North Lanarkshire Update
The Herald reports that the Labour Party is facing the prospect of meltdown in next year's local council elections including in its former strongholds of North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire.
Now this would be a richly deserved payback if you ask me because an unholy alliance of Labour councillors and local Labour-Supporting trade unionists held back the cause of equal pay in these two councils for many years.
As regular readers know, local union 'leaders' in South Lanarkshire discouraged their members from pursuing equal pay claims against the local Labour council.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14812068.Kezia_Dugdale_s_Labour_facing_council_polls_meltdown/
Kezia Dugdale's Labour facing council polls meltdown
By Tom Gordon - The Herald
SCOTTISH Labour is set to come third behind the Tories in next year’s council elections in a repeat of their humiliation at Holyrood, the country’s leading polling expert has said.
Professor John Curtice said recent council by-election results had been “uniformly appalling” for Labour and indicated the party would suffer a 13 per cent swing to the SNP.
That would see Labour’s vote share fall from the 31 per cent it achieved in 2012 to around 18 per cent, roughly the same as the Conservatives are expected to poll.
Prof Curtice, of Strathclyde University's politics department, said the SNP could win outright majorities in around a dozen of Scotland’s 32 councils, up from two at present, and emerge as the largest party in almost a dozen more.
All but one of Scotland’s cities is predicted to be SNP-run after next May.
The party already runs Dundee and Perth, but would also take over in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling, only missing out on Inverness as it is part of the wider Highland authority.
Meanwhile Labour would lose control of 16 councils it currently runs by itself or as the lead partner in a coalition, including its past strongholds of North and South Lanarkshire.
