when i started working in a youth project in the southside of glasgow i got my first insight into how shitty the labour presence in glasgow can be. One of the issue that came up was the lack of faclities for young poeple to do anything. Although on a par with other areas that had a dedicated youth centre in terms of deprivation according the scottish multiple index of deprivation, our area did not. What this actually meant soon became apparent to me when trying to hire rooms for various youth groups, going from community centres to churchy places it was often impossible to get a hire just for a couple of hours.
Except that there was a small community centre just accross the road from us. And when i did my nosey at the place, although there were signs stating that x y and z groups where on at such and such days and times, there was no sign of anything actually coming in terms of people coming and going. Spoke to people that knew the place well and they said fuck all happened there. The day to day running of it was done by a person on a paid wage who was also a labour councillor in the area. Who was also the chair of the community planning partnership who have a lot of clout in terms of how statutory funding is allocated to various agencies in the area. A lot of power to be concentrated in one persons hands. This person had history with one of the members of our management committee, i dont know why, but this meant that we were fucked for getting a hire at this community centre just accross the road from us. It also meant that we were not going to be able to get a sniff of any funding coming through the community planning partnership, regardless as to the merits of whatever pieces of work we were engaged in... So in summery, a community centre doing fuck all but paying her a wage, the ability to get things done with her as a gate keeper could only happen if you were part of a small clique - you get the picture..
Although the local councellor of our area, she had never once raised a single issue in the city chambers. There are lots of other dimensions i could mention about how people that were close to her personally could find themselves in employment, but maybe not best to be naming names on the internet.
This is just one small story from one pretty small part of Glasgow. But i suspect many people at many other parts of glasgow has similiar stories to tell. If you read this book by cathy mccormack the wee yellow butterfly, about campaigning in easterhouse to deal with damp housing, poverty etc and one can get a picture of what it is like to deal with the local politicians which in glasgow hitherto has been labour in the main.
This party has the name labour - it historically has laid claim to be the voice of the working class. And when thatcher was in, it was dead easy for labour to give it the big unn about how things would be different if they were in power. Except locally they always been in power here in glasgow and culminativly i think enough people know that they do not have our interests at heart. Likewise in power in the blair to brown days. At that time i was on the dole, and was involved a bit in a welfare rights organisation by and for people experiencing poverty. In that capacity, i witnessed the introdcution of esa and how they intensified notions of deserving and underserving poor.
I think now with the tories being in and they have tried to shift their rhetoric leftward doesnt work in glasgow now, because of these culminative experiences that shows them for the shower of shite that they are. I think when Margaret Curran gives it the 'im fae the east end' chat it rings hollow when there has been little interventions in dealing with the issues the people of the east end has faced. Margret Curran who was a community development worker so is trained in the art of engagement but seems incapable of listening...Instead presiding over the commenwealth games, social cleansing that makes nobodys day to day lives better. IF you are a retail buisness looking to open up in the second biggest shopping place in europe glasgows yer place mind you and you will get the utmost support from gcc
I think basiclly now weve reached a critical mass, siding with the tories confirmed what people already experienced with labour over the years. It will be good to get them to fuck, hopefully once that has happened we can start talking about how to build real alternatives to the neoliberal shit thats been flung at us for years....
) In retrospect both Scottish Labour and Labour generally will have to put their Indy tactics down as among their very worst errors of judgment -- tactically and in every other way. Looks like it will take them a long time -- if ever? -- to recover from that in Scotland. It would take a lot of bad shit from the SNP to help that happen (don't rule that out in the long run mind you 
).
