clawsfour

A massive win...

..for Gordon Brown. And Willie Bain, Labour's excellant local candidate in the Glasgow North East election.
There was understandable caution throughout election day from the Labour Party still scarred from losing the neighbouring seat in Glasgow East little over a year ago. But as the votes from the first ballot box tumbled on to the tables at the Scottish Exhibition Centre the scale of Labour's victory and Alex Salmond's humiliation was there for all to see.
The turnout was a tad disappointing, but to achieve a thumping 8,000 majority on a low turn out was a tribute to Labour's campaign.
To believe everything you read in the Daily Record or the Sun this is a party staring down the barrel of certain defeat in the general election. But the truth was somewhat different here. This was a party confident in its message, with an outstanding professional organisation, and a huge team of volunteers.
From Gordon Brown to the person who delivered a handful of leaflets, this was a well directed and well organised campaign. It showed that when Labour works hard with a clear message it wins.
And as for the general election? Well, as Willie Bain said, "Bring it on."

It's not over 'til the referee has played six minutes of injury time...

Once again everyone writes us off prematurely.

Obviously we have the age and experience. The opposition are youthful and energetic.

We have a little bit of guile. They are brash and in your face.

We shouldn't be the underdogs, but we find ourselves behind. A long way behind.

But then we get our act together. Our leader plays a blinder. We begin to draw level.

And finally we beat Torquay 5-3 on penalties in the Johnson's Paint Trophy.

Next May/June the stakes will be a little higher, but the Tories have already given us - and more importantly the public - enough ammunition to start eroding their temporary lead in the polls. And Tory lead councils up and down the land are doing their best to help, showing that when Tories say "we're all in this together" it really means that we bear the brunt of their cuts in services they never use.

The philosophy was set out by the Tory Leader of Southampton Council, Alec Samuels:

We do not in principle favour ‘free this and free that’, such as swimming or transport, school meals or computers or whatever it is.

Southern Daily Echo, 17 Oct 2008

Cllr Eddie Lister, Tory Leader of Wandsworth, says local councils should hike up the prices of local services as far as they can go:

We will look to increase charges as far as possible beyond inflation so that consumers of the services are bearing the full cost without any hidden subsidy from the taxpayer. 

It is worth taking a trial and error approach to see just what the market [I presume he means residents like you and me] will bear.”

Big Ideas, Building on Conservative Fundamentals, Localis 2008

So when George Osborne says, "we're all in it together" just think carefully about who the 'we' are. Are you part of the 'we' made up of nurses, and police and teachers and other public service workers on £18k a year or more who face a Tory pay freeze? Or are you part of the 'we' made up of the 3,000 most wealthy people in this country who will have their inheritance tax cut paid for by the pay freeze for public service workers?

And when you've thought about that for a bit, think about how many people you know who are thinking about voting Tory this time. You have around six months to make sure they know who 'we' are.