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Alasdair

A rather vitriolic take on Glasgow East from the Telegraph, although it seems that even some of their columnists recognise that the Tories won't be much better at Westminster.

Aventinian · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject:

Being simply nasty won't do any good, but equally we should all - the Labour Party and government especially - recognise that Glasgow East is an absolute shitehole and a disgraceful blot on this country, as several other constituencies in the country - particularly in East London and Liverpool - are.

Economist · Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 11:30 pm Post subject:

Splicing through Heffer's prejudiced Little Englander bigotry and shoddy grasp of UK public expenditure mechanisms, I think he does have some points, which should be taken on board. But I think the problems in parts of constituencies like Glasgow East (large parts of which are not the ravaged hell-hole it is made out to be - Mount Vernon anyone?) are far more complicated than some of the simplistic offerings given by journos and other parasitical "think tanks".

More than anything, I suspect what the folks of Glasgow East do not need, is metrocentric commentators like Heffer or any of his ilk spreading their pearls of wisdom and bile, across reams of newsprint, as if it were gospel - especially given that they probably couldn't have pointed to Glasgow East on a map 2 weeks ago.
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Taurus excreta cerebrum vincit - Bullshit baffles brains

Blackleaf · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:24 pm Post subject:

There's nothing "Little Englander" about the article.

Why is it that when the English attack the Scots or anyone else the Scots see it as some form of "racism" perpetrated by "Little Englanders" (even though support for Far Right parties in England is much lower than that of almost every cother country in Europe), yet think nothing of being anti-English themselves?

This article was merely pointing out the truth about Glasgow and Scotland. There's nothing racist about it. If the Scots don't want to be seen as a people of humourless, miserable, welfare addicts with a life expectancy of 62 and bad weather then do something about these things.

Blackleaf · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 5:28 pm Post subject:

Here's another recent article about Glasgow, this from the respectable Times newspaper:

July 13, 2008
The Times

Welcome to Glasgow East: the hardest, poorest place in Britain

AA Gill visits the scene of a crucial by-election for Gordon Brown

Who would you expect to live longer: an east Glaswegian or a man from Colombia, Albania or North Korea? The answer is that the Colombians, Albanians and North Koreans would drink a toast at the Glaswegian’s wake.

Who says so? The World Health Organisation. Male Colombians, despite poverty and narcotraficantes, expect to reach 71; Albanians, despite all those blood feuds, 69; North Koreans, despite living in a concentration camp, 64; east Glaswegians, despite living in one of the richest states on the planet, 63. That is about the same as Bangladesh. They’d have to move to Burma, Nepal or Somalia to drop dead sooner.

East Glaswegians are citizens of a country with average male life expectancy of 77. They live in Labour’s 25th safest parliamentary seat, where on July 24 the party will defend a majority of 13,500. They ought to share the same rights and life span as the rest of us, particularly after 11 years of Labour government – but they don’t.

Above and beyond all the clever political forecasting that is going on about the by-election here and whether or not Gordon Brown would survive losing the constituency, we should never forget this inequitable abuse of human rights in the Labour heartland.

Glasgow East’s last MP, David Marshall, a former bus conductor, resigned precipitously after 19 years for unexplained “personal reasons”. The man most expected to replace him at Westminster, George Ryan, a local councillor, turned down the chance equally mysteriously.

Perhaps it’s not such a mystery. Glasgow East is the hardest, poorest place in Britain. Others may pick a fight about that – but they’d lose. Shettleston, at the heart of the constituency, makes the rough margins of Liverpool look like the Chelsea Flower Show.

The constituency is large and incoherent. It looks like the national museum of pebble dashing – everything that could have the bottom of a fish tank stuck to it has.

The people do not look good here. Often it is difficult to tell men from women, old men from older men. The mean parades of shops are dotted with tanning parlours. Yet the locals have the blotchy pallor of cave-dwelling consumptives; only their first two fingers are stained brown.

In the pubs there are shellsuited angry men with faces like melted funeral candles. Among them are little knots of pensioners who spend their days in a bar because they can’t afford to keep the light and the heat on at home. They get a bit of telly and some warmth and some company. And if they nurse a glass of Irn-Bru for long enough, someone will put a dram in it.

The gossip is all about drug dealers, organised crime and the local celebrities – the inmates of Barlinnie jail, which is also in the constituency. You can buy a knife here called a 10-shot, the street weapon of choice, named because it costs £1 an inch and will go right through you. Drunks turn up at an accident and emergency cupping their amputated fingers in their palms.

The day I’m here the clouds hang at head height; it could be February. My first stop is a shopping precinct where the Scottish Nationalists are shaking hands in a credit union. This is a starter bank for people who are not into joined-up economics yet.

Next door there’s a greetings card shop with a big display of birthday cards. I pick up one that says “Happy 100th” and ask the girl behind the counter if she has ever sold one. She gives me a f*** off look and says no.

John Mason, the Nats’ candidate, is so insignificant that he has to be pointed out to me three times at a distance of 5ft. He is lurking in an oversized suit the colour of wet cement, has wisps of gingery hair and a pair of glasses that must have come free with another pair of glasses.

His voice sounds like rain falling on derelict carpet. Apparently in a previous life he was some sort of councillor, although he might have been a draught excluder or a novelty loo roll cover.

The Westminster excitement over this ballot supposes that the nationalists will rise like Wallace in a fervour; but by choosing Mason the SNP has shown that it doesn’t think it has a shortbread in a teacup’s chance of winning.

This is an overwhelmingly Catholic seat – Celtic’s ground is just down the road – and Catholics always, always vote Labour. They won’t vote for a man called Mason: the freemasons are aligned with the Orange Order, which is Rangers and unionist – and they are having their marching season right now.

All this may seem ridiculously 1960s Belfast and unsophisticated; but if you leave people to stew in squalor, what’s the surprise if they behave tribally?

Not that Labour isn’t doing its best to cut its own throat. Three or four people turned down the job before the party could find one willing to say yes.

She is Margaret Curran, who is a member of the Scottish parliament for a constituency that overlaps this one.

We go to meet her at a kilt-hire warehouse that boasts it sends out 12,000 wedding outfits a week.

That’s more Highlanders than fought at Culloden.

Most end up in England.

Curran is one of those small, sinewy – tough as girders, sharp as a dirk, subtle as a football chant – political women fashioned by the viciously adversarial nature of Scottish politics. Her minders – both English – assure me she will be taking only one parliamentary salary.

But what will she do for her constituents that she doesn’t do already in the Edinburgh parliament?

In this seat nearly half of all households are council or housing association; 60% of them have no car; death from heart attack in the under-75s is more than 80% above the national average; drug-related crime and Aids are endemic.

Teenage pregnancy is 42% above a national average that is already the shame of Europe. Nearly half the children live in long-term unemployed households. About 50% of the population have no qualifications. The biggest single employer is the social security.

So what this place really, really needs – what it’s crying out for – is a part-time MP playing political hide-and-seek with the government in Westminster.

We drive off to find the Tory candidate, Davina Rankin, who sits in the back room of the Tory office, an abandoned shop.

She is young, local, black and a trade unionist, which is something of a coup for the Tories. And there’s more. She grew up in Gartnavel mental hospital where her parents were nurses.

Davina is utterly new Con, right on. She can tick boxes they haven’t even invented yet. She is also the only candidate who talks about local issues eloquently, sensibly and with sympathy – and she doesn’t have a hope in hell. She will be lucky to save her deposit.

At best only 30% of east Glaswegians will turn out for the ballot. They are deracinated, as uncoupled from the political system as they are from the economic one. No one wants to talk to the candidates; they have no questions to ask, no use for a leaflet.

It would be easy to see these people as being the agents of their own misfortune, what with the smoking, the diet, the drugs, the drink, the strokes and the heart attacks, the rotten teeth, the pregnancies and the crime. But why should they get enthused about a system that has for generations taken them for granted?

The citizens of east Glasgow have bigger problems to be getting on with – like how to stay alive.

timesonline.co.uk

Aventinian · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject:

Oh, it was Heffer. I didn't notice. A***hole of the highest calibre.

Economist · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:48 pm Post subject:

AA Gill? Wasn't he the one that said some incendiary things about the English a few years back? Not a very nice man, by all accounts, nor one that can control his prejudices in his writings. The journalistic equivalent of a shock-jock, but only much less effective.

Cymro · Getting on a bit! Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 1633

AA Gill is just a tosser. He makes a name for himself by essentially belitteling other cultures. Attacking the Welsh Language and Welsh Culture is once of hs favourite passtimes.