Tried to make me go to rehab...

Jeremy Corbyn came to Glasgow this week to give the annual Jimmy Reid memorial lecture at the Jimmy Reid Foundation. It was largely ignored by the press and. despite there being a by-election on in Glasgow on the same day, Corbyn didn't show his face on the campaign trail. The seat went to Roseanna Cunningham's wee brother Chris with a 20% swing to the SNP.

Jimmy Reid left the Labour Party and joined the SNP in 2004 six years before his untimely death in 2010.
Famously the "I didn't leave Labour, Labour left me* is often attributed to Jimmy. But this was his real feeling:

The Labour Party organisation in Scotland is the right wing variety; The #ChickenCoup variety; The Tony Blair fan variety.

For Corbyn to come to the Jimmy Reid Foundation and ask the Scots to come back to Labour is nothing but posturing. Corbyn did not lose Scotland. We were already gone before he was elected leader for the first time in 2015 and Corbyn knows that. 
Labour in Scotland get regular beatings, but yet they get up off the carpet and try and go another few rounds in a fight they will ultimately have to concede. They have used up any goodwill that they ever had in Scotland. 

A few days silence go by about Jeremy being in Glasgow because the press saved it up for the Sunday papers when they think we have more time to read (and we do). 

Kevin McKenna in the Observer 
https://archive.is/xU8fB



Kevin mistakenly thinks that Labour can be salvaged.  Immediately you can read into his prose that Kevin is pandering to an rUK audience when he uses the pejorative term "the nationalists" rather than call the SNP the SNP for consistency. This is a deliberate use of the word "nationalists" because it appears on the BBC approved list of things that are bad, like "insurgents" and "militants" and whispers... 'rise of nationalism... Nazis'.

He says that the SNP "coveted control of Glasgow City Council" like it was just about power, rather than swapping out a Council that was not working for it's people for one that was prepared to. He then tells us that the SNP have "virtually annexed the City". "Annexed"??? "Annexed"???? Again the not so subtle references to Nazi Germany. 

Kevin's writings of late have become brittle against the SNP. The sharp jaggy edges of his language have become more and more pronounced.

In summary, his article is yet another Kevin pep talk for Labour ahead of May's Council elections as he describes "the SNP's antipathy to Glasgow is both real and historic".

Why would an independence supporter like Kevin be so encouraging and 'team coachy' to a party that wants to retain the union at all costs?

We need to talk about Kevin.

But there is a new kid on the block in the Sunday Herald. Andrew Whitaker joined them on 4 October.

The new political editor of the Sunday Herald interviewed Corbyn during his day trip to Glasgow.He gives a good account of the proceedings and I look forward to hearing more from Andrew.
https://archive.is/1FedG


Corbyn reaches out "I understand your anger",goes the headline.
No Jeremy, you do not understand our anger.
Our anger is not just with Westminster. Our anger is with you and your party who took money from the Tories to run the most mendacious political campaign we have ever seen in Scotland: The original Project Fear. 

The Labour party are guilty of targeting and lying to the most vulnerable of our society and the resultant 'no' vote was based on those lies. From telling Polish people that they would be sent home, to pointing at mobility scooters of the disabled and saying they'd be gone with a 'yes' vote, to the ultimate crime: that of telling our 'oldies' that they would lose their pension.
Our anger at the 'no' vote is focused fairly and squarely on Labour.

Andrew Whitaker describes Corbyn's jaunt to Glasgow as the start of a "charm offensive" when it is just plain offensive.

You do not get to put on Jimmy Reid's donkey jacket 
and claim we are all the same. Jimmy Reid rejected Labour. Jimmy Reid wanted an independent Scotland.

You are no Jimmy Reid Mr Corbyn.

Jeremy fails to understand that the wave of Corbynism sweeping over England is but an echo of the social and political awakening that has already taken place in Scotland. Jeremy has nothing to offer us if he does not support independence.

If Jeremy wants the SNP to work with him at WM then I'm sure we have common ground. But if Jeremy wants Scotland to vote Labour, he's ontae plums.

No matter how the press try to rehabilitate the Labour brand in Scotland, there is no getting away from the fact that the UK Labour Party is primarily unionist and a party that would rather Scotland suffered under a Tory Government for all time than be an independent nation. It is also to be remembered that the Labour party did everything in their power to deny Scotland any new powers at the Smith Commission after sending in the 'clunking masonic handshake' of Gordon Brown to promise us the earth.

And there is no getting away from the fact that we have all sorts of evidence (photographic, documents and video) of Labour's betrayal of Scotland spanning decades. There is not one elected member of the Labour party in Scotland that we do not have evidence of them working hand-in-hand with the Tories. Not one.