This week we had reconfirmation of the status the British Labour in Scotland in regards to HQ in London. Anas Sarwar was humiliated and severely rebuked by his English bosses over his suggestion that Starmer should resign. The backlash confirmed the words of one of his predecessors in Scotland, Johann Lamont.
Her resignation speech said:
Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont has resigned with immediate effect after accusing the UK party of treating Scotland like a “branch office”.
The 56-year-old MSP indicated that she had “had enough”.
Ms Lamont was also angry that key decisions, including the removal of Scottish Labour general secretary Ian Price, were made without her input.
“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.“ If Anas hadn’t already realised this undeniable fact, he kens now! One can only imagine someone fed him some duff information that Starmer was going to resign and Anas, always the political opportunist, thought he would get ahead of the game and earn himself some kudos. It seems Labour HQ in Tel Aviv wants Sir Keir to carry on for a little while longer at least.
As to Anas, his naivety has put him in the dead man walking position. Sarwar had not allowed for the real political opportunist and the most sleekit House Jock politician in Scotland, wee Dougie Alexander. It would not surprise me one little bit if Alexander was the one moving the chess pieces to snare the not-so-bright Anas Sarwar. I expect on 8th May we will get the famous “I want to spend more time with my family” speech from hapless Anas.
It was also the week that the uber-unionist Daily Record of Vow fame informed its loyal ‘british workers’ that all their sacrifices to keep Scotland in the Union were to no avail as printing was being transferred to Oldham in England. All that will remain in Scotland from the newspaper that not too long ago boasted of 800,000 copies a day will be a handful of low-level hacks. Why is it the transfer of jobs or technology is always North to South, never the other way around? It is as if we are a colony, hmm?
More bad news on the jobs front in Scotland as Bank of Scotland announced a further 11 branch closures throughout Scotland. This may increase profits for Halifax Banking Group; however, it is terrible news for town centres and our older generation that are not up to speed with online internet banking. Service to the public is always outweighed by profits to the shareholders.
We also had the spectacle of Sir Jim Ratcliffe making up false claims over immigration numbers and that our economy could not withstand, in his words, 9 million people taking government handouts. It is actually 6 million, and around half of them are either working poor or pension credit claims. Neither of these are because of immigration. They are more to do with employers like Ratcliffe paying slave wages, and closing businesses and throwing workers on the scrapheap. He himself caused 3,000 job losses in Grangemouth area and has fired 400 Manchester Utd employees. That, though, is not the height of his hypocrisy, he himself lives in Monaco and pays no UK tax into the system. He has also received two huge government handouts for his refinery in Belgium and the refurbishment of his football stadium in Manchester. Hypocrisy on steroids, as they say!
These were the main talking points on this week’s Through A Scottish Prism Podcast. I am joined by Phil Boswell, Eva Comrie, Allan Petrie and Lloyd Quinan to discuss these matters and more. We also give our thoughts on the English High Court verdict on the proscription of Palestine Action. A good day for democracy and another nail in the Labour Likud Party coffin.