Frank's Brass Neck (04/05/17)

Labour's Frank McAveety is the winner of my Glasgow 'equal pay' music competition despite the fact that the outgoing council leader didn't submit a nomination on his own behalf.

But Frank deserves to win in my opinion for having the brass neck to tell the Sunday Herald that "I don't do regrets, no I don't" and for claiming in the Evening Times that 'Labour puts Inequality top of Glasgow election agenda' even though Labour-run Glasgow City Council has been making a horse's ass of equal pay for many years.

Now Frank had an opportunity to put things right before today's local elections came along, but he chose not to, so he and his Labour colleagues deserve to be shown the door if you ask me.

Let's see what happens once the voters have had their say at the polls today.

Frank's prize by the way is a bottle of 'Brasso' which as older readers know is really good for polishing up brass necks. 


  

End of the Affair? (11/04/17)

The Labour leader of Glasgow City Council, Frank McAveety, gave an interview to the Sunday Herald at the weekend in which he looked forward to the local council elections on 4th May 2017.

In response to a question about his colourful career in the Scottish Parliament, Frank responded: “I don’t do regrets, no I don’t,” even though he was sacked twice as a government minister for behaving like a teenage schoolboy.

Frank doesn't have a single word to say about equal pay in his long interview which is something I think he will have cause to regret when the voters go to the polls next month.

Read the full piece in the link below to the Sunday Herald and make up your own mind, but before you do here's a famous number by Edith Piaf to get you in the mood.  



  

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15213115.The_last_days_of_power_for_Labour_in_Glasgow_____Frank_McAveety_doesn__39_t_think_so/

The last days of power for Labour in Glasgow ... Frank McAveety doesn't think so

KA. Photo by Kirsty Anderson

By Andrew Whitaker - The Sunday Herald

FRANK McAveety, for now at least, is the most powerful Labour politician in Scotland. But as leader of the nation’s biggest council, Glasgow, he also happens to be top of the SNP’s hit list in May’s local elections.

Nicola Sturgeon’s party is tipped to take one of Scottish Labour’s last bastions of power on May 4, seizing what would be a jewel in the crown for the SNP and representing what for many would be the final nail in the coffin of Scotland’s once-dominant political force.

If the opinion polls are anything like accurate, McAveety will be ousted as council leader in less than a month in what could also precipitate the end of a political career that stretches back to some of Labour’s glory days in Scotland. Sitting in the leaders’ office at Glasgow city chambers, however, McAveety is not giving off the vibes of a politician presiding over the last days or weeks of his party’s decades-long rule of Scotland’s biggest city.

Labour, Glasgow and Equal Pay (28/03/17)

A number of readers been in touch about Frank McAveety's curious failure to take up my invitation to write a piece for the blog site setting out the Glasgow Labour Party's position in relation to equal pay.

"Frank's running scared," said a regular reader from Govan. "And he's right to be ashamed of the Labour Party's track record in Glasgow because they've had 10 full years to sort this mess out."

Another observed scathingly:

"A senior official in Glasgow walks away with a leaving package worth over £450,000 yet the City Council's lowest paid workers are still fighting for their rights to equal pay - what kind of Labour message does that send?"

A third person sent me a headline from the Evening Times which includes the bold claim that 'Labour puts inequality at the top of Glasgow council election' - followed by their own pithy comment:

"You couldn't make this up - this is a Labour council having a laugh at our expense. What a shambles." 

Damned right - I couldn't put it better myself!

Labour puts inequality top of Glasgow council election agenda

Which is why if you ask me, that Frank and Glasgow's Labour Group deserve to be thrown out on their ear at the local council elections on 4th May 2017.

  

Glasgow and Equal Pay (10/01/17)

I said in a recent post that I know the Labour leader of Glasgow City Council, Frank McAveety, from 'way back' and I promised more details would follow. 

Well the connection goes back to 1998 when I was invited by the then Labour Leader of the City Council to act as one of three independent advisers to the Glasgow City Council Public Standards Commission.

At the time I was Unison's Head of Local Government in Scotland and the other two independent advisers were Endell Laird, retired editor of the Daily Record newspaper, and a chap named Alan Alexander, who was a well known academic and professor of local government. 

The Glasgow Public Standards Commission was set up because of a series of damaging scandals within the City Council involving the conduct of local councillors and our job was to help the Council clear up its act which we did by offering impartial (unpaid) advice and, in my case, by banging heads together in a series of very lively meetings attended by senior officials and the elected politicians.

The leader of the City Council back in those days was, of course, none other than Cllr Frank McAveety who left Glasgow the following year in 1999 after being elected as an MSP to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

Frank McAveety subsequently lost his MSP seat, but has since made a political comeback, first as a local councillor and now as Council Leader once again, almost 20 years later.

So Cllr McAveety and I know each other, as they say, and while we're not the 'best of friends' l think he knows me well enough to appreciate that I'm determined to get the job done when it comes to Glasgow and the fight for equal pay. 
   

  

Glasgow and Equal Pay(08/01/17)

I sent a copy of my post about the fight for equal pay in Glasgow to the Leader of the City Council, Councillor Frank McAveety whom I know from way back (more on that subject to follow).

Now I didn't ask Councillor McAveety for a response, but I am interested in hearing from some of the thousands of equal pay claimants in Glasgow because the more people who get involved in the campaign the sooner this will all be over.

'People Make Glasgow' is the city's latest slogan and in this case 'people power' is going to make all the difference in persuading the Council to come to its senses.

  

Glasgow and Equal Pay (06/01/17)

Readers in Glasgow are in touch regularly to ask what kind of equal pay campaign will get underway in the weeks ahead.

Well that's something I will give detailed thought to over the festive season, but here is a 'starter for ten' as the say ion University Challenge:

• Issue a detailed public statement explaining the basis of the dispute
• Highlight Glasgow's position as the only major council in Scotland not to have reached agreement with A4ES over its post-job evaluation pay arrangements.
• Arrange to brief the Leader of the Opposition Group on Glasgow City Council and individual councillors who may have been kept in the dark by the current council leadership.
• Arrange to brief all MSPs and MPs within the boundaries of Glasgow City Council who are all SNP politicians 
• Organise a series of local meetings across the city to encourage the 5,500 A4ES clients in Glasgow to get involved in the campaign
• Assist equal pay claimants in Glasgow to get their message across by lobbying local councillors, Holyrood MSPs and Westminster MPs
• Organise case studies for the local media including The Herald, Evening Times, Daily Record etc
• Organise a major advertising campaign across Glasgow in the run-up to the May 2017 council elections
• Consider standing an 'Equal Pay' candidate in one or more key Glasgow constituencies
• Seek a meeting with Nicola Sturgeon (First Minister) as a Glasgow MSP to discuss how she and the SNP Government can help hold Glasgow to account

If readers have any ideas or suggestions to make, then fire away by dropping me a line at: markirvine@compuserve.com markirvine@compuserve.com 

Remember, 'many hands make light work' and the more people who get involved in the campaign the sooner this will all be over.