Rolled-up Trousers

At least put them on trial first

Last week a British court ruled that two terrorism suspects could not be deported to their homeland of Pakistan because of the likelihood of them being tortured there.

The suspects in question were arrested in Operation Pathway last year, which was described as stopping a “very big terrorist plot” by then prime minister Gordon Brown. No evidence was found to be able to prosecute any of the eleven people arrested though.

This has led to legal limbo where the state still sees these men as a threat. Pressure is being put on the new Tory and Lib Dem government to continue Labour’s control order regime, effectively placing the two remaining suspects who have not been successfully deported to Pakistan under permanent house arrest, even though they opposed it in opposition.

Ming Campbell QC MP was on Question Time praising the “integrity of the process” which had led to the conclusion whereby the men could not be deported. “Integrity” was a strange word to use about a process coming after the normal legal avenues of evidence, charges and trial have been exhausted. The Special Immigration Appeals Commission is a secret court hearing secret evidence which the accused does not have access to.

Labour’s justificication of the control order regime is that it is a necessary measure for people who cannot be prosecuted. I feel very uncomfortable hearing words like this. Placing people under house arrest because the state does not have evidence to put someone on trial and get a conviction doesn't sound fair. Ironically, this "evidence" may include material gained from torture in places like Pakistan.

Furthermore, given the wideranging anti-terrorism offences that have been brought in over the last few years, the government have to explain how after you have trawled through the home, workplace, computers, emails, phone records and reading materials of an “Al-Qaeda operative”, that there’s nothing you can prosecute over.

There has been very little comment on the Islamic Republic of Pakistan torturing its own people. In the same week the state banned Facebook because of people organising a “Draw Muhammad Day” on it. A better way or honouring the Prophet would surely be to uphold basic human dignity. Disappointingly, there doesn't seem appetite amongst the Pakistani diaspora to take this issue up.

Why don’t McDonald’s have recycling bins?

People are now separating their rubbish more and more at home, so it’s strange to visit places where you lump everything together and stick it all into one bin.

McDonald’s rationale is that it’s difficult to recycle things when they have food residue on them. This doesn’t entirely stack up since other companies manage it, and there is plenty of rubbish that doesn’t have food on it. It would appear there is a reluctance to allocate the resource that would be needed to process it.

This is the situation with McDonald’s UK, but their counterparts in Germany and Sweden do manage to separate their rubbish, with the former saying they achieve a 90% recycling rate. In the UK they’ve instead been trialling a scheme in Sheffield since 2007 where waste from 11 restaurants is incinerated and turned into energy.

McDonald’s said in 2008 that they wanted to send zero waste to landfill by now, so I’ve written to them to see how they’re getting on with that.

Day 1 of the Tories is less authoritarian than Labour, but cuts still loom

There are many reasons to be fearful of the Tory Dem government, but one advantage they have is that they will have to plumb uncharted depths to come over more authoritarian than the previous Labour one.

It has to be welcomed that they’ve agreed to end the detention of children.

And already they’ve abolished Labour's ID database. It’s gone, just like that. A very good saving of anything between £6-18bn. That said, they are not presenting this as part of their package of cuts.

It is the cuts to jobs and services that will make this coalition unpopular. The Lib Dems have said they'll be "savage". Bank of England governer Mervyn King has said that whoever won this election would be so unpopular that they would then be out of power for a generation.

Labour stayed out away from office to perhaps try and benefit from this. The problem for them is that they are part of the banking consensus that precipitated this crisis in the first place, and went into the election promising cuts “deeper and tougher” than Margaret Thatcher’s. It would take a level of chutzpah not reached even yet by the Labour Party to present themselves now as opposition to this agenda.

I suspect that they won’t do this, and for the same reasons that brought about the New Labour project in the first place. To win Downing Street they had to win over the rightwing press in England. Remember that Middle England, nay the whole of England, just voted for a Tory majority. The political culture there is different from Scotland and is unlikely to change in the years to come. The Milibands or whoever it is will have to continue playing to that audience.

Their Labour colleagues in Scotland may try and present themselves as economically to the left of them. It’ll be interesting to see if the media in Scotland continue to let them get away with the “it’s Labour or the Tories” line as if it is true.

"We would rather do a deal with the Tories than the SNP"

So said a senior Labour source in today's Scotsman.

This is despite Labour having run an election campaign in Scotland about protecting us from the Tories. Time after time we were told that it was Gordon Brown or David Cameron, a Labour government or a Tory government. We must vote Labour we were told, because we musn't let the Tories in by the back door.

Today Labour opened the front door to 10 Downing Street and held it open for a Tory prime minister to walk through.

The SNP offered to support Labour and the Lib Dems in forming a government. Apart from the headline of this blog post, there seem to be two objections to this from Labour. Firstly, that they couldn't be bothered, that they were tired, and the Tories had won. The self-styled Tory-slayers lacked energy and bite.

The second seems to be a steadfast refusal to countenance proportional representation in electoral reform. My party labelled the support we'd have provided to Labour as a "progressive alliance", but yet again it seems there is very little in Labour's political or economic worldview that can be so marketed.

As for the Lib Dems, in 2007 they refused to consider a coalition with the SNP at Holyrood. But they are now sharing a Downing Street duvet with the Tories. They and Labour will pay a heavy price for their facilitation of a Tory government. "Labour or Tory - it's your choice" Labour said on their election leaflets. In the end, it was actually Labour's choice.

Thank you

I want to thank my campaign team. I love you all dearly. I’ve really enjoyed it. The Glasgow Central SNP campaign was at all times eventful, colourful and full of laughs.

We had a really young team. There was barely a grey hair between us, which people find surprising given how good and prominent the campaign was. I’ve no sadness, we gave it our all. People on the outside are full of praise for the energy with which we ran it, the doors that were knocked, the leaflets that were delivered, the posters that were festooned everywhere, and the ideas and initiatives with which we ran. I’m proud of you all and will be eternally grateful for your belief, commitment and companionship.

Thank you also to all who voted for me. The support was humbling. Particular gratitude to the many who made nice comments, and who had been silently following my work over the years. It was strange being a bit of a local celebrity on the streets, but it was immensely enjoyable meeting so many new people.

Congratulations to Anas Sarwar on winning.

I knew when the campaign proper started a month ago that it wasn’t going to happen for us. The national media coverage squeezed us out. It was the same for the SNP across Glasgow. The Tory poll lead put the frighteners on people which played to the false Labour mantra about it being about them or the Conservatives.

We increased our share of the vote in Glasgow Central, while nationally it was the SNP's best Westminster result since the 1970s.

I’ll have more to say soon no doubt. I’m now though going to use the politician’s cliché of having a bit of long overdue time with the family. I’ve spent near enough 10% of my life as the SNP’s candidate for Glasgow Central in this incredibly long election campaign. I’ll be dusting myself down and rejoining the ranks of party activists in the next day or two.

Pothole - Eglinton St