Picture: Penny Haywood Calder
Falkirk has always been a troublesome town for the world of politicians. It all began in 1298 when William Wallace lost the Battle of Falkirk. In more recent times the Old Labour warrior Dennis Canavan fought the good fight against New Labour and lost. But he too came out fighting as an Independent and now leads another campaign to end the Union (with a capital U, I hasten to add).
Eric Joyce MP
His resignation from the Labour Party led to the current debacle
Then we had the old soldier Eric Joyce, famous for his expenses and his ability at fisticuffs in the House of Commons bar. He’s become an Independent too, at the suggestion of the Labour Party. And now the process of choosing a new Labour candidate has provoked another Battle of Falkirk, this time over who runs the Labour Party, the unions or the party leadership.
It appears that the union Unite has been paying the first year’s subscriptions to any of its members who wish to join the Labour Party. Some 500 people have so far taken up the offer, some of whom are said to be unaware of their union’s generosity and their new political affiliation. It’s further alleged that the practice has been particularly common in Falkirk where Unite is keen that its nominee is elected as the Labour candidate for the next general election.
The process has been suspended in Falkirk, pending an investigation – suspended by Ed Miliband in London interestingly, not Johann Lamont who is supposed to be in charge of the party in Scotland.
Johann Lamont MSP
And on Thursday we had the first resignation over the affair – big Tom Watson, Ed Miliband’s general election campaign co-ordinator. He’s an enthusiastic Unite man and his assistant Karie Murphy is the aforementioned favoured nominee.
The issue was important enough to be mentioned at Prime Minister’s question time…. over and over again, while the rest of the world was grappling with the military coup in Egypt, the civil war in Syria, the international economic crisis and the funding of public services. But then the battle over the soul of the Labour Party is a big deal too, though it would be better to fight on open ground and not in what Tom Watson called in his resignation letter “the mess” that poor old Falkirk seems to have found itself in once again.
In Falkirk, as elsewhere, the SNP has been creeping up on the Labour Party at election time. In 2010 it got 15,000 votes to Eric Joyce’s 23,000, a huge leap forward from its usual seven or eight thousand. And this week the SNP stole another march on Labour, announcing that it was ending the sell-off of council houses, begun under Mrs Thatcher and continued under Labour. The Scottish government says the right-to-buy cannot continue after 2017 when there will be an estimated 400,000 people on the waiting list for social housing.
The government, though, has been given a sharp reminder that it cannot spend like a Roosevelt on housing or anything else unless it raises taxes under the Scottish Parliament’s new powers in 2016. The Auditor General for Scotland produced a report on the nation’s assets and its liabilities. Public sector assets, it says, amount to £86bn but liabilities come to £94bn when pensions and public-private-partnership payments are taken into account.
Abbotsford – home of
Sir Walter Scott
One of our country’s assets has got to be Sir Walter Scott whose home at Abbotsford in the Borders was re-opened by the Queen this week. In many ways he gave Scotland its history – Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian, Waverley, the Lady of the Lake, the kilt, the tartan, the wild romance which still sells Scotland’s brand today. His extraordinary baronial mansion has been given a £12m facelift, with the help of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Scottish Government (when the Auditor General wasn’t looking).
Our other national treasure is, of course, Andy Murray who is fighting for us at the Battle of Wimbledon this weekend. How long can a nation hold its breath ? We shall find out this afternoon and, hopefully, in the final on Sunday. And if not this year, then next year.