Edinburgh People's Festival appeals for your view of Burns

As you know this year marks the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns. The Edinburgh People’s Festival intends to commemorate Scotland’s finest literary talent by publishing a pamphlet entitled ‘WHAT ROBERT BURNS MEANS TO ME’ with 250 people contributing a few lines of their own. Why not send them your thoughts? I've already sent mine. You can contact the People’s Festival via its website http://www.edinburghpeoplesfestival.org/ The pamphlet is scheduled to reach the shops by July so get your quill pen out now.

An Invitation from Communication Workers Union Scotland No 2 Branch

I am delighted to have received an invitation to speak at the next branch officials meeting of the Communication Workers Union [CWU] here in Edinburgh on March 5th. Willie Marshall, the branch secretary has asked me to come along to explain why the union should end its affiliation with New Labour.
I know this union branch very well. I was asked as their SSP MSP to provide a regular column on my work in the Parliament for their member’s newsletter. The branch has one of the finest records of any in the country in defending its members from attack these past 20 years. It proudly defends the public postal service for us all and it promotes wider trades union solidarity.
And the branch has consistently and proudly supported the Edinburgh May Day and the Edinburgh Peoples Festival.
The CWU branch in Edinburgh knows well that it was the trade’s union movement who established the Labour Party one hundred years ago. James Keir Hardie, the first leader of the Labour Party and its first MP, was, like me, born in Motherwell. I know quite a bit about Keir Hardie. He was famous, for example, for his tireless efforts in touring the country from top to bottom to persuade working people to stop voting Liberal, as they did then, and build a party of their own.
‘You see they Liberals?’ he would say ‘They don’t give a damn about working people. What we need is a party of our own.’ And he went on to establish just such a party.
Today Keir Hardie would be horrified by New Labour. He would be touring the country again to say ‘You see New Labour? They don’t give a damn about working people. What we need is a party of our own.’
The Scottish Socialist Party has shown it is that party.
The Royal Mail is just one of the public services New Labour has privatised. The NHS and education services have been privatised via the odious PPP/PFI deals. Edinburgh knows all about Labours privatisations. Our new Royal Infirmary at Little France was built and owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland [at least we know why it was called the ‘Royal’]. Our schools saw all but the teaching staff transferred to private companies in New Labours shameful dash for private cash. They privatised roads, bridges, leisure centres and even our prisons for goodness sake.
The Royal Mail has suffered greatly under New Labours long privatisation onslaught. First they encouraged private companies like TNT, DHL and Business Post to cherry pick the most profitable postal services. This is the reason for the deterioration in our domestic mail delivery service. Now Peter Mandelson, ‘the Prince of Darkness’ who became a Lord, as Industry Minister suggests that TNT and the others be allowed to run further portions of this key public service.
I have written earlier in this blog about Mandelson’s privatisation plans. My intention at the CWU branch meeting on March 5th is to discuss how the union can stop funding this slaughter of its industry and its member’s jobs. It is incredible to me that the CWU nationally continues to give more than £1million a year to New Labour. In return it gets privatisation. By anyone’s standards this is clearly an ‘abusive’ relationship.

Energy companies continue to rip off the public

Forced into fuel poverty
Letter printed in today's Morning Star newspaper
OIL is currently trading at around $40 a barrel on international markets. I well recall Scottish Power and all the other energy companies citing oil at $145 per barrel as the reason for unprecedented price increases last autumn.
Like millions of other Scots families, we've just received our gas and electricity bill for October/November, which, unlike the oil price, is still sky high.
As a result of these exorbitant bills, Energywatch estimates that 5.5 million households are living in fuel poverty. And Scotland suffers disproportionate pain in this regard, as the Scottish government well knows.
It announced in October that 30 per cent of households were in fuel poverty.
To fall into this unwelcome category, a household must pay 10 per cent of its income in fuel bills. In Scotland in 2008, an astonishing 10 per cent of households paid 20 per cent of their income to power companies.
To add even more insult to injury, those on prepayment meters, usually the poorest, are paying the highest tariffs of all. How on earth did things come to this?
It is not difficult to see why there is considerable contempt for the energy companies and indeed with an ineffectual government as people struggle with the severest winter in years and with the highest gas and electricity prices ever.
This industry is out of control and ought to be back in public hands with the poorest on the cheapest tariffs.
The responsibility for providing heat and light to everyone, particularly in the dead of winter, should not to be left to faceless multinational corporations which repeatedly put profits before the needs of the population.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/letters/forced_into_fuel_poverty

SNP abandons plans to scrap Council Tax

SNP Abandons Pensioners and the Poor
The Scottish Socialist Party today accused the SNP of abandoning pensioners and low paid workers in favour of the rich and business interests who bankroll their party after Finance Secretary John Swinney told MSPs that legislation to introduce a local income tax would not be introduced in the current parliament. This is not the first time the SNP has abandoned opposition to the Council tax and watched hundreds of thousands of pensioners and low paid workers who stood to benefit most from abolition of the Council tax lose out.
SSP national co-spokesperson Colin Fox said today;
"The SNP capitulation means that the super rich businessmen like Brian Souter who bankroll the SNP will continue to benefit while pensioners, low paid workers and millions of those worst affected by the current economic recession, like the thousands of Woolworth's workers, would have at least enjoyed some financial relief with the reduction in their Council tax bills."
"The SNP has again failed to capitalise on the majority support across Scotland for abolishing the Council tax. They have now given up the idea without a fight or even a vote in Parliament.
"How different their approach to that of the Scottish Socialist Party on this issue.
"The SSP, with just 6 MSPs, were able to make far greater headway. Our Bill to abolish the Council tax, a bill which incidentally the SNP voted down [on Feb 1st 2006] attracted considerable support across civic Scotland.
"The SNP's subsequent local income tax plan with its regressive 3p across the board charge attracted much less enthusiasm. Our local income tax replacement by contrast was graduated to ensure the better off paid more as their income went up and the poorer were exempt."

‘Comical Ali’ Darling

Letter sent to the Evening News on 30/01/09

This weeks report from the International Monetary Fund that Britain’s economy will shrink by 2.8% this year, the worst in the industrialised world, reduces yet another of Alastair Darling’s forecasts to rubble. The Edinburgh South West MP is fast becoming the UK’s economic equivalent of Iraq’s ‘comical Ali’ remember him? He was the guy who resorted to increasingly outlandish claims to obscure a cause that was obviously lost.

Mr Darling was heard repeatedly in this city and elsewhere over the past 12 years to boast that New Labour had eradicated the ‘boom and bust’ nature of economic capitalism. Did he learn nothing from his time in the International Marxist Group?

But like ‘comical Ali’ when this was exposed as nonsense he went on to make more questionable assertions, first predicting that Britain would avoid a recession altogether, then claiming it would not be deep or prolonged, before setting out the view that we would weather the storm better than the rest of the industrialised world. Well the IMF report puts paid to that claim too.

Now Mr Darling, the economic King Kanute of modern times, reverts to the rather juvenile excuse ‘It wasnae us’. According to him and Gordon Brown the country’s dismal economic prospects are not down to any decisions they have taken these past ten years but rather the unavoidable impact of international circumstances beyond their control. Those terrible ‘sub prime mortgage lenders in the US’ are to blame they say. Unfortunately this excuse will not wash either as both men were well aware of the exposure RBS, HBOS and all the other British financial institutions had to this unregulated, but hardly unique greed-fest and they gloried in this recklessness for long enough.

But before we laugh too much be warned as they will ensure the real victims of this economic collapse will not be the wealthy bankers and politicians responsible for it but working people in Edinburgh and beyond.

Mandelson's privatisation reinforces old New Labour Values

Its well seen that Peter Mandelson is back at the New Labour helm. His plan to privatise Royal Mail is New Labour at its purest. None of this 'off message' nationalisation for the 'Prince of Darkness',as he is known, he leaves that kind of ideological u-turn to the feckless Mr Darling.
Lord Mandelson, the arch 'moderniser' looking every inch the relic in his House of Lords robes and his junior Minister Pat McFadden prefer to ignore polls showing 96% support for public ownership. In true New Labour style they insist that black is white, that selling off Royal Mail to the Dutch postal company TNT is not privatisation at all but rather 'a joint venture with a postal operator with a proven track record'.
It is not so very long since Royal Mail had a ' proven track record' as a postal operator, a world class record in fact which was the envy of all other countries. But this outstanding public service - invented in Britain lets not forget - has been brought to its knees by ten years of New Labour's privatisation.
Peter Mandelson has urged the Communications Workers Union to accept his privatisation as it is preferable, he argues, to the one the Tories will introduce should they win next years general election. I am sure the 96% who prefer continued public ownership of Royal Mail wonder why on earth the CWU continues to pay Lord Mandelson's party £1m per year from their members money to destroy jobs, livelihoods and the entire postal industry in Britain as we know it.

Our Lady's High School, Motherwell

Back to School on February 24th
From time to time I receive invitations to visit schools and speak to pupils about politics and I try to accept as many as I can as I thoroughly enjoy the occasions. The students questions are usually wide ranging and taxing. When I was an MSP [2003-2007] I was frequently asked to meet school students from across the Lothians visiting the Parliament and to answer their questions.
But this week I must confess to being particularly pleased to receive an invitation to visit Our Lady's High in Motherwell and meet students there because its my old school.
The Social Studies Department Deputy Head Mrs McManus has asked me to come over on Tuesday February 24th and talk to students sitting their Politics and Modern Studies Highers this year about the politics of the SSP.

Oil price plunges but not our energy bills

Wednesday's Herald points out that oil is now trading at $40/barrel [ 'Oil falls on more economic bad news'].
Like millions of other Scots families we've just received our gas and electricity bill for November/December which unlike the oil price is still sky high.
I well recall Scottish Power and the other energy companies citing oil at $145 per barrel as the reason for their unprecedented price increases last autumn.
As a result of their exorbitant bills Energywatch estimates 5.5million households now find themselves living in fuel poverty. And Scotland suffers disproportionate pain in this regard as the Scottish Government well knows. It announced in October that 36% of households were in fuel poverty. To fall into this unwelcome category a household must pay 10% of its income in fuel bills. In Scotland in 2008 an astonishing 10% of households paid 20% of their income to power companies. And to add even more insult to injury those on prepayment meters, usually the poorest, are paying the highest tariffs of all. How on earth did things come to this? And how can these multinational energy corporations justify sky high bills when their basic raw material now costs almost one quarter of what it did 6 months ago?
It is not difficult to see why there is considerable contempt for the energy companies and indeed with an ineffectual government as people struggle with the severest winter in years and with the highest gas and electricity prices ever.
There is a widespread view that this industry is out of control and ought to be back in public hands. Then the poorest would be on the cheapest tariffs and not the most expensive. Then responsibility for providing heat and light to everyone, particularly in the dead of winter would not to be left to faceless multinational corporations who repeatedly put their profits before the needs of the population.

Expelling peers

Letter printed in Feb 5th Scotsman
Since the four Labour Lords caught red handed this week taking 'back handers' were not exposed by Parliamentary authorities it would appear the corruption at the heart of Westminster is so rotten that we must rely on 'outside agencies' like a Sunday Newspaper to expose it?
There is surely no one in Britain today who believes these four lawmakers in the Palace of Westminster are the only ones 'on the make' or believes Westminster is prepared to clean up its own house so to speak. These Labour Lords are, after all, merely the latest in a long line of financial 'offenders'. And what penalty will they get?
Jack Straw, the Leader of the House of Commons, is apparently to recommend that Peers found guilty of taking cash in future be expelled from the House of Lords altogether. This 'closing the stable door after the horse has bolted' approach means these new sanctions will not be applied to the aforementioned Lords. But surely the Party itself is free to take action nonetheless?
So, perhaps Jack Straw can tell us for example whether Labour will expel these 4 disgraced Peers from the Party? And if not, why not? Is it because as the Sunday newspaper has inferred these four are merely the tip of an odious iceberg of corruption, one which the parties at Westminster have been mired in for some time.
Its therefore not time to clean up politics in Britain and rid us of these money grabbers and bribes, its way past time.

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/Register.aspx?ReturnURL=http%3A%2F%2Fthescotsman.scotsman.com%2Fopinion%2FLords-sleaze-row-shows-something.4948397.jp