Red Wendy

With the SSP in tatters and Solidarity plagued by accusations of nicking wee bottles of bevvy and shagging all the wrong people - many of you will be asking, who is it that will carry the Red Flag forward? Who can carry on the great Scots tradition from John Maclean into the 21st C?

The answer, is, apparently, Wendy Alexander.

In a desperate attempt to regain control and support in Scotland Wendy has come up with the hilarious idea that New Labour is 'socialist'! Read the whole thing here.

Yes the party that has just about finished privatising the NHS and our schools by PFI and who has just announced another attack on the poor and those on benefits, the party that has brought you Iraq, Trident 2 and new nuclear, now has the cheek, the gall to posture as 'socialist'.

As Iain McWhirter points out:

"It was the SNP government, elected in May, that finally ended private sector involvement in the Scottish health service, after Scottish Labour put it there under Jack McConnell. This minority SNP administration has also abolished prescription charges, saved local A&E units, backdated the NHS pay award, abolished student fees, cut class sizes, begun a pilot for free school meals, given equal rights to the children of asylum seekers, rejected nuclear power, doubled the international aid budget, ended ring-fencing of council spending and condemned the Iraq war. This "right-wing" party seems to have done more to further social democratic values in 10 months than Labour managed in 10 years."
Full article here.

This despite facing electoral meltdown. As Seamus Milne (possibly the mainstream medias finest writer) writes today, Red Wendy's newly found socialist streak isn't replicated by her sugar daddy South of the Border:

"But in a week during which the chaos of Heathrow's Terminal Five has provided a timely lesson on the absurdity of New Labour's private good, public bad catechism, Brown has been determinedly hammering home his message that better public services - in health, welfare and education - can only be delivered by handing over yet more of them to the private sector.

And while Labour MPs across the country report growing hostility from core voters over the impact of migration on pay rates and housing, he continues to resist steps that could offset those pressures - such as giving equal rights to exploited agency workers - for fear of upsetting the CBI. In the words of a former loyalist, Brown has "hit the rewind button", returning to the well-worn tracks of the Blair years and picking yet another fight with his backbenchers, this time overextending pre-charge detention for terror suspects. Even some Blairites complain he's going too far: as one ancien regime luminary remarks with some chutzpah: "His universe revolves around the Sun and the Daily Mail. He's got to start standing for something he believes in - it almost doesn't matter what."

More here.

1820 predicts a Labour wipe out North and South of the Border, from Oor Seamus to Oor Wullie, as the infamous Sunday Post reported at the weekend: 'THE SNP is ahead of Labour in voting intentions for a Westminster election for the first time. An analysis of the last three UK opinion polls shows the SNP on 36 per cent and Labour four points behind on 32 per cent. Just last month the two parties were neck and neck in Westminster voting intentions. One MP predicted to lose his seat is Defence and Scottish Secretary Des Browne. The polls predict 23 SNP MPs would be returned, with 26 for Labour. The Conservatives on 18 per cent would have three MPs and the Lib Dems on 10 per cent, seven.' Imagine 23 SNP members sitting in Westminster...

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