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hem but sweet jesus let s not change the law to allow the press the power to destroy the lives of footballers right now there is a war being waged to grant the press the power to pry into any aspect of any one s life and print half truths about them for a momentary flash of titillation some people have leaped into the fray to enjoy sticking two fingers up to the law with a warm glow that s it s all being done in the name of high principle i think these people have chosen the wrong side with the best of motives but i d like them to reconsider we need to challenge the power of the press in the country not act as its outriders until they demonstrate a willingness to exercise that power responsibility we should be holding them to account and limitting their influence that s my view anyway but then again i m sick of the lies the blackmail the corruption and the foul influence the press have on our political system 3 comments labels media friday may 20 2011 selected items where are the women in rebel music old news but irritating scottish wind farms paid to stop producing energy an interesting piece by priya shetty on how misogynist practices prevail musings of a teen green says clegg is shining right now he has a point notes from the fink club false economy meeting by natalie paul merton is wondering whether he s allowed to call himself working class 1 comments labels misc thursday may 19 2011 some selected links on ken clarke etc top soil is a consistently excellent blog today they have a post keeping it clear on date rape sunny points out that getting tough on crime is a tory trap the fawcett society on why the government must be clear on rape the guardian editorial calls for ken clarke to stay well worth reading unity has a really useful piece on the simple facts clarke got wrong jenny rigg has a poll examining the issues on the whole affair 0 comments labels misc wednesday may 18 2011 those scottish elections the essay i know i m a bit slow with this as i get the blog back on track but i thought i d give a very quick overview of the scottish elections the headline of course was the amazing landslide for the scottish national party which for those outside of scotland is essentially an alternative social democratic party to labour without the baggage of murder and government and at liberty to put political ideas independent of a westminster agenda whilst that does not mean the snp is immune from exactly the same neo liberal and reactionary pressures that labour is prone to it is able to for example oppose trident and nuclear power or propose a tax on supermarkets in a way that labour seem utterly unable to indeed i even voted snp on the constituency ballot where the greens did not stand in order to help displace the complacent labour incumbent we could go into the snp s deficiencies at length but frankly that would be both boring and churlish in the face of their historic victory gaining a majority of seats under a system that was specifically designed to stop them doing just that how did they do it well they certainly had a strong well financed campaign although i wont go as far as some to call it a work of genius to a large extent it was achieved through the miserable state of the opposition and the ability to gain real momentum off the back of that there were few people who voted on the 5th that had any illusion about whether the snp would be forming the next government or not but if we look back to january we see the polls were predicting a comfortable labour victory that lead was lost by labour rather than overcome by the snp labour s campaign labour did so badly that they lost key glasgow seats leaving them in a minority in the city yes labour a minority in glasgow unthinkable much has been made of the dismal and lacklustre iain gray labour s scottish leader it certainly has little to do with ed miliband as he barely figured in the scottish campaign with the entire weight of responsibility placed on the shoulders of a man determined to do an uninspired impression of a sack of potatoes but frankly labour chose him so they can t be absolved of responsibility no matter how much their candidates complained of the terrible campaign labour s vision for scotland seemed to consist of refusing to think about any alternative to cuts and mandatory prison sentences for carrying a knife i guess that combination of authoritarianism and abandonment of public services is nothing new but in a field where voters actually had an alternative non tory party of government it just would not wash i was stunned by labour s refusal to even talk about tackling the cuts in any meaningful way there wasn t even any hot and meaningless rhetoric which could have gone down pretty nicely had labour wanted to win which i guess they didn t there were two turning points of note for me way back when labour had the lead the snp proposed a tesco tax on the 1 richest companies in order to offset public sector cuts it was a good proposal universally opposed by labour and the coalition parties prompting a widespread feeling that labour et al were simply voting in the interests of their major donors the feeling that labour were in the pockets of the rich was further entrenched by the fact their argument against the tesco tax was that this was a tax on jobs if they wanted to look identical to the tories they were doing a fine job and i would not have been surprised if they d come out with the trickle down effect soon after it was from that week that labour started to flag in the polls the second turning point which was far less avoidable was when iain gray was confronted by anti cuts protesters it s a difficult situation to handle and i have some sympathy with gray over this but his choice to turn tail and hide in a sandwich shop became an overnight legend which genuinely started to define labour s campaigning style run away from anything difficult people still raise this minor incident today and it may well become gray s legacy for me more symbolic of gray s shambolic election was the less known incident from when alex salmond was doing a photoshoot in a supermarket the way you do on the election trail as the assembled press and journos directed their attention to the big man who should walk in by chance but iain gray he weakly waved and then ambled off to the lavatory it sums the man s political career up for me but herein lies the danger for labour they desperately need to do some soul searching and the temptation to blame miliband for not doing enough or gray for being rubbish has got to be overwhelming however i think that would be a mistake labour lost because they had nothing to say not who was delegated to not say it be nice to supermarkets be frightened of independence and give more powers to the police simply did not resonate with the electorate and why would it why not turn to a scottish party that had been careful to play down any dangerous thoughts on scottish autonomy what about the tories and lib dems whilst the tories did not have a great night the utter rout of the lib dems is the big news all three westminster parties saw their leaders resign in the wake of the election result which is probably inevitable but quite what goldie or scott were meant to do with the hand life had dealt them god alone knows at least the tories ran an honest and clear campaign with a leader who was happy to look the electorate in the eye and tell them hard truths even if i don t think they re true tavish scott the leader of the lib dems on the other hand seemed utterly flummoxed by the whole thing and given a complete absence of anything useful to say seemed to drift as much as labour he tried to distance himself from the national coalition but without any meaningful policy difference this just looked shifty and dishonest the flagship policy of the scottish lib dems was even worse than labour s lock up those carrying knives it was opposition to merging scottish police forces the majority of the electorate probably didn t even know there wasn t a single scottish police force let alone felt particular concerned about whether it was merged it was totemic of their campaign that they chose as their lead campaigning issue an obscure piece of admin the only other significant campaign issue raised from the yellow team was on refinancing the debt of scottish water as the only newsworthy economic issue they raised it was both complicated and reeked of privatisation however the main problem with it was for a party that justifies drastic cuts in public services on the basis that we re in too much debt suggesting we get into more debt seems just the tiniest bit incoherent and well opportunist not for the first time i was left thinking that even lib dem members deserve a better leadership than this my local constituency candidate alex cole hamilton could not have campaigned harder if he d hired an army of clones to go door knocking with him the man was a stakonovite of historic proportions in a campaign he must have known that he d be crushed in i genuinely feel very sorry for the guy i must be going soft in my dotage alison johnstone and patrick harvie launch the manifesto and then there s the greens the polls consistently put the green party on between six and eight msps which always seemed a touch fanciful to me although i had hoped for an increase in the end it was not to be the increase in the scottish green party vote was not enough to see the sgp do more than hold onto their seats with only the highlands and islands seat close to an extra win being just a few hundred votes away from electing eleanor scott personally i think for a small party to get noticed enough and taken seriously enough to maintain their seats whilst all other parties were swept before the tartan steamroller is actually an impressive result increasing our vote under these circumstances was a real achievement but many were understandably disappointed with a strong media campaign and good professional approach to the campaign many members felt that this was the best sgp campaign that they could remember although whether they d all characterise our message as hard left as the scotsman did is debatable certainly the party focused on raising revenue to protect services and jobs this gave our candidates something unique to say on hustings and in the press quite distinct from the other parties in holyrood it was good that the press focused on our economic policies showing we were being taken seriously and to my mind it is this reason that we were able to hold our ground but in the future we need to ensure we have strong enough ground campaigns to deliver more msps in difficult elections as well as when the wind is going in our direction the others the hard left parties saw no resurgence in their fortunes and are sadly a shadow of their former selves i saw one ssp candidate describe the idea of a rainbow parliament at a hustings and to be honest that s what i would like to see a real diversity of opinion represented although not at the cost of the greens obviously i was pleased that the scottish socialist party polled almost three times higher than the morally bankrupt solidarity and i hope that means they will be able to play a useful role in scottish politics in the future sadly they did not out poll the socialist labour party a non existent party who gain almost all of their votes from people who vote for them by mistake instead of the scottish labour party even though i love him dearly i was also pleased that george galloway was a long way off winning a seat in glasgow to be honest he doesn t live in scotland knows nothing about how holyrood works nor does he seem particularly interested in it he s not qualified and the electorate knew it his hyperbolic intervention in the growing football tensions were particular unwelcome i thought and i d far rather see a more thoughtful socialist like colin fox in place as an msp than a walking megaphone like galloway the far right continue to be a non existent force in scotland and political christianity which tends to focus on the hell fire stuff rather than the love one another business continued to languish at 0 1 maybe if they focused on the hugging more than the smiting they might poll a little better who knows when the dust cleared it was clear we are in a new situation with the prospect of independence on the cards and holyrood s first majority rule i m really pleased for patrick and alison our two green msps and disappointed for those excellent candidates who didn t make it but elected or no there are still important issues to be campaigning on and i think we re in a good position to do that 7 comments labels holyrood2011 scotland new blogs i ve not welcomed any new blogs recently even if they aren t always technically new except to me young and well red is a new member of the greens in plymouth he explains his decision to join here dorky mum is an edinburgh green who writes about all sorts marxist lentilist has to win a prize for best blog name awkward ed miliband moments is a lovely lovely photoblog politics poetry and equality is a newish blog who i hope will soon get into the swing of things as is green politics sustainable futures and hearts and mines if you re blogging and you think i haven t noticed you yet feel free to leave a comment to let me know 2 comments labels misc tuesday may 17 2011 selected good news items it s been a while so let s catch up with some good news ali dizaei has been released from prison i ve been following his case for some time and am convinced mr dizaei has been the victim of a systematic injustice at the hands of his former employer the metropolitan police i couldn t be happier although i have little hope those responible will be brought to book six other men have been released from jail because they were well innocent they ve been locked up since september for plotting to kill the pope even though they didn t alisdair thompson who was arrested on a ukuncut demonstration in edinburgh is out of pokey and safe and well his crime carrying a banner no really the indian elections have seen a big movement forward in terms of women s representation at least someone has some sense over madeline mccann jenny jones talks sense credit where it s due the government has done something good by preventing vulture funds using uk courts against developing world countries 4 comments labels misc wednesday may 11 2011 top yes to av votes notice anything here are the ten areas with the strongest yes to av vote notice anything about them hackney 60 68 glasgow kelvin 58 78 islington 56 92 haringey 56 62 lambeth 54 69 cambridge 54 32 oxford 54 11 southwark 52 73 camden 51 4 edinburgh central 51 36 well i ll give you a hint the lib dem and labour vote are pretty variable across these ten urban areas hackney is a strong labour seat glasgow has just been rocked by the snp and cambridge is lib dem for example however they are all areas where the...