the credit for it Tam and they tried to say they championed the living wage it’s unbelievable that anyone in Scotland trusts or will vote for the shower of shite
I absolutely adored Russell Brand, even before I knew he was pro-indy. He definitely doesn’t mince his words in that Evan Davies interview – go Russell.
i need to bury this scandalous rumour circulating on the internet; Scottish Labour’s leader has not resigned, I can assure you Ed Milliband is still in place and has no plans to resign before May 2015.
Tjenny, it’s as Hood said, but here is herald article anyway:
link to archive.today
Hood – thanks for info. Heard the choppers circling but couldn’t see them, as I’m a wee bit away from Cockburn St.
Wonder if some poor misguided soul thought he was going to damage The Scotsman newspaper, even though it’s long since gone from there and it’s now a hotel.
Maybe just dodging paying his bill?
@caz-m, about the network, have a look at the Fabian Society in the Labour Party. link to en.wikipedia.org, especially the section on Contemporary Fabianism.
Listening to some tunes and I love this island… this must be one of my fav singers, the Barnsley nightingale..
link to youtube.com
Croompenstein
Aye. The BBC will try and prop SLAB up but it’s like “Weekend at Bernie’s”.
One thing that mystifies me. Scottish Lib Dems are staring down the barrels of GE 2015 and SE 2016 and inevitable oblivion and annihilation and yet they still think Willie Rennie is the best man for the job?
HandandShrimp says:
25 October, 2014 at 11:07 pm
Excellent front cover but I see they are still touting Murphy as the man to lead Scottish Labour. As I can’t see him quitting the £200,000 expenses habit if he takes the job it will be from Westminster which will do nothing to allay the impression that London rules.
————————-
Can it please be Murphy, please, please.
The man has no credibility.
If it’s not Murphy, I’ll settle for Sarwar or GB.
Labour are in meltdown, if they are stupid enough to go for a Westminster MP, they will have no credibility. Murphy for me then!
R Brand has never endeared himself to me .
Infact I would agree with some posters , always came across as a bit o a tube ! ( sorry T Jenny )
Credit where it’s due tho’ he certainly has an interesting view on current UK structure , rich looking after each other etc , and he has a good handle on the Beeb , and best of all he ain’t feert to tell anyone who will listen .
Like many on here he sees WM as broken and no longer representing the ” ordinary majority”
Coming to a Street near you RB & JM on Irn Brew Boxes …. Now that would be worth the watch .
O/T sadly Jack Bruce has died only 71 .
How can Murphy lead labour in Scotland?
He isn’t an msp
The Police make up drama. They produce it. Robocop.
Lamont was sacked. The resignation was as bitter as the tenue. What an idiot.
It’s quite funny really Labour/Unionists are so busy courting UKIP. They will lose in Scotland. The head doesn’t know what the tail is doing. They need totally different policies in Scotland. They will lose. Couldn’t happen to a worse bunch of people. They will be wiped out soon. Blair/Brown etc. Along with every other Unionist. Rats in a sack.
Stu start funding for more WBB’s early. They haven’t reached enough people yet. Don’t leave it to the last minute. A minority voted No in Scotland. Another push should do it.
Just shows how far ahead Alex Salmond is compared to these so called politicians. No wonder the press and BBC demonised him.that was the only weapon they had. There is nobody in the UK comes close. Compare him to the clown we have in Downing St. “£1.7 billion! That will definitely not be getting paid! Well, not till after Christmas.”
The censored Guardian showed a picture of Curran instead of Lamont. They can’t get anything right.
The Labour Gala Dinner in Central Glasgow will be a damp squib. They had better keep an eye on the knives. They sacked the guy who organised it. Guy Fawkes night is coming. A bonfire of the vanities. May they burn in hell. The bunch of criminal greedy liars. Most of them should be in jail, if there was any justice. Liars, child molesters, defrauders, embezzlers. They get away with murder. Westminster has the lot.
Murphy makes my skin crawl. I’ve seen a lot in my time, but he takes smug arrogance to a whole new height. Yes, let him lead Scottish Labour, please, Lamont was just despised, he will be hated.
Annette; Totally agree, really hope it’s Murphy. Nicola must hope so too, she would rip him to shreds every week. But I don’t see him giving up his £200k gravy train anytime soon. Parasite.
Controversial
Maybe JoLa has actually had a massive inner conscious guilt shock . She finally realised the impact of selling us out by going along with WM .
Q ) Has JoLa really looked happy at anytime during the referendum ?
She has been constantly dour , on account of having to hold a position she did not agree with ,as we know WM levers were being pulled all the way and she now deeply regrets going along with it all .
Will there be more squealing in the weeks to come ?
Come on Joanne spill the beans , why bother defending a fcuked Labour Party .
Two points:
1. Johann Lamont famously said that the Scots are not genetically equipped to make political decisions. However, she must have meant to point the finger at someone else, and couldn’t quite get the words out of her mouth. If Ed Miliband dithered for a whole year to make up his mind about the bedroom tax, the genetic deficiecy to which she referred must lie with him, not us. She just couldn’t say it at the time. But now she has, with a vengeance (which might just be the right word for it …)
2. No one should think that the referendum result made Scotland a Region of the UK. The question on the ballot paper on 18th September was not a choice between becoming an independent country or becoming a Region.
There was no mention in the question of anything to do with being or becoming a ‘Region’.
It was a choice between becoming an independent nation or remaining one of the nations within that ‘family of nations’ which David Cameron kept talking about. I very much regret that we did not take the chance to become an independent nation, but even without independence, Scotland remains a nation within the UK.
Cameron aknowledged, at least by implication, that the UK is not ‘a nation’ but – rather – a state comprised of several ‘nations’.
We have to hold him, and others, to that conception of the matter, which is right enough. I am sure that we all know that he is bound to listen to us – we are part of the ‘family’, after all, and the last thing he wanted was for it to break up.
The national status is not in question, even now. There is still an issue of whether or when it will move out of its present, rather insignificant (possibly abusive? or bullying?) family in order to become fully part of that wider family of nations, in Europe, and in the whole wide world.
Scotland is not a Region trying to become a Nation (as is the case with some other places in the world) but a Nation trying and hoping to become independent of an entity called the UK. It will then be able to take its rightful place in the community of nations, and make its own contribution there. As, for instance, will England, and, if it wishes, Wales … etc.
chickens come home to roost.
the 1.6m + seers of the yes alliance (peoples movement), snp, scottishgreens, ssp, and wings et al, will not let our political servants, get away with lies and deception.
we caused lamont’s position to be untenable, we refused to undo and “forget”, our new found political awareness and power, we have refused to get back in the box.
in fact the box no longer exists.
it is no longer business as usual in scottish or uk politics, as we prepare the ground for indyscot.
it is not to much to demand, that during this process uk politics is reformed forever.
united for social justice.
Labour’s tangled web of deciet is unravelling at a great rate of knots.
Tick tock
Didn’t Milibland come out with exactly the same line in PMQs?
(Maybe that’s what the Rev was alluding to.)
Schrödinger’s cat says:
26 October, 2014 at 3:04 am
How can Murphy lead labour in Scotland?
He isn’t an msp
==============
He is, however, a very proud Scot. 🙂
He is, however, a very proud Scot……but ……
Will, we know Scotland is a nation.
The Better Together campaign told us that too.
But right now, it is a nation in culture only.
Politically and effectively Scotland voted to be a region of the UK.
We have less than 10% influence, so not a very important region either.
In reality, the UK, Britain and England are pretty much the same thing.
Due to the huge population difference, and the fact that the Westminster parliament is also the English parliament.
I don’t think it is helpful to give the impression we are an EQUAL nation within the UK.
Big difference between a cultural entity and a sovereign nation state.
It doesn’t look like we will be getting anything close to devo-max or federalism either.
Of course, we could say that the Scottish people are sovereign and chose this status, and could reverse it at any time.
So it will be interesting to see if there are any restrictions on further referendums, as some are predicting. And if Scots accept that with little protest.
Due to the make up of Holyrood, it is hard enough to get a majority anyway.
That’s what the Lamont sacking was also about.
Getting a less hapless leader, to help prevent the SNP getting another majority.
A Westminster stooge who can spin their way through interviews.
It doesn’t really matter to London Labour if the SNP win again, so long as the parliament is relatively powerless and the SNP doesn’t have the majority to force another referendum – even a consultative one.
@Calum McLean
With EVEL in the air the SNP with their principles cannot go into formal coalition like the FibDems. They can however hold the balance of power and offer a minority government confidence and supply only. They could extract a solid price for that. Like the right to hold binding referenda whenever we so please.
Scotsman is reporting that Murphy is unlikely to get a ministerial position and so may well consider Scottish Labour leader.
Wull
Westminster claimed that legal advice said that Scotland was absorbed into Greater England in 1707 and that the English Parliament continued as the UK Parliament.
Therefore it could be argued that anybody who voted NO voted for Scotland to be seen as a region of the UK.
However as long as 100 of us don’t hold that view we are fine I think 🙂
Len Hartley
The legal advice was refuted by Carty and Clyde. UK is not a unitary state, but a ‘union state’ comprising of two nations. It is the fact that it has acted as if it were a single state that has fuelled unrest in Scotland. The erosion of local power is misgovernment and undermines the UK’s basic constitution as a union state.
Muscleguy,
I loved your axes/borders put down in the Graun, yesterday.
If Murphy or any other non-MSP becomes Scottish Labour leader at Holyrood, Labour will have squared the circle, that Holyrood is just a branch of London Labour, thus undermining the whole purpose of Scottish devolution. Which is of course what the Network of devo-sceptics always wanted – a hollow exercise in ‘democracy’. This will be the absolute death knell of Labour in Scotland. No Labour Holyrood leader has ever been an MP and not an MSP. It will become completely transparent that Labour have no interest in Scotland or Scottish devolution or Scottish government. Lamont was spot on when she said that Holyrood is now the focus of politics in Scotland and not Westminster. If an absentee Labour MP now becomes controller, their vote can only plummet. If they do not choose an MSP and get their heads around the fact that devolution has changed Scotland and Scottish aspirations for self-government, they are headed for complete annihilation in Scotland, and also in the UK, as without Scotland, and with UKIP chasing them in England they are doomed.
Scottish Labour has just fought a campaign which culminated in a barrage of lies and unfulfillable promises, yet they are now demanding independence from Westminster for their own party.
Will someone please point out, to our gullible fellow countrymen, the immorality of Scottish Labour?
The BBC won’t do it. Sky won’t do it.
I just watched Lord McConnell demanding independence for Scottish Labour. It’s difficult to know whether to cry or scream!
I’ve often thought that Ms Lamont looks like Jimmy Crankie on acid, now I’m beginning to think that the entire population (or at least those who continue to vote Labour) must be on some sort of soporific.
How does the message get out? Labour are hypocritical Anglo-centric ("Quizmaster" - Ed)s.
SUMMARY – Johann “Stairheid” Lamont’s referendum strategy & outcome
September 2014
“Vote NO cos wur better the gether, right.”
October 2014
“Am quittin’ cos wur no really better the gether, ur we?”
November 2014 (Forecast)
“Depressed? Drink Buckfast!”
December 2014 (Forecast)
“Whoos wantin a Toblerone fir yer Xmas?”
I go away for a break and all sorts of fun breaks out.
She left in the same gracious style she used in FMQs I see… spitting venom and blame till the bitterest end. You could cut the irony with a knife right enough citing London interference, I mean seriously? London interferes in Scottish matters?
Well who knew? And to have her bestest pal stab her in the back to boot. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
She’ll not be missed and neither will Labour in good time.
Re. Sarah Boyack possibly becoming Scottish leader. She is a Fabian, so I’m not sure if that would help SLabour find it’s socialist mojo.
Onwards says:
Onwards says:
Will, we know Scotland is a nation.
The Better Together campaign told us that too.
But right now, it is a nation in culture only.
Politically and effectively Scotland voted to be a region of the UK….
Thanks for your response, Onwards, which I appreciate. I am sure we agree on most things, certainly on all the fundamentals (we both know Scotland needs to become independent, as soon as possible).
But I still don’t think we voted to be a Region, and should not accept that the outcome of the Referendum has made us such.
Maybe this is also a difference in strategy. Acceding to the idea we have become a Region (especially when there is no need to do so) risks having unfortunate consequences for us. The word ‘Region’ has a technical meaning, both in the EU and more widely, with legal implications. …
Instead we have to promote the notion Cameron endorsed according to which the UK is a family of NATIONS. The notion of ‘national self-determination’ is well established internationally, and is something we can appeal to if the EU or other international organisations try to make difficulties the next time we go for independence.
The idea of Scotland being a nation is also linked to the equally important notion that ‘the people are sovereign’ in Scotland. You cannot use that language so easily – even at all – of a mere ‘Region’.
Incidentally, the idea of the people being sovereign might well go back to the Middle Ages in Scotland, and the Scots of those days might even have invented it. (I think the point is sustainable, although proving it to the satisfaction of the academic world might not be so easy, so I won’t make too much of it for now.)
Where I do agree with you – and I hope we can both say this – is that modern day Scotland is a Nation in a Union which, quite unjustly, treats it as if it was a Region.
In this regard, we really should support the creation of an English parliament, therefore. Let each of the nations have their own parliament.
Maintaining the distinction between the UK parliament and the English one will help to consolidate the ‘family of nations’ view of the Union. And nations can always move out of a Union, to become independent again. England too! Having an English parliament will also help Wales and Northern Ireland.
If the English want a new building for their parliament (somewhere in the North of England?), fine. If they are too skint to build it, we (and Wales and NI) can still let it sit in Westminster … But on one condition: since the bricks and mortar of Westminster actually belong to the UK, when English members meet as the English parliament, to pass purely English legislation, they can pay rent to the UK for the use of the building. And some of that rent should come back to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as joint owners of Westminster.
Of course, that won’t matter when Scotland ceases to be one of the nations of the UK, and becomes an independent nation instead. The sooner the better … And probably better for all of us, England too …
Sorry, have to go now …
Pete – and anyone else who is inclined to blame the English – you are blaming the wrong people. I understand your strength of feeling but it is the Scottish British who have sold us out, in particular the working class tories who will continue to support the SLAB. Without them there would be no contest and we will not change their point of view easily if ever. We need to find ways to draw them out into the open to justify their position. They are the self-righteous who think that the poor are poor because they are lazy etc. Maybe we need to focus on tearing into their Slab leaders. But don’t blame the ordinary English because that misses the target altogether and makes us appear like racists – which we are certainly not – that’s a British trait.
@cearc
Glad you liked it. All this anatomical knowledge needs and outlet now and again. I am actually published in the scientific literature using many of those terms. I used one in my PhD thesis my supervisor didn’t know: subjacent, meaning next to but underneath. A much underused term imho.
labour are finished RIP