Calls for Alex Salmond to run England!

So often when you listen to English arguments about Scotland having its own parliament and whether or not England should, the resentment towards us becomes obvious. Why are they getting free education? How come their council tax is frozen? Why am I paying over £7 for a prescription and they're only paying £3? As I say it's often tainted with resentment towards Scotland and views are expressed that we have no right to be getting something they're not.

However I just caught a bit of the BBC programme "The Big Questions". An English woman in the audience talked about how annoyed it made her when she read about all of these things that we have in Scotland but they can't get in England.

"But" she said "my solution to that is that we get the Scottish Government to run the rest of us". Very good point, very well made and probably the most sensible comment on the whole issue I have ever heard. Because that really is the point isn't it? It's not about Scotland vs England, it's about governments who are good at their job vs governments who are not!

As a footnote I completely agreed with the points about Scotland not having top up fees and yet England had them imposed by a vote that depended on Scottish Labour MPs supporting it. That's clearly not fair.

Suicide is anything but painless

Did anyone see the STV report a couple of weeks ago about suicide intervention training courses aimed at the likes of taxi drivers, hairdressers, publicans etc? It's a great idea because these are the very people who have a set period of time to talk to someone rather than a nod or couple of words in passing. It was a report about the launch of this TV advert.

Anyway I decided to find out about the training with a view to doing it myself. I don't think it's an intensive course and you definitely don't end up qualified to be standing on that roof talking someone out of it. I think it's more about being able to sense when someone is feeling suicidal, knowing what to say and importantly what not to say. And having information on support services available to them.

I wish I had done it because earlier this week I found myself receiving a call from a support worker desperately worried about a constituent of mine. She was right to be, he was clearly contemplating suicide as I discovered when he reluctantly spoke to me. It is absolutely terrifying to be the person on the end of the phone knowing this person wants to die, knowing you could say something to make it worse and knowing too that there are words that could help but you don't know what they are.

Bearing in mind that everyone in my office has taken calls from people who are at least deeply depressed if not suicidal, we've decided we'll all do the training. And I'd encourage anyone who works with members of the public in whatever capacity to consider it. It's no different to doing First Aid training and you could save someone's life. You can contact Choose Life by clicking here and you can watch the TV ad here.

As a footnote, my constituent is hanging on in there but as someone who has SOME experience of the whole question of suicide, I have no doubt he's not out of the woods yet. He's agreed to take the referral we got him although doesn't see the point and we're working with him to resolve the problems that lead him to this state. I don't intend becoming a social worker to all constituents but some need a bit of extra time from you and then it ceases to be about being someone's MSP and is more about being a fellow human being. No doubt when we've done the training I'll be spreading the word and encouraging everyone I know to follow suit. Can't do any harm!

Police to investigate Stephen Purcell

At last! The Labour run council refuse to investigate so thank goodness for Strathclyde's finest because the police have just confirmed that there will be a full criminal investigation into goings on Purcell style. Quite right. You can't be immune to the law just because you're an elected politician. If anything we need to be leading by example. What we need is a full investigation into all the goings on in the Labour group. They have tarnished Glasgow's reputation and that is not what they were elected to do.

More from the murky underworld of Glasgow Labour

I said a while back on this blog that there was much much more to come out of the murky world of Glasgow City Council Labour group and here's just one of those stories. You have to have sympathy with someone with a drug problem but when people are making decisions about my future, I think I'd prefer their judgement not to be impaired by chemicals, especially uncontrolled illegal ones, thanks very much!



She's denying it and who knows what the truth of it is. But I did always wonder why Councillor Ruth Black got herself elected as the only Solidarity councillor and almost immediately showed anything BUT solidarity with her party and defected to Labour of all parties! I mean, Solidarity and the SSP came about as an internal reaction AGAINST the way the Labour Party was going. It was always a puzzle to me.



I've always liked the clarity you get when you find out where that tough piece of the jigsaw goes.

No, it wasn't a dream

I thought I was still sleeping when I switched on the radio this morning to hear that all Scottish airports had been closed down because of a volcano in Iceland. But no, it is true. Apparently there's a volcanic ash cloud sweeping across the country. We can't see it but that's because it's where the aeroplanes would be flying. I'm quite glad they're not seeing as I've just read about a jumbo jet that once flew unknowingly through an ash cloud and all four of its engines shut down!

Back to work?

I've found a great new way to blog, I'll just react to snippets I hear on the news. Like this one - the BBC newsreader just said "with Holyrood back in business, MSPs will be joining the campaign trail for the Westminster elections". Like we've all been on holiday. Like the campaign didn't start 2 years ago. Ah, maybe she's talking about the Labour Party. I'm not saying they take your vote for granted but remember John Prescott talking about constituencies "belonging" to Labour, Glasgow East for instance. Talking of which I was just leaving John Mason's campaign HQ in Shettleston last night when a guy came in to inform me that the Labour Party were out in force IN their campaign rooms, drinking champagne. No idea if it's true or not but maybe that's where the BBC newsreader is getting this idea of holidays and campaigns starting a few weeks before polling day.

Class of 2010

That's another thing. Has anyone else noticed that Labour politicians including Gordon Brown are making big play of being "middle class"? Is it to appeal to natural Tory voters? I think it's not. I think it's more to do with the fact that they're so entrenched in middle England that to them, the term "middle class" refers to "ordinary" people in the way that "working class" used to. I have often heard friends from down South talk about having an ordinary background, "just a normal middle class upbringing". I am not as obsessed with class division as Frere Tommy Sheridan et al but it's depressing to think the Labour Party now identifies as middle class.

The more they do that, the further away they get from people from working class backgrounds and the further they get from them, the bigger the gap and the more marginalised the underclasses become. The underclasses, the new classes created by Thatcher and kept in their place by Labour. Very sad. Very sad indeed.