Comments on: GARL and Glasgow North East

By: kintyre1

kintyre1 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:41:02 +0000

if snp ministers are soooooo tired why are they wasting so much energy on pursuing separation when they know they have no hope of success ?
michael noble and john mackay as mps for argyll (& bute) were also ministers with many responsibilites and had a hostile press much more critical than the present tame lot .
today we are overloaded with msps and we have an mp .
the scottish parliament is hardly ever sitting , more like part time – i guess thats why salmond is also an mp
clearly if the representatives are struggling that is a reflection of their lack of ability

By: Willie McEwan

Willie McEwan — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:16:33 +0000

There is also a six times an hour train service to Paisley Gimour Street from Central Station which connects with a three minute bus journey direct to the Airport which many people prefer because there are sometimes hold ups on the motorway which can effect the bus service.
Either way I agree there was no need for GARL and anybody who has expressed an interest in the matter in my part of the world are rather supportive.
I rather wonder if Labour are not burning their boats big time here with the rest of Scotland who largely have an opinion that Glasgow gets all the time and hooray for somebody stopping that.

By: Kenneth MacColl

Kenneth MacColl — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:18:02 +0000

My old pal Dave Hill was campaigning in Glasgow North East -what a soulless description for a constituency- and will have a far better insight into the media coverage than I have as a spectator who uses the internet to get most of my news. I do share his concern about the way the by election was covered by what I saw of the press and the BBC. That is not new but the intensity of bias does appear to have been cranked up.

I feel sure that the cancellation of GARL was the right decision in the present financial climate. There is an excellent, efficient, and inexpensive fast bus link from the central Glasgow Bus ststion to the airport which completes the trip in around 20 minutes.

As I recall the Edinburgh version of the airport link, EARL, was also cancelled without the furore that accompanied the Glasgow cancellation. Ironically, it seems that every Glasgow MSP, other than Nicola Sturgeon, voted, against the advice of the Scottish Government, to spend large amounts of cash on the Edinburgh Tramways System. Whether that will result in the Scottish Government “ripping off Glasgow for Edinburgh” remains to be seen.

Some may recall when an earlier Labour Government was forced to determine on building a Humber Bridge as an election approached. Against every traffic experts’ advice they chose to build the bridge and that has since proved to be a spectacular White Elephant.

Such decisions have to be taken on the basis of informed advice and John Swinney would not be the one to take such a decision guided by political expediency.

By: David McEwan Hill

David McEwan Hill — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:29:39 +0000

Of course the GARL project should have been cancelled. It was a a vanity project with rocketing costs which was forecast to carry an avergage of 18 passengers an hour to the Airport.
And of course the Labour Party used the cancellation to electoral advantage.
But the Labour party didn’t win the Glasgow North East by-election. They only supplied the themes. The complete ranks of the Scottish press stopped Labour losing the by election by a continuous campaign of venom on a daily basis against the SNP and its fine candidate which ran for about six weeks.

They recognised they could not get people out to vote Labour so they put a huge and dishonest effort into stopping these people from voting SNP.

In my fifty years in politics I have never see such a distasteful and dishonest assault on any party or candidate and our democracy is now under real threat of being subverted by elelment that own a awful lot lot of our media.

In an electorate of over 60,000 about 43,000 didn’t vote. Labour, the party in government, got a measly 10,000 votes out of over 60,000. The subtext tells you all. Labour is dead in the water and the result in what is now recognised as a phantom election in a deprived Glasgow seat has no bearing on what the rest of Scotland thinks.