TWO BY ELECTIONS

      As was to be expected, we are now faced with two by elections on the same day; the second one is for the Scottish Parliament, caused by the resignation of Lord Watson of Invergowrie. He eventually pleaded guilty to deliberately setting  fire to curtains  in Prestonfield House Hotel in November last year; as has been pointed out elsewhere, he could have saved we taxpayers a few thousand pounds if he had pleaded guilty earlier.  We have all seen the evidence.

     The Labour Party is very afraid of a backlash, and having set the date for the Livingston by election, caused by the sad and untimely death of Robin Cook, to coincide with the SNP Conference, they swiftly went into damage limitation mode, and moved the Cathcart by election for the same day. 

Their thinking is that if the SNP won Livingston, or even narrowly failed to win it, then  the SNP would be on a roll, and Cathcart would be much more vulnerable;  as it is by having both on the same day, they think the outcome in one will not affect the other.

       Having by elections coinciding with your chief opponents party conference is standard practice for Labour; they did it in Hamilton in 1978, when Margo MacDonald was the SNP candidate, and again in Hamilton in 1999, when Annabelle Ewing was the candidate.  I can’t remember the result in 1978, not a brilliant one for the SNP, as we were still licking our wounds after failing to win Glasgow Garscadden  the previous  month( that by election was won by the late Donald Dewar.)  In Hamilton 1999, Annabelle Ewing reduced Labour’s majority to 556.  Interestingly enough, the voting percentage of both Hamiltons was virtually identical.

       One point worth noting; in the above elections, the Labour candidates were males, whereas in every Hamilton by election, the SNP candidates were female;  we all know that in the original Hamilton by election in 1967, the SNP candidate who upset Labour’s applecart was Winnie Ewing.  Anyway, Labour got worried, and put in gender balance, and the SNP did not; and lo and behold, both Labour candidates for the current by elections are male, and both SNP candidates are female.  The SNP has better women than they have.

       Final point; I was amused when the Herald did a profile of  Jim Devine, the Labour candidate for Livingston, and a very fulsome one at that.  It came out in the week that Lord Watson of Invergowrie pleaded guilty to setting the curtains on fire, and I though the Herald had mixed up the by elections, for the headline was “Preparing to pick up the torch.”

       
CATHCART BY ELECTION

       SNP Leader, Alex Salmond, was delighted to announce that Maire Whitehead  had been selected by the local Constituency Association to fight the Cathcart by election.

     "Maire Whitehead is an excellent local candidate with a strong track record of effective campaigning on the issues that matter most to the people of Cathcart.

"Only the SNP can beat Labour in this by-election. A vote for any other party is a wasted vote and one that will only benefit Labour.

"The Labour campaign is already in crisis. From the conduct of Lord Watson to the chaos and conflict in their selection process, they are a party on the back foot and losing ground, while the SNP is aiming for victory."

Commenting Maire Whitehead said:

"I am delighted to have been chosen by the SNP to fight the Cathcart by-election.

"This is a two-horse race between the SNP and a discredited Labour Party. The people of this area feel let down by the behaviour of their last Labour MSP and they are angry and disappointed by the failures of the Labour Executive.

"There are many local reasons why people are turning from Labour to the SNP. We have the ongoing threat to hospital services, the problems of crime and underage drinking and the loss of major post office services to name but a few.

"These, tied in with Mr McConnell's timid and short-sighted approach to the threatened take over of Scottish Power and Tony Blair's disastrous decision to take us into a war in Iraq based on a lie, mean that people in Cathcart are ready for a change.

"Already people are telling us that they will be switching from Labour to the SNP in this election. They know an SNP victory will make a difference for Cathcart."

Turning to other issues, Ms Whitehead added:
 
“There are a lot of issues on the doors of Cathcart. People have told me they are disappointed by the First Minister's decision not to back Scottish Power and angry at the behaviour of the previous Labour MSP Lord Watson ­ although many were surprised to hear he was their MSP.”

The SNP require a swing of 11.5 percent to win the seat from Labour. This is within the swing from Labour to the SNP at the following by-elections:

Only the SNP can beat Labour in Cathcart. The Liberals came sixth in 2003, while the Tories and SSP fought it out for 4th place.

Maire Whitehead

Maire was born in Glasgow and has lived and worked in Cathcart for 30 years, as the head-teacher in two local schools, Carnwardric (St Vincent’s) and King’ Park (St Mirrin’s).
 
She was involved in the successful local campaign to save the Couper Institute and has been active in the campaign to protect services at the Victoria Infirmary as chair of the Friends of Victoria pressure group. This included presenting a 20,000 signature petition to the Scottish Parliament.
 
Maire stood for the SNP in Cathcart in 1999 and 2003 and her priorities if elected would be campaigning to retain and improve services currently at the Victoria Infirmary in particular accident and emergency, sorting out traffic congestion across the constituency, tackling crime caused by under age drinking and drug abuse the restoration of major post office services.

LIVINGSTON BY ELECTION

           I managed to put in a bit of canvassing in Livingston this week, with hopes of doing more; we have excellent rooms, but next time I will take care where I park my car.  It doesn’t do to fall out with the candidate!  
 
        SNP candidate Angela Constance has urged the people of Livingston to make a difference for St John's hospital by voting SNP, and this issue struck chords on the doorsteps; nobody could understand the downgrading of the hospital.
 
       Angela has issued a double challenge, calling on the Labour Party to back her call for a timetable to secure teaching hospital status for St John's and for an extension of the catchment area for the hospital.
 
Commenting, Angela said:
 
"The SNP has been involved from the beginning in the campaign to protect services at St John’s hospital.
 
“Our aim is to stop centralisation to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary so that local people have access to the widest range of health services at St John's.
 
"It is vitally important that we keep a critical mass of services at St John’s. Part of that is protecting services, but we must also look to grow St John's.
 
"Today we are making two demands. First that we see a timetable to secure teaching hospital status for St Johns and second that there is an immediate review to extend the catchment area for the hospital.
 
"We must let Labour know that the people of Livingston want to see St John's flourish and that includes the return of emergency surgery and trauma orthopaedics to St John’s and no more services stripped away.
 
"As Quality Improvement Scotland, the health watchdog, has said in a recent report, there is a need for more theatre resources. There is no reason why another trauma orthopaedic theatre cannot be based at St John's.
 
"Success for the SNP will make a difference for St John's. It will send that message loud and clear."
 
Angela also hit out at the launch of the Liberal Democrat campaign

"In recent elections in Livingston the Tories and Liberals have fought over fourth place. They have no councillors in the seat.

"The only role for the Liberals in this by-election is as spoilers - as Labour's by-election buddies. Any vote for the Liberals is a vote that will help the Labour Party.

"No wonder a Labour peer has been financing Liberal election efforts. The two parties are bed-fellows in the Scottish Parliament and in Livingston a vote for the Liberals is a vote for no change, no hope and no difference.

"Livingston is a two horse race and only the SNP can beat Labour. The other parties can only get in the way."
 

THE 30 YEAR ITCH

           Now there’s a funny thing; in my last Flag, I was writing about how Norway had invested the oil money for the future of their nation, and bewailing the fact that Scotland was poorer, despite having discovered oil.  I speculated on how the SNP which had a massively successful campaign, “It’s Scotland’s Oil”, then abandoned it, as the trendy lefties lectured us about how awfully greedy and selfish it was to want to spend money on our poor, our elderly and our sick.

      I also wondered at the motives, and this week we discover, as fact, what we suspected all along; the British government deliberately concealed from us the amount of wealth that there was in the North Sea, because if Scotland knew how much there was, we would be independent, and prosperous.  Documents obtained by the SNP under the Freedom of Information Act showed that an independent Scotland would have had one of the strongest currencies in Europe, and that we would rival Switzerland as a financial centre.   The document shows that the official tax revenues projections published by Whitehall for the 6 years up to 1980, were exceeded nearly 40 times over.   So were our trendy lefties fifth columnists, as we seem to be in permanent World War II mode?

        The government papers revealed there were dire warnings of an English backlash, and the possibility of force as England would try to claim parts of the North Sea; not serious, surely, as they took 6000 square miles of fishing waters from us, an action approved by the Scottish Executive just a year or two back, but that was Scottish Labour grovelling to London Labour.  Also worries that too much money was bad for the Scots!   This reminds me of an occurrence when I worked in a North of Scotland fishing town; I worked for a big haulier, and every so often, a wages inspector would come from the Road Haulage Wages Council, to check that drivers were being paid the correct wages.  On one visit, he asked if I knew one of the other hauliers in the town, but I only knew them by repute.  He had been to inspect their wages, and discovered that instead of paying the correct rates for the job, the drivers were getting paid a flat £20 per week (the correct rate was more than double that).  On remonstrating, he was told “Ye canna pay young loons that kind of money; ye would jist ruin them.”  So the company kept the money.  We Scots are the young loons.

           And the reaction of the current Labour government? (well, it was a Labour government which concealed the facts in the first place); Alistair Darling, part time Secretary of State for Scotland and English Transport Minister, said there would be a fiscal deficit if Scotland became independent, leading to public service cuts.  So we know that while oil is keeping Britain afloat, if we had it to ourselves we would be stony broke.  Sounds very much as if Darling actually believes that London is better at looking after our affairs, spending money on Trident, invading Iraq, and living for today, but then he is taking the money, so has to dance to the master’s tune. 

            The Secretary of State for Scotland at the time of the deception was Willie Ross.  He was MP for Kilmarnock, and a great devotee of Robert Burns; one would expect that when he recited “Sic a Parcel o’ Rogues in a Nation” he would be looking in a mirror at the time.

      
FOOT IN THE MOUTH NOTES

       A lot of publicity this week about the Heart of Midlothian football fan who was fined for calling Craig Bellamy of Celtic “A wee Welsh bastard”; he was charged with causing racial discrimination.  The charge related, not to the word “wee” nor to the word “bastard”, but to the word “Welsh”, because Craig Bellamy is a Welshman; there is now a lot of dispute as to whether it is an offence to identify someone correctly by their nationality.

         Personally, I would never be offended at being called “Scottish”, but have very often been insulted abroad by touts asking “Are you English?”

 
         A lot of fuss lately about benefits given to MSPs, particularly for buying houses in Edinburgh.

           Jimmy Wray, former Labour MP for one of the most deprived areas of Glasgow, Baillieston and Provan, has put his house on the market looking for a cool million; it is not in his constituency, but in Newton Mearns, slightly posher.

NHS Argyll and Clyde is being abolished by Andy Kerr, the Minister for Health, because it has continually exceeded its budget and has had to write off £80 million; it covers vast tracts of the West of Scotland, from Barrhead, Glasgow, to Oban, Campbeltown, Coll and Tiree.  It now transpires that they have also been beating all the targets for patient care.

           A bit embarrassing that they have been doing what they were supposed to do, while other Health Councils did not.  Maybe someone should have been looking at the budgets?

       The Observer newspaper carried out a survey of the 52 new Tory MPs who won seats this year; none of them backed Kenneth Clarke for the leadership.

       Reminds me of the campaign against Dennis Healey becoming leader of the Labour Party, and their 18 years in the wilderness; the Tories are halfway there.

With the burning issue of Lord Watson of Invergowrie to the fore, there are, inevitably, calls to ban criminals from the House of Lords.

          Have people no sense of history?  How do they think Lords got created in the first place?

        A few weeks ago, Halifax Bank of Scotland (whatever that means) suffered well merited opprobrium for putting a cabbage on the desk of an employee who had not brought in enough business 

       Things must be tough for the bank; I have just received literature telling me that there is a “Loan Sale” – the hurry now while stocks last type.