Almost all the news yesterday was about the Glasgow North East by-election. I’ve never lived there but I did work in and around the area for years and I know well enough about the deprivation and lack of jobs.
The results were no great surprise to most with Labour holding onto the seat with over 12,000 votes, second were the SNP with about 4,000 and then it was a close call between the Torys and the BNP with only 62 votes separating them. I’ll leave the significance of this alone for the moment and skip to my main point.
Glasgow North East has some of the worst deprivation and crime rates in Glasgow. It is one of the highest areas for unemployment in Scotland. It’s also home to the shortest life expectancy for a man in EUROPE and Labour are voted back into power AGAIN on the promise of more jobs, better education and the promise that the expensive railway line to the Airport that all the rich people use will be cancelled to pay for more benefits for poor people in the North East of Glasgow. I agree with better education for them, but only if they are educated to realise that the Labour Party hasn’t delivered for the past 74 years that they’ve been in power there, so why should they start now?
I don’t have an ulterior motive here, I’m not saying vote Jibrovian Liberationist or anything. I just wish these people would wake up to the fact that there are other choices out there, that’s what Democracy is for! If the last mob didn’t do it for you, then get someone else in.*
If you got a plumber in to fit a washing machine for you, and he flooded your house, and that of your neighbours, and then charged you £1000 for the pleasure, would you recommend him to your friends and invite him round to fit your new cooker 4 years later? I don’t think so. So why should politics be any different?
*Someone else excluding “Mikey” from Big Brother or John bloody Smeaton.