Gordon Brown PM Scotsman Feb 6th 2009
Here's something you won't find me doing very often - expressing sympathy for a Scottish Labour MP.
The not so suitably yclept Jim Devine MP for Livingstone, I believe has been badly let down by his party and colleagues. He has been scapegoated and become the focus of corruption amongst our MP's.
Gordon Brown's description of those who have stepped out of his control as 'these people' is quite telling, how quick the fall from grace is. To go from 'honourable member' to 'these people' in such a short space of time is infused with hypocrisy. How can yesterday's colleague or friend, become a non-person overnight? The light speed with which politicians distance themselves from any controversy which might tarnish their precious reputations and electability, is still beyond the ken of most physicists.
His alleged misdemeanour's in falsely claiming parliamentary expenses compare favourably with many of his fellow Labour MP's, some who have pocketed tens of thousands with judicious manipulation of the expenses system. To compound the misery for Devine and his family is the ludicrous suggestion in The Guardian, that Devine could spend up to seven years in jail.
What has miffed me most is the somewhat lurid reporting and pursuit of Devine, the doorstepping, long lens shots and flash-mob interviews that have been reminiscent of the impoverished MC Hammer's discomfort when he was offered a DJ gig at a Klan meeting. Today's photograph in the Hootsman is the perfect example of making Devine look like he's escaped from an institution. I include it below purely for illustrative purposes.
Having seen a few interviews with Jim Devine, including the excruciating one where a poorly dressed, overweight, shambling. sweating, dithering, probably hung over Devine took the STV cameras through his less than salubrious London flat, the thought struck me that he portrayed all the hallmarks of a man who has too comfortable a relationship with alcohol. I mention this not to judge, but to empathise.
Like most Scots I have experience of how alcoholism affects and ruins families and professional life. In the past, those with a drink dependency were tut tutted to the door and kicked out. Today employment legislation affords those afflicted by addiction protection and all manners of counselling, help and advice. I fear that Devine's employers, be that the Labour government, the house of Commons or the Labour Party have not recognised that he might have a problem and have failed him at his greatest time of need. He has in effect been cut loose and left to scrabble around trying to keep his arse out of the pokey and preserve what remains of his reputation.
I hope that somewhere in amongst our media's feigned moral outrage that some of them might pause for a while and reflect on their own relationship with alcohol and perhaps go a little easier on Mr Devine.
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13 comments:
One things for sure if Jim is suffering from alcohol dependence over a lengthy period.He will in mitigation receive a more lenient sentence(if it ever makes it to court)
I don't think one needs moral outrage to decide how Jim Devine has conducted himself. I won't be wasting any sympathy on him. He could have chosen to seek help, He chose to indulge himself. Tough titty.
Rab, I think in this case, Devine has been stupid, rather than deliberately criminal.
Compare the amounts he's been accused of plundering to the A Team of Brown, Darling, Balls, Griffith et al. Particularly the house flipping and Capital gains tax avoiders...
Alcoholism doesn't allow the sufferer much in the way of choice.
Mark, I know what you're saying and there's a fair point there. However the law doesn't discriminate between foolish and criminal.
Jails are full of fools!
Doesn't excuse the others of course and I agree with you on that.
Keep up the good work.
Spooky, I have just made a comment on the Hootsman that I remember Jim from when he was a union official and I only ever saw him in a pub. Then floated over here and hey presto.
You are right he is being scapegoated to the extent that he is a representation of what is all wrong about Labour.
What complicates it is that the people scapegoating him are not necessarily the same people who have a right to condemn him, if you know what I mean.
He is the perfect embodiment to me of why I am totally sickened by the Labour and trade union movement that I grew up with, and now want to change. But that doesn't put me on the same side as others who are condemning him.
A lot of them are just sheer hypocrites.
Rab the law does take factors such as dependance into consideration.
I think Devine should be treated the same way as a ''benefit cheat''. If he is, he won't see the inside of a jail, and as he poses no risk to the community he shouldn't.
What we need to do here is put the MPs expenses system right (I ain't holding my breath) not pick up the pitchforks.
I have to agree Mark. Jim cuts a rather pathetic figure and I'm afraid he's being thrown to the wolves when many further up the pecking order (politically and criminally) are allowed to look on in distaste.
I hope there is no repeat of the rather unedifying schadenfruede displayed by the SNP when Watson was 'sent down'. We have to rise above such squalid hand-rubbing.
Interesting.
Of course if he is an alcoholic this will be taken in mitigation if it ever gets to court (although with the Labour party's own solicitor advising him, one wonders if parliamentary privilege remains the best option)
What if Devine's crime had been to get behind a wheel and kill someone rather than to dummy up £8k worth of receipts? How do we think the mitigation would stand up in such a case?
How did we view the alcoholic ramblings of Sir Nicholas Fairbairn when he was Scotland's top law officer?
Did we take pity on him? No, and the reason was that quite apart from being an alcoholic the man was a Grade one Olympic class tosser.
Of course schadenfreude is extremely unedifying but who thinks Watson should have been let off because he was drunk?
No-one right?
What if he'd been an alcoholic?
Hmmmmmmmm.
Ach poor old Nicky, he was a drunk, but highly entertaining and it has to be said, albeit through gritted teeth, a great Scottish intellect.
On the increasing blandness of politicians he was the one wit to count on, to prick their grey pomposity, remember his barb about John Major? "To call him grey was an insult to porridge."
The difference between the two is that Nicky was a drunk, in my opinion, Devine is a barely functioning alcoholic. Having had the incredible good fortune of having had an alcoholic father and step-father, I recognise the beast.
Thing is Fairbairn's been dead for 15 years, society today is more aware of alcoholism and addiction in the work place. Sometimes it's taken to ludicrous levels with support for these new confessionals, however I still maintain that Devine's employers owe him a care of duty. It's not for him to put his hand up and say he's maybe a bit to keen on the bevvy, his friends, family and colleagues are the ones who have to confront him and then find him help.
Rab, you're perfectly right if he'd killed someone drink driving, then yes jail him, pockling expenses in such a cack handed way that even a Tesco security guard could solve...
http://bigrab.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/the-wit-and-wisdom-of-nicholas-fairbairn/
Arf! Brilliant Rab. My old man and him had a session that started in Bonn and ended three days later in East Berlin.
Whether he's an alcoholic or not, the man should never have been in Parliament, he doesn't have the intellect or the wherewithall. Talk about monkeys with a red rosette!
I cannot imagine that his constituency party, and quite a few Labour supporters, would be unaware of his problem(s) and yet, knowing that, they backed him to the hilt in the last election.
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