Glasgow, Politicians and Street Graffiti
I meant to add something to my recent post about estate agents making Glasgow's street graffiti problem worse with their ugly, ubiquitous advertising signs.
The points being that all the photos in the post below come from Glasgow's Trongate - just a stone's throw from the office of my local Westminster MP, Alison Thewliss.
I wrote to Alison recently about graffiti in the city centre only to receive what I regarded as a 'tin ear' response which missed the point entirely (see post below dated 18/02/21).
What gets my goat about Glasgow's constituency MPs and MSPs (all of whom are SNP) is that they always have plenty to say about independence, but so little to say about the bread and butter issues local people really care about including: anti-social behaviour, drug taking, drunkenness, vandalism, graffiti and the city's general lack of cleanliness.
Glasgow's Street Graffiti (3) (05/03/21)
Street graffiti can take different forms and one of the things that gets my goat are all these estate agent signs which get stuck up all over Glasgow city centre.
Free advertising is the reasons, I suppose, but why don't our local politicians and Glasgow city council take these estate agents to task?
Glasgow Graffiti and Kitchen Sinks (18/02/21)
I said in my post last Friday about Glasgow's ugly graffiti problem that I hadn't heard a 'cheep' from my local MP, Alison Thewliss.
But shortly after I published the post on the blog I finally heard from Alison's office which involved just passing on a desultory response from an official at Glasgow City Council.
Now the whole point of contacting a local MP (councillor or MSP for that matter) is to find out what they think - and ask for their support, preferably.
Because if they just act as postboxes, by passing the buck on to a council official, what is their role as an elected representative and why do we pay them such generous salaries from the public purse?
In any event I was so disappointed with what my local MP had to say that I decided to respond as follows:
Dear Alison
Glasgow Graffiti and Glasgow's Politicians (12/02/21)
I wrote to the leader of Glasgow City Council, Cllr Susan Aitken, a few weeks ago about the growing problem of graffiti in the city centre.
I didn't receive the courtesy of a reply so I sent the following letter to my four local councillors and shared this with my local MSP and MP as well.
Two out of the four councillors responded which is good, but the other two didn't bother their backsides which is a concern, especially as they're all paid salaries these days - a minimum of £17,854 - to take up issues on behalf of local constituents.
Dear Cllrs (Connelly, Hepburn, Layden and O'Lone)