Say hello to my leetle friend.

It appears that the recurring theme of gangsters in Glasgow has reared its ugly head yet again.

SNP Councillor Billy McAllister had written to Labour Provost Bob Winter asking for a debate on a council motion on organised crime in the city.

The Lord Provost has refused the debate citing that 'he will decide all matters of order, competence and relevence.'

Naturally it is within his authority to grant of deny motions to council business, however I can't quite get my head around why Glasgow city council wouldn't want to at least debate this obvious problem. 

We know of the near cult status some of these people accrue and the plethora of hagiographies that climb the bestseller's list, perhaps they give the reader some vicarious thrill to read about thugs shooting each other up the arse with shotguns. All the same, surely it's the responsibility of every elected politician to stand up to the gangsters, dealers and thugs that control huge swathes of Scotland.

Willie Bain, the Labour PPC has deemed that the good folk of Glasgow North East are not interested in the root causes of organised crime and are only interested in locking up kids caught carrying knives. I suspect that Labour have read the runes wrong, failure to address one of the core problems in the constituency could have a disastrous effect on Labours ability to hold on to their massive majority. Failure to not even discuss or recognise the problem, naturally, gives carte blanche, to that particular breed of unemployed Labourers, tanning salon owners, security bosses and taxi drivers with second homes in Spain. 

One armed bandit front bench reshuffle.

Walking charisma void Iain Gray and erstwhile leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament, has reshuffled his dynamic front bench team, with an even more err dynamicer team.


In a move akin to juggling deckchairs on the Titanic, Mr Gray's attempts to spice up his team are pretty difficult to satirise.

For example, noted human vacuum, Jackie the Hutt replaces Cathydoll Jamieson as party health spokesperson. No doubt this has less to do with her renowned physical appearance and more to do with the fact that she gurned loudest and longest about the nine clostridium difficile deaths deaths at the Vale of Leven hospital, which happened between December 2007 and June 2008 and were entirely Nicola Sturgeon's fault, because obviously viruses become stronger under an SNP government.

Cathydoll moves to housing and regeneration, which is pretty laughable given her constituency suffers from crap housing stock and is so weighted down by the dead hand of Labour that regeneration has little chance of success.

Other nova bright moves are  Rhona Brankin stepping down as education spokeswoman for family reasons. To replaced by Clydebank and Milngavie MSP Des McNulty. 

Former Health minister Andy Kerr has more burdens added to his already poorly handled finance and economy remit.

Hamilton North and Bellshill MSP Michael McMahon becomes local government spokesman.

John Park has been dumped from his economy and skills role and has been handed the poisoned chalice of elections and campaign portfolio, he still gets to keep his seat in the shadow cabinet. 

There is still no place in the front bench team for the venerable Baron George Foulkes von Cumnock. A vote winner if ever there was one. 

This is the last roll of the dice, the last tug on the puggy machine for Gray, if Labour lose Glasgow North East, you can bet your bottom dollar Gray will get it in the neck from Spud Murphy, Darling and Broon himself. The oddest fact to emerge from the whole murky reshuffle is that it takes 27 Labour MSP's to shadow an SNP Ministerial team of 16 - some 60 percent of the the entire labour Parliamentary group! Go figure.

No Mean City Ya Bassa

Colour me gob smacked that the Express, is the first Scottish paper to flag up the actual genuine bona fide problem that impacts on life in Glasgow North East more than almost anything else.


Violence, drug dealing, addiction, theft, prostitution and money laundering can all be lain at the feet of a few families in the constituency, Glasgow's very own Soprano's, the gangster families.

Bada bing

'One man on a mission to clean up this corner of the city is local councillor Billy McAllister, who needed armed police protection after he forced the Lyons crime family out of a council-run community centre"

Chirnsyde Community Initiative in Milton is now well known as the place where Cllr McAllister took on the Lyons family and managed to evict them from controlling the centre which had received a quarter of a million pounds of Glasgow City Council funding and was known to be the place to score the finest drugs known to Milton.


Gangsters be here.

Mr Lyon's the caretaker of the above centre on £18,000 a year had £63,000 in cash confiscated from his home, he claimed it belonged to an associate of his son... 

 Billy McAllister, the SNP’s deputy leader at Glasgow City Council yesterday claimed Labour has not done enough to tackle the problem.

He said: “Why am I the only councillor in this whole city raising the issue of organised crime?

“Surveys come back saying crime is the number one concern of residents, but nothing changes.

“I’ve been attacked, my car has been attacked, my house has been attacked,” he added. “Of course I’m in danger but that is no deterrent to standing up for what is right.”

Willie Bain, the Labour candidate underplays the influence of the gangster, insisting that most people in the area are more concerned with low-level street offending.

He said: “Knife crime has been by far the biggest issue and there is growing support by the day for my mandatory sentences for anyone carrying a knife.”

The fact that a culture of crime has been allowed to grow in the East End of Glasgow owes much to the loose hand of Labour which has represented the area at council, Holyrood, Westminster and Europe, since St Mungo was a boy.   

The boy Limmy plays a blinder.

Isle of Man Alive

For those of you unfortunate enough not to receive the joy of Border TV or BBC North West, you may have missed the mild stramash that Alastair Darling has created in the heart of the British Isles, by cutting the Isle of Man's budget by a WHOPPING 24 %.

Labour Chancellor Darling's latest cost cutting exercise threatens the Isle of Man's status as a tax haven and completely undermines its economic viability.

Cutting £140 million out of a budget of £572 means that the Manx Government are in danger of losing their Triple AAA credit rating. The cut according to the Government of Keys is non-negotiable.

The island was the first crown dependency to slash corporation tax to zero for all companies except financial institutions, which pay 10%. 

The zero percent tax rate saw an influx of new business to the island, whose 80,000 inhabitants enjoy one of the highest living standards anywhere. 

The teensy weensy little Isle of Man makes more films per year than the rest of the UK, because of the tax breaks available to production companies. Since this first started the Isle of Man has built up a fully functioning well trained  film workforce. This is now under threat.

What is increasingly interesting is the grumblings of the Manx people talking about Independence. 

The fact that tax exiles like Nigel Mansell, Rick Wakeman, Norman Wisdom (possibly Hovis) and sundry industrialists like John Whittaker the publicity shy property developer billionaire behind plans for the contentious new Hunterston coal power station could  be at the heart of an Independence movement is worthy of a great big guffaw.


Darling boobs again. 

Oops he did it again. 


 

T minus five hours ten minutes.

Some reasons why the BNP should not be on Question Time tonight. 

They have no MEP's,  MP's,  MSP's, Councillors or even community councillors in Scotland. 

They have never saved a single deposit in any electoral contest in Scotland.


So why are BBC Scotland playing Question Time tonight?


BBC Scotland must stand up to BBC London and opt out of this, I suggest they play Schindler's List, which perfectly illustrates what happens when you allow fascists a platform.

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24 Hours after, here we have the BNP take on it. Somehow told you so isn't enough.

3000 new members cry BNP tears.

What this seasons fashionable SNP cyclists should be riding in Glasgow North East.

Following Ms Dugdale's rather odd dig at a renegade SNP supporting cyclist for freewheeling his bicycle along the pavement of a Glasgow street, I feel that the above Saltire bike should be the preferred mode of transport for all lycra clad independence supporters. 

Naturally, if you see someone pedalling the above on the pavement do feel compelled to blog about it or even report them to Strathclyde's finest for breaking the transport laws. Alternatively, try to explain how Michael Martin's former agent can claim to live locally when he works in London.


Mayhaps he pedals from London to Springburn...

Evil Nat mows down innocent pedestrians on bike of death.

Margaret Curran, "I've lived and worked in the East End ma whole life, son."

Culture Smack! Ben Nevis, it's a bit of a hill.

Dearie me, the publishers of Culture Smart! Scotland, are getting it in the neck from some of the tabloids this morning. Their crime?

Ben Nevis is a "biggish hill"  

Loch Ness as a "dull waterway".  

Highlanders don't like pork and eat only porridge and Arbroath smokies for breakfast. 

Protestants are so bigoted they refuse to have anything green in their homes.   

Scots plant rowan trees just to ward off witches.  
 
We regard 'fairies as guide neighbours'   

Scotland was once ruled by the 'Steward' dynasty

We're noted for our rudeness and blunt ways, 'To the unprepared their bluntness may seem downright rude. But be warned that these same forthright people can be very touchy and extremely easily offended if you speak to them in the same vein.'

Shetlands Viking pageant is 'Up  Helly Ya' bass

Robert Burns had 'nothing much to say about religion.'  

The author a London based historian and aptly named John Scotney has apologised. His biography reveals an extremely well educated and probably interesting man. All of which beggars the question, what was he thinking of?

The guid guide is sold mostly in the USA and Canada. Personally I'm surprised there is no mention of our cheese eating terrorist appeasing monkeys or our cringe laden unionists supported by the Loyal Orange brotherhood....



http://www.randomhouse.com/author/results.pperl?authorid=74339&view=full_sptlght

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-1221402/Scots-rude-Ben-Nevis-just-big-hill-Loch-Ness-dull-according-new-travel-guide.html

 http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2688373/Tourist-guide-brands-Scots-drunken-bigots.html

Incapability Brown

Just what size of a lawn does Gordon Brown have if he spends £12,000 a year on gardening?

In days gone by when a chap made a social faux pas, you know the sort of thing; wore his fob in the wrong waistcoat pocket, invested the family loot in a dodgy railroad or was caught buggering the under butler, the only recourse to infamy was either an insufferable life in exile amongst Johnny foreigner, or a short stroll into an empty room with a loaded service revolver.

Somehow I fear James Gordon Brown lacks the intestinal fortitude for either action....

Come ahead if you think you're hard enough. You're going to get your fucking head kicked in etcetera

These were the delightful images MSP's, Civil Servants, Members of the Public and the viewing audience of dozens of political anoraks watching on BBC Parliament witnessed yesterday, when Iain Gray 'challenged' First Minister Alex Salmond to a debate on Scotland's future on St Andrew's day.


Mr Gray a former secondary school teacher will quite naturally have seen the two handed 'come ahead' gesture many times in the playground and at some of the more rambunctious square goes, often seen in the wee small hours of Labour party conferences boozing dens and naturally amongst combatants in our national sport of street fighting.I was fortunate enough to be in the Chamber and in the canteen after Iain Gray's finest moment. Heads slumped among the thinking Labour MSP's, the writing is definitely on the wall. Iain Grey will no doubt be challenged between the Glasgow by-election and Christmas.

Who will replace him as Leader Labour in the Scottish Parliament?

The Scotsman gives up the pretence of impartiality and dons the mask of open propaganda.

The above photograph was used on the front page of today's Scotsman, to illustrate a story on the SNP's willingness to freeze pay rises for top civil servants. The photograph serves no other purpose than to ridicule the First Minister, it's very clever, it appealed to my sense of humour, it's the sort of thing you'd expect to see on the pages of Private Eye. Not as the front cover on a National newspaper in a story addressing the effects of Labour's recession.

It served to remind me how little the Scotsman and Labour have moved on since May 2007. In Errol Morris' wonderful documentary 'The Fog of War', Robert McNamara, JFK's Secretary of Defence said that the first lesson in The Fog of War is to “Empathize with your enemy.” McNamara explained further: “We must try to put ourselves inside their skin and look at us through their eyes, just to understand the thoughts that lie behind their decisions and their actions.” Labour and the egotistical imaginations of the Scotsman have failed to learn this simple lesson.

Loving this wee animation.

As spotted on Go Lassie Go.

A clip from Scottish based Czech animator Jana Prchalova's short Mondo.


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