For no reason other than I have been listening to old Dick Gaughan albums.
And tell me will we never hear the end
Of puir bluidy Charlie at Culloden yet again?
Though he ran like a rabbit down the glen
Leavin better folk than him to be butchered
Or are you sittin in your Council house, dreamin o your clan?
Waiting for the Jacobites to come and free the land?
Try going down the broo with your claymore in your hand
And count all the Princes in the queue!
So don’t talk to me of Scotland the Brave
For if we don’t fight soon there’ll be nothing left to save
Or would you rather stand and watch them dig your grave
While you wait for the Tartan Messiah?
He’ll lead us to the Promised Land with laughter in his eye
We’ll all live on the oil and the whisky by and by
Free heavy beer! Pie suppers in the sky! -
Will we never have the sense to learn?
A Few Blurry Photos From 2005
Bob, thanks for using.
Bob, does ‘special measures’ mean this is now a fottball and sing song blog?
Didn’t take much to scare you, did it.
Perhaps you didn’t notice the political comment in the song, Gary.
You’re living increasingly in a fantasy world at the moment, Gary. Is that what being alone does to you?
I’ve no idea what you think I have to be scared of. I’m elected by the people of my Ward, and they appear to be quite happy with me so I see nothing to be scared of.
The reality is at the moment, as I explained a couple of weeks ago, I’ve got hardly any time to spare at the moment. That’s all. Sorry if it doesn’t fit your conspiracy theory.
Bob, whatever you do, don’t think you are safe in a ‘special measures CLP’ just because you are worshipped by the people.
You have to get through the ‘interview’ to go onto the next panel.
If your numbers up, then the ‘special selections panel’ arrives in Sandwell with an agenda that does not fit with what we all believe is a ‘broad church’ party.
If ‘they’ (IR) wants you gone, then you’re gone.
Gary, if that was the case it would mean Labour didn’t want me, so if I wanted to stand for election it would have to be in my own name. If sufficient numbers wanted me, I would win, if not I would lose. That’s how it works.
Bob; I think you’ll have to admit that there seems to be a bit of truth(75%) in what Gary Elsby(is he the guy that Millbank shafted to parachute Tristram Whatshisname into the safe seat of Stoke Central in the 2010 General Election, after the local Labour Party had routed the B.N.P. in Stoke?)says. Maybe it’s the attack of conscience that should come after collaborating with Cameron and Osbourne and the Tories in the No To A.V. campaign, that has caused you to revert to football and music instead of politics(nothing in Dick Gaughn’s song that you could’nt have got from any Scottish Blairite);pre A.V. referendum campaign your blog certainly contained a progressive, if not socialist/left strain, and while I ca’nt speak for anyone but myself, I certainly would’nt want to post anything that would threaten anyones position, but neither would Iwant to water anything down , that I might post. Certainly, it would say more about those that would threaten your position or that of your local party, so hopefully Bob, we’ll soon having you back blogging about politics with a socialist slant. While accepting that you have been busy; I noticed that you managed to comment on my perceptive and helpful observations on Birminghams 2nd football team. Oh and btw, if Birminghams 1st and 2nd football teams combined , they could’nt have lived with the magnificentand glorious Leeds United in their English and European heyday(with the exception of a blip with Birminghams 2nd team)
I’m sure there are plenty of ultra left politically correct blogs for you and Gary to fill your waking hours, Gerald. But could I kill this one now! No-one is censoring what I write. No-one is telling me what to write, and I wouldn’t pay them any attention if they did. I have been very busy at work, and you can believe it or not, i really dont care, and whilst I can take 5 minutes to take the piss out of your nostalgic gibberish about dirty Leeds and their manager, Don the Bung, I have had no time to think about blogging. I intend to try to take a few days off next week, so I might even find something to write about.
Since you chummed up with Clegg and the New Labourites in your futile attempt to change the voting system, Gerald, you’ve become a tad bitter. I suspect it’s because you think that dirty Leeds might have actually won something if League and Cup competitions adopted AV, because it is designed to reward perpetual runners-up!
Yes it is me and I am the one who put principle before personal gain.
Labour in London love to say they expelled me from the Party because I didn’t do what a war crimes tribunal was invented for……..following orders.
If Labour wants to rig an election in the eyes of ‘Great’ Britain, then please don’t ask me to follow those orders for I will put my principles above innappropriate behaviour and resign my 30 years membership on the spot (Radio 4, world at one, actually).
Please refer to Andrew Neil, ‘Posh and Posher, BBC2 documentary.
Bob, ‘special measures ‘ came to Stoke and we were suspended by the parachute brigade for all manner of jumped up reasons. All lies and easily proven to be lies.
Ignored and suspended anyway.
No cavalary from any section of the party, anywhere to rescue us.
It didn’t happen to them, so why get involved. (first they came for the jews……….).
They took all protesters off the panel as ‘unworthies’.
Next came a Commission into the political madness of Stoke.
Please note: Councillor madness, not ordinary members such as we ‘unworthies’.
Then came the boundary commission that miraculously listened to everyone, then ignored everyone, and agreed all along with the commission.
‘Special measures’ means exactly that, total ignorance.
Fewer Councillors for Stoke and ‘single member wards’.
Labour’s Party machine kicks in, fuels money into fewer canddiates in tiny wards and bingo!
4/10 votes for Labour =34/44Councillors
6/10 votes (against?) Labour =10/44 Councillors.
All established opposition (ex Labour/Independent/BNP/Liberal etc) gone.
The moral of the story:
Treat ‘special measures’ with caution and disbelieve any notion that Labour operates by a rule book. It does not.
Our crime which required our suspension was that we failed to hold ‘all member meetings’ for our AGM.
We did hold ‘all member’ meetings and certainly did so at our AGM.
So what. They said we didn’t and so we were suspended (in comes the parachute).
According to Peter Hain (refounding Labour page 13), almost all of the 650 CLPs operated the way we did (unknown to us) and that ‘all members were invited to attend, but delegates held the conscience voting rights of branches and affiliated organisations.
So while Stoke’s Councillors humiliated our City in the eyes of the Country, we the ordinary members got on with running a party properly.
‘Special measures’ removes critics that’s all and it has no alterior interest in democracy or OMOV.
On the privatisation of the Labour Party see -
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/dan-hodges/2011/06/labour-party-zentrum