Lost Faith in Labour
One of North Lanarkshire's Labour MSPs, Elaine Smith, was at an anti-austerity rally recently at which she pledged her support to those opposing the UK Government's Trade Union Bill.
Now during the long fight for equal pay Elaine, a self-styled socialist and feminist, had very little of substance to say about the behaviour her local Labour-run North Lanarkshire Council which, as regular readers know, presided over discriminatory pay arrangements for many years
But the Labour MSP has really got her dander up over the Trade Union Bill which will tighten the rules on strikes and she told her audience:
"The People's Assembly and our comrades across the Labour movement have shown that if we organise we can oppose these attacks, and we can demand alternatives."
"While the Tory government outright supports austerity and attacks our class, the SNP claims to oppose these attacks, but they don't deliver on their promises and they cloud the issues.
"Now, more than ever, we need people power to ensure that our governments both here and at Westminster are made to listen and act in the best interests of the many and not the few."
What a lot of old bollix.
Not least because the big three Labour-affiliated trades unions (GMB, Unison and Unite) did not call single strike while the 10 year fight for equal pay was underway in North Lanarkshire.
Yet we're now being asked to believe that the unions are being prevented from defending their members properly - the very same trade unions that negotiated pay arrangements with Council bosses which favoured traditional male jobs over female jobs.
And if you ask me, the reason was that the Labour-supporting trade unions and the Labour politicians did not want to run the risk of upsetting their chums in Labour-run North Lanarkshire Council.
In May 2015 the voters in North Lanarkshire got rid of every single Labour MP and given the party's track record over equal pay it's very easy to see why.
Will the voters do the same thing in May 2016 by telling Elaine Smith her fellow Labour MSPs (John Pentland and Michael McMahon) to 'sling their hooks'?
I hope so because they have failed miserably to stand up for the interests of their low paid constituents and, in my opinion, that's one of the reasons why the ordinary voters in North Lanarkshire lost faith in Labour.
