Honeymoons End

All honeymoons end, even the one enjoyed by the Blair government ended, at some point in 2000 (about the time of the fuel protests and the slow handclap by the WI). But the current SNP/Lib Dem administration in Renfrewshire, it is safe to say has reached the end of its honeymoon, even if there are some who said it ended just after they took office.

On Thursday 26^th June, the ruling SNP/Lib Dem coalition awarded pay-rises to the directors & heads of services at Renfrewshire Council well in excess of inflation. The 20 heads of service will receive rises of 17%, up to £78045, while the directors will see their wages rise by a measly 6.7%, up to £101985. That's a total of £2172810, or 4/10 of a PPP repayment.

In the current economic climate, this is simply offensive, for an organization in debt, this is madness. Remember that not so long ago, Renfrewshire council were in trouble with our elderly for increasing warden charges in sheltered housing areas, on top of the myriad of cuts to community services. Our rulers are asking us, the plebs, to tighten our belts. Meanwhile at Mill Street its trebles all round, and that's just the cuts to the library service! (Presumably to make way for these wage increases, and not just to service Renfrewshire's large PPP debt). I don't normally see eye to eye with Terry Kelly, but he more than has a point when he says "The rise of more than £11000 is more than some of our lowest paid workers get in a year and quite frankly, I feel that is obscene".

The leader of the council, Derek Mackay, in response said something about paying the going rate for staff. You know, the stuff that Michael Heseltine, Brian Mahwinney, Peter Lilley and other right wing members of the Major Government used to trot out when the bosses of (recently privatized at the time) utilities got criticism for their fat cat pay. Interestingly, the fat cats remain, but the current (New Labour or SNP) government(s) don't criticize them for their inflation busting, economy wrecking largesse.

To come back from that tangent, Mackay went on to say "What should we do, bury our heads in the sand and wait for this mystic time when people are going to jump for joy at the news that highly paid officials are getting an increase? We cannot hold off any longer on this or we will find that we have lost all our good staff because we were not willing to pay them what they are worth"

This would be great, if the majority of staff were getting the same increases, or if the staff getting the increases were any good at their jobs. As far as I can see, Paisley's still going down the pan, we still have feral teenagers rampaging through our streets at night, with nothing to do. We are supposed to have community wardens, for all the good it does. They and their bright red uniforms and their fleet of red mini-vans should be the first thing to be axed instead of putting charges up for wardens at sheltered housing areas. Paisley town centre is still a mess, with empty shops. Littlewoods is still empty, as is the area where Arnotts used to be, 5 years ago. Can you tell that I think that they're simply not worth it.

The pay rise really does smack of the new British disease, the one of 'rewarding failure'. And is something that cannot go on. New Labour do it at Westminster by saying nothing about the bonuses that the bosses of the High Street banks get, even though it is their failures & hubris that have caused the credit crunch. Our devolved government here are not any better in this respect, and it would appear neither are the nearly new brooms in Cotton Street. With the difficulty in squaring the deficit bequeathed to them by the previous administration, this potentially could be a "jump the shark" moment for the SNP/Lib Dem. The problem is, if they sink, what are the alternatives for 2011.

Sma Shot Day

This weekend was the annual Sma Shot day in Paisley. Not the nicest day overall, which was a shame. This extract about what the day is about comes from the Renfrewshire Council website...

"One of the oldest workers' festivals in the world takes place in Paisley this weekend.The traditional Sma' Shot Day celebrates the historic victory of the weavers over the mill owners of 19th century Paisley.

The event, which takes place this Saturday (5 July), has developed into an annual celebration of arts and culture in Renfrewshire.The festival is the result of a political battle between the weavers of Paisley (who created the famous Paisley pattern cashmere shawls) and the mill-owners.The Sma' (small) Shot was a thread binding the shawls together. However, as it was unseen, the manufacturers, also known as the corks, refused to pay for the thread which the weavers had to buy.

The Charleston drum, which was beaten through the streets of Paisley to summon the weavers in times of trouble, was used to rally them in protest marches. After a long hard struggle, the manufacturers backed down and the weavers were paid for the Sma' Shot. The first Saturday in July was declared a public holiday by the weavers, who beat the drum and took part in the annual trip until 1975.

However, in 1986, local councillors and the people of Paisley revived the traditional event and the Charleston drum still rallies the people for a procession through the streets, led by an effigy of one of the mill owners known as The Cork.The burning of The Cork is the climax to the Sma' Shot Story as told by PACE Theatre Company.Provost Celia Lawson said: "Sma' Shot Day is a unique tradition and an important celebration of Paisley's cultural heritage."The parade will set off from Brodie Park at 11am and will weave its way through the streets to Abbey Close beside Paisley Town Hall.Once there, entertainment will include stalls, funfairs, the re-enactment of the Sma' Shot story, Loud 'n' Proud celebrating the Charleston Drum with a drumming extravaganza, and the burning of The Cork.Coinciding with Sma' Shot day this year is the Danny Kyle Memorial Concert, being held in Paisley Town Hall at 7.30pm.The concert commemorates 10 years since the death of one of Scotland's most famous folk musicians, and a number of acts are paying tribute."

Motty Versus Greeny - 2 years on...

Hi there.

Reading through 200percent's blog today, there was a bit about the retirement from live matches of the BBC's main Football comentator John Mottson. In one of my first blogs, i gave my take on Football comentators...

"This entry however is inspired by something i was discussing with a friend on Tuesday about football comentators.
I must admit that i am not a fan of football comentators on the tellevision, Mottson, Tyldsley, et al. Not even the Scottish football comentators of days gone by like Montford & McPherson are to my tastes ( I do like Jock Brown though). No, i prefer the comentators on the radio, like Green, Ingham & Begg.
I think this is because Television comentators tend to tell you the obvious things, a lot, and give you useless information as well. The constant crowbaring of references to England do not go down well either. Fine if England are due to play any of the teams involved, not fine in say Togo versus Switzerland.
I certainly feel that these reasons certainly curtails my enjoyment of football on the TV. I feel that Football comentators have a lot to learn from comentators of other sports. I think that it was Richie Benaud, the don of Cricket comentators, who said that he learned to not speak, unless he had somethin useful to say. Here here!!"

As for Motson, Im not sure if we'll miss him. The joke up here is that there are spread bets on when the first mention of England or 1966 is in a match, any match. Even France v Italy, but i can point readers on to another excellent article on Motson, by the scottish journalist Ian Bell, which appeared in the Sunday Herald last week.

Exit Wendy...

Hmmm, Wendy Alexander here goes…
Admit it, she was the most recent example of the adage that the ideas people are not necessarily leadership material, though she wasn’t in the job long enough to show any ideas. The only thing that she did come up with was the U-turn regarding the independence question, which I still believe might have been a master-stroke… had her party not have some sort of bad reaction against the idea.
I also suspect that “Bring it on… “ might be another part as to why she has gone. Not many people with in the Scottish Labour camp, I think, were happy with her after that. The finances of her leadership bid, while the main part of why Alexander is no longer Leader in Holyrood, cannot be discounted as the only reason. While the Guido Fawkes website and the Sunday Herald have been claiming exclusive rights on the story, a far more interesting question has to be, who leaked the documents? Especially as it appears that the leak might have come from her own side...

SNP/Lib Dems to Run Renfrewshire - 1 Year On

It has been a year since the SNP took over Renfrewshire Council, and while it has been too early to give final judgements, there have been a few mistakes worthy of comment. In the first budget, the SNP/Lib Dem administration made cuts to key public services, in particular…

The removal of National Priorities Action Fund.
Cuts to Supported Study.
Cuts to Secondary, Primary and Special school budgets
Reduction in resource provision to support raising achievement.
Closure of Bargarran Community Library & libraries in Todholm and Elderslie.
Review of Day Care services for older people.
Charges for Day Care Services for older people.
Increase in charges for community alarm services.

Predictably the New Labour opposition has pounced on this, dusting off the old slur of the Tartan Tories. OK, this has been a mistake by the SNP administration, but what this spells out to me is that the previous administration have spent beyond their means, and in the process have created a black hole in Renfrewshire Councils funding. It doesn’t take brains of Britain to work out the cause.

New Council Headquarters, including brand new swanky £250,000 paths. Cost to Renfrewshire council taxpayers £20 million
Renovation of Renfrewshire Councils Schools under PPP - £16 million (Councillor Terry Kelly gave this figure during the 2007 council elections), though according to the Partnerships UK website this contract (which will run for 32 years) is worth £194.2 million.

And that’s just the known knowns, as Donald Rumsfeld would say.
During my “discussions” with Councillor Kelly on his blog, I did ask him what New Labour would do to alleviate the budgeting problem which Renfrewshire council clearly has, his answer was to deny that there was a black hole in Renfrewshire’s budget, and to blame it on the SNP policy to freeze council tax. This was before the council leader Derek Mackay said in his Paisley Daily Express column on May 15th that they faced “real financial difficulties”. At least Mr Mackay (& for that matter Mr Salmond) recognizes that there are many council tax payers who are equally in financial difficulties, and that the well of “putting taxes up” to pay for these projects will work or be tolerated so far.

Rather than cut some of the services outlined above, perhaps our councilors should be cutting waste, like their own expenses. My own choice of target, in terms of council services, would be the Community wardens who should be axed next, they might look nice in their shiny red vans but they are far too ineffective against Glenburn ‘neds’, who seem to roam free across the estate (some of their handiwork can be seen above). Getting the police to do their job in this area might be a good idea too.

Update: The Sunday Herald is running an expose on PFI/PPP projects in Scotland. This looks to be a Scottish angle to the stories already running in the news magazine Private Eye.

Our dear leader speaks!

I heard our fearless leader this morning on Radio 4 being interviewed, he just doesn’t get it! With all the talk of weathering the storm and inflation targets, the one question Humphries should have asked, but didn’t was You ask people to take inflation wage rises, but how do you expect people to survive when wage rises are being wiped out by inflationary pressures? Brown wants people to not have real term wage increases, this will not work.

Apart from that, the thing that struck me was how much he kept on repeating the same mantra “we are making the correct decisions”. Smacks a bit of Blair if you ask me, but obviously they are not making the correct decisions if they deliberately make the poorest, hardest working, in our society even more poor, then in trying to alleviate the situation, still leave 1000000 people worse off than they were. The words backside and elbow spring readily to mind!
One of the problems for the Government is that for too many people, the government is seen as not doing very much while the country slides towards recession, or even as was reported the other day stagflation.

Holiday!!!!!!

Hullo.

Sorry i haven't been blogging of late. I was away a couple of weeks ago, and it has taken a while to get back to normal.

Trumping Success?

“Donald Trump said he would secure his £1bn Aberdeenshire golf resort plans because of who he is and his Scottish roots, it has emerged. The comments came in the latest edition of Vanity Fair magazine from an interview carried out last November, before the plans hit objections.
In the article, Mr Trump said: "If Jack Nicklaus tried to do this he'd have zero chance, but they like what I've done, and because I am who I am and my mother is Scottish, between you and me... I'm going to get it."

Got to say that as far as own goals go, this is a fairly spectacular one. Appearing to be arrogant in front of Scottish people is somewhat akin to shooting yourself in the foot.

As has been discussed here, I am not a supporter of the plans, and I am not happy that the opposition at Holyrood have decided that US dollars is preferable to the stunning countryside which would be destroyed by the Golf Resort, and the holiday homes (all 950 of them), and the holiday villas (36 of those) and not forgetting the housing development (quoted to be about 1500 of those) as most of the bids supporters seem to have done. All on a site of natural beauty and of scientific interest. The opposition at Holyrood has instead attacked the handling of the proposal by the SNP minority administration. Famously the Lib Dem leader Nicol Stephen said that he smelled sleaze during First Ministers questions. Not quite sure how his smelling was after the mauling that he received from Alex Salmond, but he did not repeat the allegation.

This proposal has now been sent to a public inquiry, which will begin in June. No doubt the supporters of this plan will just keep spinning.