Posted on 05/02/2003 6:57:21 PM PDT by Willie Green
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THE SOCIALISTS
By Shirley English
IF THERE was an award for the best celebration of Scottish election night it would, without doubt, go to Colin Fox of the Scottish Socialist Party.
Hearing that he had been elected as a regional list MSP for the Lothians, in the early hours of yesterday morning, he leapt off the platform, over a barrier and jumped up and down cheering with his fists in the air, before running back to hug party comrades.
His exuberant outburst was an early indication of the type of night it was going to be for the left-wing party founded by Tommy Sheridan just five years ago.
Mr Fox, 41, a SSP party organiser in Edinburgh, was one of six Scottish Socialists returned to the Parliament in what Mr Sheridan called a fantastic night that would launch a revolution across the country. In two other seats, Orkney and Pollok, the SSP came second and it saved deposits in many others.
Until this election Mr Sheridan, 39, was a one-man party at Holyrood. By the end of counting yesterday, he had a band a merry men and women at his side elected to regional list seats through proportional representation.
They are Rosie Kane in Glasgow, Mr Fox in the Lothians, Frances Curran in West of Scotland, Carolyn Leckie in Central Scotland and Rosemary Byrne in the South of Scotland. All will donate half their MSP salary to party coffers.
“This has surpassed our best expectations,” Mr Sheridan said. “The mood of the electorate is clearly changing. They are looking towards a future where parties actually stand for something and have the courage to fight for their beliefs, instead of the same grey porridge served up in different coloured bowls by the four main parties.”
He added: “We need a revolution in society because the way our pensioners and workers are treated is unacceptable.”
Mr Sheridan, who spearheaded Scotland´s anti-poll tax campaign and was elected to Glasgow City Council in 1992 from his prison cell while serving a six-month sentence for his involvement in a protest, said that socialism was now firmly back on the agenda in Scotland.
In a typically passionate address, he said: “We have given encouragement to the underdog, we have given hope to victims of injustice, those who still carry the torch of hope, justice and democracy. That flame is now burning brightly here in Scotland today.”
He added that he was confident his party´s six MSPs would realise their manifesto pledges and pointed out that with only one MSP his party had managed to abolish warrant sales and very nearly succeeded in winning free school meals for every Scottish child. The party´s far-left policies will now come under much closer scrutiny by political rivals, however.
Ms Kane, previously a youth worker in Glasgow´s Drumchapel area, gave her impression of the impact the SSP would now make at Holyrood. “We´re going to bring colour, imagination, all sorts of diversity and attitude. We´re going to completely change the place. I hope that the Parliament is going to become a bit like the Big Brother house, and people are going to want to watch it to see what´s happening. They´re going to be amazed at all the madness and craziness that´s going to happen in there,” she said.
THE GREENS
By Gillian Harris, Scotland Correspondent
THE Green party, formerly regarded as a fringe group in British politics, celebrated an “enormous step forward” yesterday after winning seven seats in the Scottish Parliament.
The party leader, Robin Harper, who four years ago became Britain´s first Green parliamentarian, will be joined by six new Green MSPs when politicians return to Holyrood.
The Greens, now the fifth largest party in the Parliament, surpassed most people´s expectations, winning seven seats on the regional lists in Lothian, Glasgow, Mid-Scotland and Fife, Highlands and Islands, North East Scotland and South Scotland.
Yesterday a delighted Mr Harper said that the result was a “thumbs up” from the electorate. “You are going to have a completely different picture in the Scottish Parliament,” he said. “We have seven people working in a green way and not giving in to ya-boo politics. This is an enormous step forward for Green politics because with such a big group having achieved official party status in the Parliament, we have access to the board and will be taking part in the programming of the Parliament, while calling our own debates.
“People will be expecting quite a lot of us — both those who elected us in Scotland and our Green colleagues in the rest of the UK, Ireland, and Europe. And over the next four weeks we will be making our plans to make certain that we are as effective as possible.”
Mr Harper went on to criticise the Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition for failing in its first term to address issues such as genetically modified crops, recycling and the designation of Scotland´s second national park in the Cairngorms.
“Every piece of legislation that the Executive produces that is connected to an environmental promise in their manifesto, we will make sure that they keep to those promises,” he said.
Mr Harper also welcomed an influx of Independent MSPs, including the hospital campaigner Dr Jean Turner, and Margo MacDonald, a former SNP veteran who fell out with the party and stood as an independent.
“This is a Parliament which much more fairly reflects the democratic will of the people of Scotland,” Mr Harper said.
He added that local government reform was a key policy for the Greens. “This could be one of the things that we would say we would not go into an alliance, unless it was on the agenda,” Mr Harper said. “In many parts of Scotland we have fundamentally undemocratic regimes. We need effective oppositions in local government.”
Mr Harper also said that he was against private finance in public services and Labour proposals that could result in the parents of persistent young offenders being jailed.
MARGO MacDONALD: INDEPENDENT
By Our Scotland Correspondent
MARGO MacDONALD, who resigned from the Scottish National Party after an acrimonious split with the leadership, could not resist a dig at her former colleagues yesterday when she won a decisive victory as an Independent.
Ms MacDonald, who secured 27,000 list votes in Lothian, said that the established parties should learn a lesson from the rise of the Independent candidates — that soundbites and slick campaigns did not win votes.
“My campaign was based on talking and listening to people on the streets,” she said. “The SNP thought their campaign was slick and media-friendly but they were on one side of the street and the voters were on the other getting on with their business.”
Ms MacDonald made her remarks as the SNP came to terms with losing eight seats. The veteran politician, who was once the party´s deputy leader, left in January after she was relegated to fifth place on the Lothians list.
She said yesterday that her return to the Parliament heralded a new era in politics. As an Independent MSP she could represent her constituents without the party machinery bearing down upon her. “There were one or two votes in the last Parliament where I was whipped into voting against my better judgment, but no more,” she vowed.
She said that the “touchy feely” personal approach to politics was sometimes derided by politicians but that bigger parties had ignored it at their cost. “Independents like me won because we weren´t promising the earth. Voters are fed up with all that. People trusted us more because we made a personal connection with them.”
Ms MacDonald is expected to continue her role as a tenacious critic of the new Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood and as a champion of tolerance zones for prostitutes.
“We are in the vanguard of a new force in Scottish politics — people of independent mind who have decided it´s much better to talk to people and listen to people,” she said.
'I am here because my conscience dragged me'
DR JEAN TURNER: INDEPENDENT
By Shirley English
LESS than a week ago political commentators were writing off the challenge to Labour posed by Jean Turner, an Independent fighting hospital closures in the Strathkelvin and Bearsden constituency.
On paper it seemed that the 7,800 majority of the sitting Labour MSP, Brian Fitzpatrick, was too high a mountain to climb for a newcomer unknown outside the boundaries of the parliamentary seat. Her challenge would be admirable, they said, but ultimately futile. How wrong they were.
Yesterday Dr Turner, 63, pulled off one of the most astonishing victories of the Scottish election and claimed the first Labour scalp of the night, winning with 10,950 votes, just 400 ahead of Mr Fitzpatrick but enough to oust the former policy adviser to Donald Dewar, the late First Minister.
Holding back tears as her supporters at the count in Bishopbriggs sang “For she´s a jolly good fellow”, Dr Turner summed up the significance of her victory. “I am here because my conscience dragged me here. I don´t think I would be here if the politicians had listened to the people. I hope this teaches them a lesson — that they ignore the people at their peril,” she said.
Until three years ago Dr Turner had little interest in politics and after 35 years as a Glasgow GP was looking forward to retirement. Then came the review of Glasgow hospitals and the threatened closure of acute services and Accident and Emergency at Stobhill Hospital.
Having voted for devolution five years ago believing that it would bring democracy closer to home, Dr Turner was outraged when a petition of 43,000 signatures opposing the hospital cuts was ignored by MSPs. Her politicisation was rapid and overwhelming.
Alarm bells should have been ringing at Labour HQ when in a by-election in the seat in 2001 Dr Turner came second despite entering the campaign late in the day.
Dr Turner admitted yesterday that she was not a natural public speaker and that she found the prospect of addressing the Parliament daunting. But she said she was determined to speak up for her constituents and the health service in particular.
As well as health issues, she said that she would fight against students being forced into debt and for the environment and Scotland´s rural and fishing communities.
Dennis Canavan, another Independent, warmly welcomed her into the fold and Tommy Sheridan´s Scottish Socialists decided not to stand in her seat to give her a fighting chance. Alliances of the future perhaps? Interesting times lie ahead at Holyrood.
SENIOR CITIZENS' UNITY PARTY
By Shirley English
A TWINKLY EYED 72-year-old, made history yesterday by becoming the first “grey” candidate in the UK to win a seat fighting on a ticket to end pensioner poverty.
John Swinburne was getting used to being suddenly thrust into the limelight after becoming a regional list MSP in Central Scotland. “Considering we are only 11 weeks old as a political party, we have worked a tremendous miracle here for the grey vote,” he said. “In four years´ time we will be competing in every seat.”
Mr Swinburne stood in the Motherwell and Wishaw constituency of Jack McConnell, Scotland´s First Minister, and earlier at the count expressed satisfaction at the prospect of simply retaining his deposit. He even joked that although standing for election was exciting at his time of life, it was “not as good as watching Motherwell beat Rangers at Ibrox”.
Married for 50 years to Moira, and with four grown-up children, he said that he had always been interested in politics but was not what you would call a “political animal”.
He launched the Scottish Senior Citizens Party earlier this year after being outraged at the “fudge” over means testing in Scottish Executive proposals for free personal care for the elderly. He said that he and his party colleagues were appalled at the way his generation had been treated by successive governments.
“The new emerging ‘grey power´ in Scotland will no longer tolerate tired, sick and vulnerable old people in our communities being ripped off by the Jack McConnells or Jim Wallaces of this world,” he said.
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