I see that the national Labour Party, in their wisdom, decided that the candidate for the Airdrie and Shotts parliamentary seat should be a woman. Reverse discrimination? What if they had decided it must be a man? That would have had the feminazis screaming blue murder. Whatever happened to the best person for the job? Oh yeah, I forgot, this is the Labour Party we're talking about. Nepotism and patronage was commonplace with Monklands District Council, so why not take that premise and adopt it nationally.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the local Labout candidate is 25 year-old Pamela Nash, researcher for the Dr. Kevorkian Reid. She may be very capable at her job, but it seems that Labour are using the candidacy to prove that the sheeple of Airdrie and Shotts will vote for a shaved monkey wearing a Labour rosette.

Unless Nash is unmasked as a serial killer who craps on the chests of children, the blinkered, idiotic populace of Airdrie and Shotts will no doubt elect her as their MP. What a sad state of affairs. And of course, you can almost guarantee that Reid only chose her as his researcher because she went to St. Margaret's and no doubt supports Sellick.

Who cares ?

You eventually got to the real issue in the end. I am not saying I totally agree with all women shortlists however for years parliament was pretty much a male preserve so a balancing up of the sexes is probably not a bad thing.

The real issue though is that whether the candidate was a male, female or shaved monkey they where always going to be Roman Catholic. The Labour Party has not moved on one iota since the Monklands D. C. whitewash. They have the cheek to ask football clubs what they are doing about “Scotland’s Shame” yet they have danced to a sectarian tune for as long as I can remember. I can’t be bothered going on a rant which will fall on deaf ears so I will paste a letter to the Spectator in 2008. It wasn’t myself who wrote it but it could have been as I have been saying the same things for years.

Joe Strummer
July 8th, 2008 10:06pm
Please forgive me but as someone with a close eye on the Glasgow / Scottish political scene, I was almost doubled up in knots of laughter when I read in that Daily Telegraph link by the notorious Scottish ( or is he Irish today ? )Roman Catholic extremist and paranoic James McMillan, who also sees anti-Catholicism on every corner, claiming that New Labour is "anti-Catholic".
It is just too proposterous and laughable for words.
Anyone familiar with the West and Central Scotland will know that the Labour Party and Catholicism, the Trade Union leadership, especially within the public sector, are inextricably linked, where Catholic nepotism and cronyism is in everday existence and fact of life.
Does the sectarian anti-Protestant Monklands-Gate Scandal ring any bells for anyone where Catholics were given different coloured job application forms to ensure success over the other candidates .?
Indeed, Labour-controlled Glasgow City Council, or Glasgow Catholic Council as it is more widely known in the standing joke, hasn't seen a non-Catholic Lord Provost for more than three decades despite Catholics making up just more than 30% of the Glasgow population.
More than 90% of Labour councillors in Glasgow are also Catholic, so where is this anti-Catholic prejudice McMillan speaks of.?
In fact,nothing gets the go-ahead in local Scottish Labour circles without going past the various Catholic cabals and fiefdoms of Glasgow and Lanarkshire first.
The truth is that since Devolution the Scottish branch of the Roman Catholic Church, which is more fundamentalist than most, has become more strident and outspoken in Scottish political life, in effect, dangerously seeking major influence within the Scottish Parliament. It has regularly attacked Westminster Labour's policies such as Clause 28 and piled the pressure on local Catholic Scottish Labour politicians to submit to its wishes and disobey their Labour leadership at Westminster.
This is where the SNP, especially Alex Salmond, has deviously exploited the situation to openly court the Scottish RC Church to hopefully persuade the all-powerful traditional Labour Catholic vote to switch sides. This is what will decide this by-election, grubby petty sectarianism.
The other Spectator blogger, Fraser Nelson, makes the most telling and salient comment of David Cameron deliberately making a speech within a Catholic church on his visit to the Glasgow constituency to drive the point home.
This by-election is to see which political party can offer the RC Church even more power in the Scottish Government. This is not a good time for Scotland.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19/03/2010 17:11 by ACC.

David Maddox: The onward march of the patsies
Just seen the press release about Pamela Nash being selected as John Reid's replacement as the Labour candidate for Airdrie and Shotts.
Her main qualification appears to be that she was Dr Reid's parliamentary researcher, although to be fair the 25-year-old does actually come from the constituency.
She is the latest in a long line of candidates whose political and indeed life experience is based on working in either the Westminster or Holyrood bubble. They are what is sometimes termed as the patsies (politically ambitious twenty somethings) who go to work for a party as soon as they graduate in an effort to forge a political career.
There seems to be less room for people who have had experience in a profession or lived much of an adult life for that matter.
Now that does not mean Ms Nash will make a bad MP or candidate, I'm sure she will work very hard, and it is not as if having an experience of a trade union or business makes somebody a good MP.
But in the end bringing experience to parliament, having a hinterland, does help inform debate and scrutiny and improve legislation.
It is interesting that as we are near to an election Labour's NEC has a far greater say over shortlists. Dr Reid's replacement could have been done in 2007 when he announced he would retire although the selection then ended in a bitter dispute between party bosses and the local party. Maybe Ms Nash with her strong local links makes an excellent compromise between these two points of view.
But one concern that is being raised privately by Labour members is that constituencies are being pushed into taking on patsies who hand picked by the Labour leadership because they will toe the party line and essentially their campaigning skill sets suit them for modern machine politics.
But in case this seen as an attack on Labour, the march of the patsies is a feature of every major political party in the UK.
One of the most prominent former patsies is the Conservative Party leader David Cameron, whose first job upon leaving university was to be a Tory Party researcher in Central Office.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19/03/2010 17:26 by ACC.

Quote:

gdw11
Who cares ?

As she is going to ;represent' us in Westminster then most folk should! if they don't then they are ignorant fools!

Good point re Pamela not having lived a real life , to be able to represent real people, also i think being in any way connected to the many time disgraced Reid is hardly going to endear her to the Airdrie electorate,

I'll tell you why I care, gdw11:

I used to work for Monklands District Council, and all I saw there was the old-pals' act: i.e. friends and family members of sitting councillors and Council employees with the right connections getting jobs and services they didn't deserve. I also saw the skanky, unwashed detritus of society get repairs done that they either didn't deserve or before others who did need those repairs done, all because they called their chapel buddies.

Being out of the country for twelve years, and now we are in the twenty-first century, I thought that progress would perhaps have rolled over the Monklands. I thought that maybe...just maybe...the "jobs for the boys" thing was confined to the dark days of Monklands politics. I thought that those who would stand for political office would be chosen because they had something to offer that the other prospective candidates did not. I didn't expect to see a selection process which included women-only shortlists. I didn't think it would be a requirement for a progressive political party that a candidate would be choosen both because of gender and religion. Of course, the latter reason is implicit, not overtly stated, but we all know how the Monklands Labour Party operated in the past; it seems that they still operate this way.

I care because I have chosen to return to the Monklands. This is where I will live, and it disgusts me that the old political machine is still in operation in the area. It's sickening that the same people who would neutralize nursery rhymes for fear of offending anyone, who would even attempt to legislate what you could and could not think, if they were able, are the same people who would deny someone a fair crack at the whip because of their gender or religion. It's ridiculous that someone who has lived in a political bubble, with little actual life experience, would be deemed the best person available to represent the local Labour Party in the upcoming elections.

The only solution is to vote for someone else. I'm not going to advocate this or that party, since this isn't the place for my own partisan views, but the simple fact is that as long as Labour can take places like Airdrie for granted this sort of thing will continue to happen.

Interesting to note that arch-Feminist Harriet Harman has suspened the All Woman Shortlist rule so that her husband can get a safe seat.

For you political spectators upset by the labour candidate being a 20 something female catholic you're up against it unless voting for a SNP 30 something female catholic isn't such a big deal.

well vote SNP then.
good point at the end though. yes labour voters would vote anyone they put up for the job. look at the last time when the A&E nearly gets shut down and these nuggets still vote them in.

It's not the religion of the candidate that is galling, it's the manner in which she was chosen. I am no great lover of the SNP, but I have no problem with their decision to pick Sophia Coyle to contest the election. The SNP, for all their failings, chose the candidate who contested the seat the last time. The local Labour Party, however, have stuck with the national feminazi all-female selection process; something which was my original point. Also, do you honestly believe she would have been chosen as Dr Kevorkian's Reid's researcher had she been a Protestant, a Jew, or a Muslim? Would she have been given due consideration if she had gone to Airdrie Academy or Caldervale? Somehow I doubt it.

Take a look around you at the local councillors. Almost all of the Labour ones are Catholics. The last three national candidates (including this one) have all been Catholics. Do you not see a pattern here?

The original point I was making was that you could stick a Labour rosette on a turd and the sheep around here will vote for it.

Never mind all the Political stuff..... is she HOT?

It just seems absurd to me that the most important criteria for a prospective Parliamentary candidate is whether or not they have a vagina.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19/03/2010 22:10 by Jay Silverheels.

the local Labour had no choice but to go with the all female list or they would have been cut of nationally, however if an independant candidate stood i think they could actually win the seat, what with Pamela Nash, Dr Devious's office girl and the outrageously oppertunistic, we'll say anything that will win us power SNP, the door is open, can i propose Mr Bertram Gynasium.

It must be remembered, if religion is such a big deal when it comes to voting intentions that within the Airdrie & Shotts constituency area, Roman Catholics, whether practising or nominal, are outnumbered by persons who are Protestants (whether practising or nominal), therefore if a Labour candidate was chosen who had gone to Caldervale or the Academy, there is a good chance that he/ she would win the seat. I no longer live within the constituency but I would vote Labour for the simple reason that I am completely and utterly opposed to Scottish Nationalism and Labour are the only party who can beat the SNP in seats in the West of Scotland. I now live in the Carluke area and will vote Labour there when the election comes in order to stem the tide of Nationalism in that area (being a bit more rural / Edinburgh influenced, this area is a bit more susceptible to Nationalist propoganda so I have to do my bit!).

As Dekker says, what is the alternative though? a Scottish Independnce party is inotlerable. I will vote Scottish Unionst Party as per usualy but the only party who stand a chance of beating Labour are the SNP, and Labour are preferable to them.

To be fair Sophia Coyle from the SNP is a wee darling.

So you are all happy the way labour waste our cash year after year and put the country into more and more debt?
Will you be happy when labour make us use the euro? and give away all control to europe.

helen liddell for a dramatic comeback

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"SWR.....The Voice of Reason & Here to Help"

Quote:

The real Desmond Dekker
It must be remembered, if religion is such a big deal when it comes to voting intentions that within the Airdrie & Shotts constituency area, Roman Catholics, whether practising or nominal, are outnumbered by persons who are Protestants (whether practising or nominal), therefore if a Labour candidate was chosen who had gone to Caldervale or the Academy, there is a good chance that he/ she would win the seat. I no longer live within the constituency but I would vote Labour for the simple reason that I am completely and utterly opposed to Scottish Nationalism and Labour are the only party who can beat the SNP in seats in the West of Scotland. I now live in the Carluke area and will vote Labour there when the election comes in order to stem the tide of Nationalism in that area (being a bit more rural / Edinburgh influenced, this area is a bit more susceptible to Nationalist propoganda so I have to do my bit!).

Well, that just about sums it all up.
Only voting for a particular candidate by default.
I'd take the vote away from people with low IQs

I'm totally against enforced shortlist of candidates being foisted on local parties, irrespective of the make up of those lists, however this thread has far too much mention of the religeon, school and even speculation of which team the candidate may support, the assumption is she even likes football.

This has ZERO to do with politics and more to do with the vile mud slinging that saw an SNP blogger smear a tragic 18 year old who died near the Glasgow council building as having died after taking drugs.

Everyone is entitled to their political beliefs, but when they border on sectarianism, it's going too far, especially as this is a football forum.

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Never disturb me when i'm having Tiffin!