Hello,
As you know this blog's raison d'etre is spleen venting, so this evening's post may come as a surprise to you in that I am about to heap praise on a Glasgow councillor. I know it hardly seems credible but this chap is exactly the sort of thing I expect but rarely get from a councillor. I'm just gutted he's doing his bit round my old constituency rather than my current stamping ground.
The fellow I am referring to is young David Meikle who represents Pollokshields and may go down in history as the first Tory anyone in our family has ever voted for. My mother thought he looked like a 'lovely wee boy' and gave him a second choice sympathy vote. It isn't hard to exceed no expectations but oor Davie has behaved like we expected him to provide gold paved streets from the word go.
Since being elected he has resigned from not one but two committees on Glasgow City Council on matters of principle. I know it's hard to believe! Like virtually everyone in Southside who isn't a toss he's opposed to the 'Go Ape' atrocity about to be committed in Pollok Park. As part of the committee responsible for approving it, he resigned when his fellow councillors chose to ignore the objections of local people (his constituents). I feel like I'm living in a dream. Bear in mind that councillors get paid to sit on these committees, can it be that we actually have a councillor on our
hand that puts principle before personal advantage.
He then resigned from the licensing board over a newspaper promotion to give every reader tokens to obtain one free pint of Guinness at an O'Neils pub. He was in favour but the puritans reckoned it would encourage binge drinking.
The boy is a star, his blog is here. We in Glasgow are blessed to have at least one councillor fighting for our interests. Please God can we have some more. All I need is for someone to publish a guide on reconciling voting Tory with one's left wing principles and I'll happily don the blue rosette.
5 comments:
Politicians of honest principal are few and far between, though the nasty wee cynic in me says it doesn't take much to turn them. Cherish such people while you can, regardless of their colours.
One small caveat. The true litmus test of honesty is when a ruling party politician goes with his or her conscience. There would be nothing more disconcerting for Labour to have one of their own turning their noses up at the the contents of the trough.
Yeah that is always the problem - if you have left wing principles, voting Tory does rather stick in the craw.
I have a friend who was a shop steward and firm labour man all through the 70's and 80's - and actually still is - but at the local elections a few years a ago he was caught out popping up a roadside signs for the local Tory candidate - he works as a buidlers mate and the buidler he works for was being paid to do it.
Of course we all ribbed him about this in the pub - but as he pointed out, he knew the Tory candidate - who lived locally - and the Labour candidate was someone from miles away - in fact three counties away to be precise - who was a solicitor or a social worker or some such and had absolutely no idea about the area.
And he also pointed out that all all the years of voting Labour, they had not actually done anything for him, except occasionally the union leaders would shaft his members in various disputes.
At the moment, on some issues, the Tories are slightly to the left of labour economically - take a look at the political compass analysis of their current position. More importantly, on the social scale, they are less authoritarian. That's how I reconciled myself to voting fro them in the local elections last year.
I've no regrets.
My girlfriend still says she couldn't vote for me simply because I'm a tory!
Well I knew, when we had a Labour government shafting the lowest paid with a tax increase and the tories objecting something very strange had occurred.
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