Labour's Selective Memory
I listened to Iain Gray's speech on Saturday to the Scottish Labour party conference.
Early on Iain Gray paid a glowing tribute to Scotland's Labour councils and councillors - whom he described as the real defence for local communities in the 1980s - during the time of the Thatcher government.
Fair enough, but only up to a point - because there were many non-Labour Scots involved in the March for Jobs campaign, for example - or the fight against the Poll Tax.
In fact many of the leading figures were members of other political parties - though no one expects a party leader's conference speech to go into such fine detail - because the emphasis is all about back-slapping and self-congratulation.
But Iain Gray did fail to mention a vital point - which is that virtually the same Labour councils and councillors were also firmly in power from 1997 to 2007.
Labour governed Scotland for 10 years with an overwhelming majority at Westminster - with Tony Blair as Prime Minister.
Labour also governed for 8 years at Holyrood with a built-in majority of votes - due to successive coalition agreements with Scotland's Liberal Democrats.
And during this period council budgets doubled in size - public spending increased at a completely unprecedented rate.
Yet Labour councils and councillors still failed to implement the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement.
Huge sums of money were found to improve the pay and conditions of teachers - £800 million alone in the first year of the McCrone Agreement
But the cupboard was bare when it came to cleaners, carers, cooks and classroom assistants - who were, of course, much lower paid.
Had Labour lived up to its promises - the present talk about a 'living wage' of £7.15 an hour - would be irrelevant and meaningless.
Because Scotland's low paid women workers would have been earning £7.15 an hour - a very long time ago.
So Labour's 'living wage' slogan is really just a fig leaf - a cover for the party's failure to stand up for equal pay and equal treatment in Scotland over the past 10 years.
Labour's belated conversion as a 'born again' champion of the low paid - stands in stark contrast to its track record in local and national government - when it simply failed to act even though it had the resources to do so.
Early on Iain Gray paid a glowing tribute to Scotland's Labour councils and councillors - whom he described as the real defence for local communities in the 1980s - during the time of the Thatcher government.
Fair enough, but only up to a point - because there were many non-Labour Scots involved in the March for Jobs campaign, for example - or the fight against the Poll Tax.
In fact many of the leading figures were members of other political parties - though no one expects a party leader's conference speech to go into such fine detail - because the emphasis is all about back-slapping and self-congratulation.
But Iain Gray did fail to mention a vital point - which is that virtually the same Labour councils and councillors were also firmly in power from 1997 to 2007.
Labour governed Scotland for 10 years with an overwhelming majority at Westminster - with Tony Blair as Prime Minister.
Labour also governed for 8 years at Holyrood with a built-in majority of votes - due to successive coalition agreements with Scotland's Liberal Democrats.
And during this period council budgets doubled in size - public spending increased at a completely unprecedented rate.
Yet Labour councils and councillors still failed to implement the 1999 Single Status (Equal Pay) Agreement.
Huge sums of money were found to improve the pay and conditions of teachers - £800 million alone in the first year of the McCrone Agreement
But the cupboard was bare when it came to cleaners, carers, cooks and classroom assistants - who were, of course, much lower paid.
Had Labour lived up to its promises - the present talk about a 'living wage' of £7.15 an hour - would be irrelevant and meaningless.
Because Scotland's low paid women workers would have been earning £7.15 an hour - a very long time ago.
So Labour's 'living wage' slogan is really just a fig leaf - a cover for the party's failure to stand up for equal pay and equal treatment in Scotland over the past 10 years.
Labour's belated conversion as a 'born again' champion of the low paid - stands in stark contrast to its track record in local and national government - when it simply failed to act even though it had the resources to do so.
