Fear not for last night Labour achieved a quite remarkable victory and the good voters of the ward went X happy and plunked their mark down beside the name of Christopher Hughes - Labour.
Mr Hughes who sounds like an eminently sensible chap despite his premature baldness and the African sunset of his manly beard was most effusive in praising the legacy of Mr Purcell, stating, "He did a lot of work and was a very fine councillor for them for a number of years. It was not an issue at all."
The hardest part of coping with addiction is moving on, and I'm genuinely thrilled that the good voters of the Blairtardie ward have had the bravery to put questions of Mr Purcell's judgement, his association with some err shiftier characters in the Glasgow business underworld and of course the role of cronyism with regard to his various quangocrats, to one side...
One can only hope that this is the last of the criminally supplied gak infused political scandals to hit the country...
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7 comments:
Anyone know why they bother having elections in Glasgow?
'Anyone know why they bother having elections in Glasgow?'
So that people can vote.
Steven Purcell, when he was not doing the Columbian marching powder, was actually a very good local Councillor and was well liked as the local (well Yoker but local-ish) boy done good
It's not perhaps that surprising that Purcell's Labour successor was voted in on the same day as John Mason was voted out.
The SNP have a long way to go before they can take wards like this and seats like Glasgow East - and keep them.
Nicola has done it, but she has done it through dint of hard work and nothing else.
She has never relied on negative campaigning.
The SNP in Glasgow made a mistake in how they handled the Purcell issue, especially as their Councillors had taken renumeration for sitting on the boards of the aleos he created, and had failed to back the Council staff who opposed their creation.
That made them look like hypocrites and opportunists.
So all in all it's not that surprising that the Labour dude got in.
Hopefully the SNP will learn from this for next time. Because there will be a next time.
Aye, well John Mason did his best for them. He actually worked hard and they slapped him in the face and voted Labour. They lost a superb MP.
What was it Labour said, vote SNP and you'll get the Tories. So they voted Labour because it didn't occur to them that even if 59 seats in Scotland were Labour they'd still get what England decides they will have.
Oh yeah, and it's probably going to be the Tories.
tris
I agree they lost a good MP, however, although Glasgow is the biggest City in Scotland, it is also like a wee village too, and Mr Mason alienated people who he didn't need to alienate. He then paid the price, and so have his constituents.
Some SNP supporters can be quite good at that as well, alienating people -just look at all the comments in the papers and on many blogs calling Labour voters all the names under the sun, labelling them all thick benefit dependant sheeple who would vote for a monkey.
Sometimes I find it very hard to get my head around where *some* SNP stuff is coming from.
I would have thought the task was to persuade people, not alienate them and call them names.
That is by way of a passing thought it isn't aimed at you, or even John Mason really, who just went too far over the Purcell issue and made enemies of people who he should have made allies of.
Hi Observer, by 'alienating people' I presume you mean John Mason speaking out about the inactivity of GCC, Audit Scotland and Strathclyde police to investigate anything about Steven Purcell and his links to crime, patronage, abuse of privilege etc? How exactly did he got too far?
Remember that Mason was a long standing Glasgow councillor who had worked with Purcell for a number of years and more than most would have had a particular insight into the working of GCC.
Also remember why the by-election was called and the lengths Labour politicians went to, to avoid answering questions about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5iSMx9DP2U
Well I guess Observer's right. It certainly doesn't do to question Labour's inalienable right in Glasgow to do whatever they want with council tax payers' money.
Despite living in a relatively rich country many parts of Glasgow rank in the most disadvantaged in Europe. Who's to blame? Well not the English government, the Scottih Government or the EU. Vast amounts of money go to the area in the form of funding for Social Inclusion Partnerships, Regeneration and all manner of other stuff.
Labour has been in charge of Glasgow since Adam was a lad. Where has all the money gone? Is there a connection?
Are there insufficient numbers of Glaswegians prepared to ask these questions, or is it dangerous to do so?
First of all Mark there are currently two live Police investigations into Mr Purcell, and Mr Purcell and Ruth Black. I anticipate that action will arise from one or both of them, so seeing as how your blog is so closely monitored by the press and the Labour Party I will say no more than that.
Also look at the steps that GCC have taken to address the issues raised by the Purcell affair - the policy of creating aleos has been reversed. There will be no more. Renumeration for Councillors, including SNP ones, will be stopped. The aleos which do exist have been banned from engaging in any activity which could be deemed political or supportive of political parties. The improper donations are being/have been returned, and they are being much more closely monitored and their structures including salaries etc are being reviewed. All posts from now on even at senior level will be advertised.
So none of this has been swept under the carpet.
If you look at what Nicola Sturgeon said about this issue she got it completely right. She said, essentially, that there were grounds for a full investigation and that a light needed to be shone onto the City chambers. But Mr Mason went further than that. He essentially repeated gossip printed by the Murdoch press which could not in fact be justified.
He made himself a hostage to fortune by casting suspcicion where there wasn't any evidence, and in the process alienated a lot of people who felt that their integrity was being called into question. He actually received a letter to that effect from trade unions acting for staff affected. They should have been his allies.
He didn't need to do any of that. He could have just said the same as Nicola and it would have had the same effect.
And as you have pointed out, Mr Mason was the leader of the SNP Group when Purcell was creating his empire of aleos. Mr Mason and the SNP Group did not oppose that.
In this wee village everybody knows that, and Mr Mason's reputation took a hit. He looked like an opportunist taking advantage for his own ends, and people don't like that.
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