Joan McAlpine writes an excellent article in today's Sunday Times in which she slates the comments of Glasgow council leader Stephen Purcell. Last week Mr Purcell blamed the SNP for his scholastic slums but Ms McAlpine's having none of it.
It was all Alex Salmond's fault said Mr Purcell, his hostility to the PPP and RFI models of funding building projects meant the school building programme in Scotland was slowing.
Ms McAlpine tells Mr Purcell he is acting like a child caught misbehaving in the playground, who then points the finger at an innocent child. But he is easily found out because his timing is terrible.
She pulls Mr Purcell's statement to pieces, bit by little bit and does it without any of the usual SNP bias from a large majority of Scottish journalists. It will be uncomfortable reading for Mr Purcell or indeed the labour group of Glasgow council, but do I care?
BellegroveBelle also posts on this subject and it's well worth a read as she's an SNP Glasgow councillor.
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13 comments:
subrosa,
Can I recommend you read postings on Mike's blog - he's one of your followers - off topic but there are some gems on there.
Aye - Ah read that post Subrosa. Factual, to the point, and ripped Purcell a new one. Good stuff.
Thanks for that heads up.
Rocketman!
Thanks brownlie, I thought I already followed Mike but no, it's only on my reader feed. Today's post is excellent.
Cyberman, I like the title, wish I'd thought of it. Keep up the good work because every little counts!
Scunnert, it's some time since I read such a 'straight' piece by any journalist about Scotland. A disgrace it has to come from a London based paper ( aren't the Scottish edition pages printed up here though)?
The Sunday Times (Scotland) edition is far better for impartiality than either of the two Scottish 'qualities'. Look no further than George Rosie's piece on 1970's Civil Servant shenanigans in last weeks issue...
...and another thing Joan McAlpine, summed up Labour perfectly in htis article form the Herald nine months before the May 07 election.
"They represent the strain of thinking in Scottish Labour that for decades fought against the home rule commitment of its founding fathers. These staunch unionists fell grudgingly behind devolution in the 1990s, only because they were afraid of voters turning to the SNP. Many of them had campaigned against the proposed Scottish Assembly in the 1970s.
This faction sees the survival of the British Labour Party as paramount – far more important than Scotland's needs as a nation. It believes in the supreme sacrifice: delivering a phalanx of Scottish MPs to shore up future Labour governments that cannot defeat the Tories in England. Any increase in the powers of the Scottish parliament will weaken the position of Scottish MPs at Westminster, and so affect Labour's chances of governing England."
Might I also add that despite the poor choice in her first hubby, she's hot...
Monty you're showing your testosterone levels now :) I never read her article just before the 2007 election, like many I was too busy working and trying hard to campaign. It's time the older generation were TOLD to get to grips with computers. I'm sick of hearing they're not interested or can't afford a machine.
So many depend upon their children to do it for them and that's appalling.
Off my soapbox for another few hours.
Cyberman, I like the title, wish I'd thought of it. Keep up the good work because every little counts!
Bloggers for freedom.
I will like to rescue the economy. I will like to pay off my share of the national debt. Plz, send me Gordon's address so that I can send him my cheque for £22,009.45 to help him with the next general election. With the current state of the UK economy, Labour Party seem desperate to win the election.
It's not that PFI is now discredited, which it is. It is not that PFI was a licence to siphon off public money into company bank accounts, which it was. Oh no. It is that PFI has been a central building block of the Labour odyssey.
They cannot go quietly, and somehow they will blame everybody else that most of the major PFI builds in Scotland will be pulled down long before we have finished paying for them.
What worries me WW is the mess that Gordon Brown is going to leave behind. John Swinney has realised Scotland's debt in all this and he's holding off any commitment until he can find an acceptable solution - sensible man.
Then of course all these mothers with their kids waving banners saying their school is falling down will continue. Someone ought to be brave enough and approach these mothers and ask who is responsible because it's not the SNP. Also to tell them do you want your child's children to be paying for a new school now.
Complete and utter neglect there has been in the past 50 years and I think especially in the west. Dundee's been well looked after with new schools and my own school being half rebuilt after a serious fire.
Edinburgh seems quite neglected too but perhaps that's because I read the EEN.
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