A Bad Day For Scottish Labour

To qualify the title, I must first confess that I thought Iain Grey did much better in First Minister’s Questions today then has been doing in past few months. I’m wondering if he’s been benefiting from some kind of coaching. Regardless, it’s good to see some debate going on in FMQs.

Elsewhere, Labour have been doing less well today.

First of all, the replacement for Jim Devine (the former MP for Livingston, currently charged with false accounting) has himself been referred to police by the Chief Executive of West Lothian Council. Councillors Willie Dunn and Graeme Morrice, the latter the PPC for Livingston, have both been alleged to have committed offences under the Public Bodies Corrupt Practises Act, which prevents bribery of officials. This apparently comes in the wake of accusations against a third, independent councillor who raised the matter. While these allegations may not result in further action, it is press that Labour do not need in an area where the SNP are seeking to gain a seat.

In Strathclyde meanwhile, events rumble on. The Scottish Sun has reported allegations that Labour councillor Ruth Black was involved with drug handling within the City Chambers. This is the second time councillor Black has hit the newspapers in recent days, with previous reports claiming she had been questioned by Strathclyde Police, denied handling drugs and allegations over improprieties relating to a contract to run an LGBT centre in Glasgow.

Finally, following confirmation this week that Steven Purcell has been suspended from the Labour Party, the Crown Office has confirmed that an investigation into the affair is ongoing. This last is at least some compensation to the people of Glasgow for the actions of a man who brought their city into such disrepute.

No doubt the various Labour PPCs around Glasgow will not be terribly happy with this news. Not least because both the SNP and Liberal Democrats are making headway within several Glasgow constituencies. They can only hope that in the imminent debates, Brown does well.

Indygal and Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting have also provided their slant’s on the day’s happenings, here, here and here.

On Steven Purcell

Steven Purcell is not a man who I have very much time for. This is no reflection on him personally, it’s simply a reflection of the abysmal and arrogant manner in which the city was run during the time I lived there and when he was leader of the council.

It’s one of the reasons I decided not to comment when he suddenly announced his resignation more then a week ago. The other was that the reasons cited sounded rather euphemistic – in the same vein as ‘spending time with his family’ – but I wasn’t going to let my own bias against Mr Purcell and his council needlessly colour positive comment of the day, not least because damming someone who is potentially suffering from mental illness is far from the decent thing to and I would much rather see him make a recovery.

Now, of course, a number of revelations have come out about Mr Purcell. The main two being that during part of the time he was leader of Glasgow City Council, Mr Purcell had a dependancy on a Class A drug and was warned by Strathclyde Police about interactions with gangsters and potential blackmail. I imagine that life cannot have been particularly pleasant for Mr Purcell during this time, with comments from “a friend” in the Sunday Times painting a picture of a frightened and paranoid man rather then the Bright Young Thing of Scottish Labour.

It would be easy to make political capital out of all of this, but I’m not entirely sure that would be in good taste. I also don’t think that Purcell’s actions will have wider repercussions for Scottish Labour – after all, the Labour vote in Glasgow is very firmly embedded, despite previous scandals involving gangland figures and corruption.

What I am going to say is that I’m left extremely disappointed and angry by Purcell’s actions. Scotland has a poor international reputation in many ways – a history of high murder rates, high violent crime rates, poor diet and massive use of drugs has left a legacy which is largely borne by Glasgow City and the West Coast. As the bright young thing in charge of Scotland’s largest local authority, Purcell should have been helping to stamp out this reputation – moving the city as a whole away from it’s “No Mean City” reputation towards the council’s “Scotland With Style” tagline. Instead he’s fulfilled a stereotype , damaging the city  and allowing the media to smirk about those violent, drug-taking Glaswegians and Scots.

True, Mr Purcell did help to win the bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games, but I wonder how much better that money could be spent providing public services and improving housing in the city rather then being handed to Rangers and Celtic for the use of their stadia. Hopefully there will be some wide spread regeneration as a result of this, but with budgets likely to become ever tighter as 2014 approaches, it seems likely that people of Glasgow are going to suffer for the sport.

I doubt there will be any long term changes in Glasgow politics as a result of this affair, but I am likely being overly cynical. At least the City Council in Glasgow is no longer a one party system, so while the majority is still held by Labour, it is at least held accountable by the other parties within the city. Hopefully, in time, this will lead to a more open, more transparent local authority rather then the Labour boy’s club which recent events have highlighted.

Scottish Social Media Dinner 17/02/10 – Social Media & Politics

It is an unwritten law that members of the digerati must record their experiences of meeting other members of the digerati for posterity, making mention of who they meet and liked. It’s like Technorati, but for the real world.

Given this undeniable internet mechanism, I have to begin this post by thanking Craig McGill of Contently Managed for organising the night, and Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting for bringing it to my attention. Despite my initial doubts about it, it was an extremely good night and very worthwhile. I would recommend future SSMDs to others.

There were four speakers: Tom Harris (a Glasgow MP who I seldom agree with but who does maintain an interesting blog), Patrick Harvie (co-convenor of the Scottish Greens, MSP, blogger and all round lovely chap), Andy Reeves (a Lib Dem campaign manager and blogger) and Allison Thewliss (the SNP Councillor for Calton Ward, otherwise known as Bellgrove Bella).

Some interesting points were made all round. Tom Harris focused his speech on how social media has affected his political career and how it can be used (and mis-used) by politicians past and present. His anecdotes regarding his exit from the Cabinet and current social media related scandals raised a good few wry smiles. I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing him speak again, not least because he is a man who is not afraid to publicly criticise his leader and his fellows without resorting to backstabbing.

Andy Reeves also focused on his career history, with the emphasis on how he’s helped build up the Lib Dem’s web and social media presence. Again an interesting speaker, adding to some of Tom Harris’ points.

Patrick Harvie was probably my favourite speaker of the night, and not just because I agree with the Greens more often then I care to admit. Of particular note (in my mind) was a criticism of the Scottish Parliament launching with cutting edge (bleeding edge in many respects) web services, which have failed to keep up with the advances in technology. Having spent far too much time recently reading the Report of the Consultative Steering Group, which, amongst other things was responsible for much of the digital vision of the Parliament in the ’90s, it’s an issue that has become of great interest to me. So, I’m very glad to hear a review of the Scottish Parliament website is now underway, and has recieved input from one of the most prolific bloggers in Parliament.

I was also interested the ways which Patrick uses the social media tools. Specifically, the use of twitter for ‘micro-consultation’ (my term) with constituents at short notice. This is exactly how MPs and MSPs should be using Twitter, Facebook and other services, although it can never replace traditional constituency work. I was surprised that Patrick finds blogging to be a chore however, possibly illustrating how essential a tool it has become, but also showing that it’s part of the job rather then the hobby which it is for many bloggers. As I already mentioned, Patrick seems like a very lovely man and I’m quite disappointed that I didn’t get time for a longer conversation with him.

Finally, Allison gave my second favourite speech. I was very glad that she threw in a bit of party politics, because none of the other speaker were particularly forthcoming on what they thought their opponents could be doing better. It was also great to hear what she’s doing and trying to get the council to do to engage with people via social media. It was a much more frontline point-of-view then the previous three speakers. I’ve come away thinking that in many ways, there are a lot more uses of social media for councillors then there are for national politicians, with it allowing much deeper and wider engagement with the small wards. Allison and her husband are very nice as well, and I enjoyed their company.

The crowd for the event wasn’t exactly what I expected. It was nearly entirely male dominated, with only a few women. It also seemed to be dominated by online businessmen, developers and the ilk, with a few media types thrown in. I seemed to be the only politico there other then the politicians, although that isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the issues raised by those outside the politics bubble were interesting.

I wasn’t the only person who was shocked by the lack of women at the event, with a very heated discussion regarding the treatment of women in politics and online taking place during the Q&A. The young women who asked the question which started it took a lot of flack from the audience, possibly for approaching the issue in a full-on manner but equally because of sexism. Her main points were very valid, with the blogosphere seemingly divided across traditional gender lines, although I’m going to have to investigate and see if, as she claimed, female politics bloggers take more comment flack then males. She specifically gave the example of the Labour blogger and activist Kezia Dugdale, who I do not read but who is highly recommended and respected by a cross-party group of bloggers.

There were a number of other interesting questions asked, which I may blog about individually at a later date, but I think that all that remains to be said is that it was a throughly enjoyable night which I would happily repeat. The next Scottish Social Media Dinner takes place in Edinburgh, at the end of March, with the theme of podcasting. I may well attend, if only to find out how effective a tool podcasts really are.

Glasgow North-East Autopsy

Some rambling (and largely non-partisan) thoughts on the election outcome:

I’m not surprised by the overall result. The SNP would have needed a hell of a campaign to take Glasgow North-East and they were hobbled from the get-go by the minor scandals regarding both their first and second choice candidates.

It is true Labour heartland. It also has a widely documented history of ‘tribal Labour’ voting and Willie Bain is a local candidate and comes across as having his head screwed on well (the same things John Mason had going for him last year). It makes for a some fascinating sociology reading, in particular if you look at the whole of Glasgow – ‘tribal Labour’ voting occurs in all parts of Glasgow and at all levels, however I digress.

The degree of Labour’s majority is surprising. At a time when Labour are faced with a strong opposition in Westminster, quite a lot of media hatred and an SNP government in Holyrood, I would have expected a much smaller majority, reflecting dissatisfaction with the economy, employment, the war and so on. Instead, the dis-satisfied seem to have stayed at home.

This is fascinating. I am no expert at political prediction, but I think it’s clear that the SNP, Lib Dems and Tories will face very nasty odds in Glasgow in 2010. I suspect the SNP may well lose Glasgow East. On the other hand, it will be interesting to see if they make in-roads in the South-Side of Glasgow, building on Nicola Sturgeon’s win in Goven in 2007.

Regarding the BNP, there seems to be something funny going on here. In 2005, the BNP fielded 119 candidates in the Westminster election. They polled on average, 1,620 votes each. In Glasgow North-East specifically, the BNP achieved 920 votes. The result of 1,013 votes does represent a nearly 2% increase on that result. I may well be taking this too lightly in this case, but there does not appear to be sufficient data to indicate a trend in support of the BNP yet (this may change in 2010). I will say, however, that I don’t think we should under-estimate the potential of the BNP, but I’m not sure the amount of coverage the BNP is getting, dealing with the problem that the party poses is justified. It may be much better for the parties to work together to deal with the problems that cause people to look to the BNP – low employment, social deprivation and poor education.

I am still slightly surprised by the performance of the Socialists (SSP, Solidarity and Socialist Labour) and the celeb candidates. I was expecting Jon Smeaton to do better, thanks to putting Glasgow on the map as the only city in the world where a burning terrorist is likely to be headbutted and sat on. It’s disappointing that there is no sign of a real socialist alternative coalescing in Scotland again. The SSP and Solidarity are continuing to just split what few votes they get.

Finally, a very poor show for the Tories and the Lib Dems. However, Glasgow constituencies are generally a two-horse race between Labour and either the SNP or the Lib Dems. It’ll be interesting to see if the Scottish Lib Dems make in-roads in Glasgow in 2010 – they were ahead of the SNP in some constituencies in 2005 and could well build on that with a good campaign. Taking some Glasgow constituencies would also help replace the more northern constituencies which the SNP are slowly chiseling away from long-term Lib Dem control.

An interesting result in all, and I’ve not even touched half of the issues involved. I predict that the 2010 election may will make for some interesting viewing. I’m not sure that Big Eck will get his 20 seats, but I don’t think David Cameron will get his 8 seats either. I think the biggest loser in Scotland come 2010 will be the Lib Dems as the face competition from the SNP, the Tories and Labour. We’ll have to wait and see…

Glasgow North-East Predictions

Result: Labour Win (3,500 maj)
SNP in second place
Tories and Lib Dems close for third

The SSP and Solidarity will still be in the low thousands, vote splitting with Socialist Labour and the independants. Jon Smeaton will probably get the most out of this group.

Despite recent press, the BNP will still lose their deposit.

It’s not the outcome I want but I think it’s most likely. Of course, I’ve never been that good at the predition business.

Results sometime on Friday I believe.