Mail Deliveries To Remote Areas to be Scaled Down

Royal Mail says postal deliveries to remote areas under threat

Privatized company’s CEO calls for action from Ofcom to prevent undercutting from rivals threatening universal service obligation Royal Mail boss Moya Greene said: ‘Royal Mail is required to deliver six days a week, overnight, throughout the whole country, to stringent quality standards and at a uniform, affordable tariff.’ Royal Mail has warned that postal deliveries to rural areas are under threat because rivals are being allowed to cherry pick easy and profitable deliveries in towns and cities without having to run services to isolated homes such as on Scottish islands.

After the furore over its sell-off last year, which sparked accusations the soaring share price at the float had effectively lost the taxpayer £750m in a day, the company issued its warning on Thursday over the universal service obligation as it reported a 12% rise in operating profits to £671m. Moya Greene, Royal Mail’s chief executive, said rival TNT Post UK’s ability to pick off profitable routes in big cities was “striking at the economics of the universal service obligation” – its statutory duty to deliver to every address in the country, six days a week, at the same price. TNT Post UK has launched “final mile” delivery services in London, Manchester and Liverpool, and plans to deliver to up to 42% of addresses by 2017. Greene said Royal Mail subsidized expensive deliveries to rural areas from the profits it made from services in big cities, and any increased threat from rivals could cost it £200m in revenues by 2017.

“TNT Post UK can cherry pick easy-to-serve urban areas, delivering easy-to-handle post to homes less frequently than Royal Mail and to no defined quality standard,” she said. “Royal Mail is required to deliver six days a week, overnight, throughout the whole country, to stringent quality standards and at a uniform, affordable tariff. “Everyone should really sit up and take notice of what effect this cherry picking will have.”
Greene called for “timely regulatory action” from the regulator Ofcom to prevent undercutting from rivals threatening the universal service. The boss of TNT Post UK, Nick Wells, said Royal Mail should stop “whingeing”. He insisted his firm’s competition posed “absolutely no threat to the universal service”. “We are delivering choice for our customers, and that is good for the market overall, as well as creating jobs,” he said. “The regulator has repeatedly said there is no threat to the universal service. Royal Mail should stop this sabre-rattling. We have a small market share, there is absolutely no threat to the universal service.”

An Ofcom spokesman said: “We do not believe that there is presently a threat to the financial sustainability of the universal postal service. “We would expect Royal Mail to take appropriate steps to respond to the challenge posed by competition, including improving efficiency.” The regulator said it had a “duty to secure” the universal service and “powers to step in to protect it” if it came under threat. Ofcom is to review the universal service next year but is unlikely to recommend any changes. Royal Mail is committed to maintaining the universal service until at least 2021, and any change beforehand would have to be put to a vote in parliament. Canada Post, where Greene was chief executive until she joined Royal Mail in 2010, earlier this year announced plans to phase out some door-to-door deliveries.

Royal Mail’s strong profits – £671m before transformation costs on revenue up 2% to £9.46bn – reignited anger over the government’s controversial flotation of the 500-year-old postal operator last October. The shares, which floated at 330p, spiked 38% on their debut on the stock market on 11 October. It was the biggest one-day rise in a privatization since British Airways in 1987 and the shares went on to reach 618p. On Thursday they dropped 10% to 519p after the warning over the threat from competition.

Responding to the profit figures, Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, said: “Ministers’ case for their Royal Mail fire sale has now been completely demolished. We know Royal Mail was profitable in the public sector, but David Cameron’s government privatized Royal Mail’s profits after making the taxpayer pick up the tab for its historic debts. “Taxpayers have been left short-changed by hundreds of millions of pounds at a time when families are being hit by a cost-of-living crisis, while the City investors the Tory-led government prioritised giving Royal Mail shares have been laughing all the way to the bank.”

Brian Scott of the Unite union, which represents 7,000 Royal Mail managers, said the strong financial results showed taxpayers had been “fleeced”. “Instead of these profits flowing into the Treasury’s coffers to pay for schools and nurses, it’s flowing into the pockets of shareholders, some of which enjoyed ‘mates rates’ when Royal Mail was sold off on the cheap,” he said.

Royal Mail’s revenue from letters dropped 2% to £4.63bn last year, but parcels increased 7% and now make up 51% of overall earnings due to the continued rise of internet shopping. However, Greene warned that Amazon’s creation of its own delivery service was knocking sales. She said Amazon’s delivery arm was capable of delivering 60m-70m parcels a day, compared with the 75m for Royal Mail’s Parcel-Force arm.

Royal Mail hopes to counter intense competition by making the company more customer friendly. It is opening 100 of its delivery offices on Sundays and will pilot Sunday deliveries within the M25 over the summer. It is also making it easier for customers to track parcels returned to the seller. Rupert Neate and Sean Farrell The Guardian.

The Rise of the Special Adviser & Hopefully The Fall

Special Advisers are usually well educated University types with a political leaning. Tony Blair created the animal at the start of his tenure. Until that time such persons were remunerated by the MP that took them on. Blair changed the game and took all of them onto the books of the Civil Service. Projected recurring costs now £8million and rising. They are expected to discharge their duties observing the, “Civil Service Code of Conduct” but in practice they ignore it.

Blair McDougall is the, “No” Campaign Director. A Labour Party activist he was recruited, towards the start of the Labour Governments tenure, (under the leadership of Tony Blair) to a previously non-existent post, (one of many) of, “Special Adviser” within the civil service. Notwithstanding his role was a political appointment, “his salary and operational costs and expenses” were paid by the Taxpayer. In fulfilling his strategic role he acted as special adviser to;

1. Ian (now Lord) McCartney. (2004-2007) Held a number of ministerial portfolios within Labour governments. Allegation lodged that Blair McDougall had devoted time to his manager’s failed challenge for the post of Deputy Leader of the labour Party, (conduct expressly forbidden under the Civil Service code) see;

Click to access special_advisers_and_public_allegations_of_misconduct_1997_-_2013.pdf

2. James Purnell. (2007-2008) Rising star within the party. Resigned from Government 2009. Stood down from Westminster in 2010.

a. Appointed, “Special Adviser” to the, “Public Sector Group” of the, “Boston Consulting Group”, (worldwide policy advisory organization).

b. Appointed Chair of the, (left leaning) think tank, The Institute for Public Policy Research, (IPPR).

c. Appointed, (2013) Director of Strategy & Digital, at the BBC, a very influential post. Resigned membership of the Labour Party and any other political posts, for the duration of his employment. It is possible he might return to mainstream politics in 2015. See;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/managementstructure/biographies/purnell_james/

3. Organized and directed David Miliband’s failed campaign for leadership of the Labour party.

4. Sent to Scotland to head the, “no” campaign.

Afternote:

1. Recurring costs to the taxpayer for the, “Special Advisers” group of political appointments approximately £8million annually.

2. Former, “Special Advisers” subsequently elected to parliament, Ed Balls, James Purnell, Ed Miliband, David Miliband & possibly the most famous of them all the former Director of Communications and Strategy, (for Tony Blair) Alastair Campbell.

3. Many others have also gone on to accept influential highly paid posts in the private sector.

4. The secret of the expanding, “Special Adviser” group is networking. Though their employment may be spread across a wide variety of political and business activities, (within the UK and worldwide) they work hard maintaining contact and influence within the group so that their future may be guaranteed.

5. The Scottish electorate needs to be alerted to the growth of the, “Special Adviser” group. Vote, “Yes” to independence, thwart the efforts of, “Special Adviser”, Blair McDougall and other, “carpetbaggers”.

Better Together team games for student members

Blair McDougall: “Right then, this is a new game designed to test your reasoning ability. If I name a fruit, run to the right wall of the office and if I name a colour, run to the left wall of the office, understood?

Students: “Yes, understood”.

Blair McDougall: “Right____ready, set, ORANGE!!!!

More About David Coburn UKIP

UKIP In-fighting (Scotland)

In Autumn 2013, Serious in-fighting within the UKIP Party in Scotland, which had been going on for over a year had come to a head when Lord Monckton questioned, “irregularities” in the candidate selection process, which was seemingly interfered with from London. Lord Monckton and very many of his Scottish Colleagues objected to this imperialist behavior. Because London would not pay any heed to the wishes of the Scottish Membership, and he did not get the support of the London NEC. Lord Monckton and his many loyal supporters then resigned from UKIP Scotland’s Leadership.

This resulted in an estranged Scot, Dave Coburn (UKIP London Chairman) being selected as the Lead Candidate for a seat in Scotland. Coburn operates via a newly formed UKIP, “Puppet Regime”, set up, (in the aftermath of the foregoing disagreement) in the West of Scotland, under the direction of a, “Misty Thackeray” in Lanarkshire.

David Coburn, UKIP, (after a serious amount of in-fighting, leading to a number of Scottish leadership resignations) was included on the Scottish list by Nigel Farage and subsequently elected, scraping through with 10.4% of the Scottish vote. It transpires he wished to become an MEP because it would help him get into Westminster, (House of Commons) through the generation of, “lots of television and radio coverage”.

Presumably the expected extra media coverage will prove beneficial at the time of the 2015 General Election, (Mr Coburn is to stand for election for the Bexleyheath and Crayford, London constituency). David, (considered to be as effective a communicator as his good friend Nigel Farage) is, Chairman of UKIP in London. His place of residence is in London.

He currently rents accommodation in Edinburgh but it is unlikely he will transfer his place of residence to Edinburgh any time in the near future. Perhaps forward looking to the 2015 election. Evidently, (assuming his bid for parliament is successful) he will attend the House of Commons, as an MP. Commuting to and from the European Parliament so that he will be able to claim a salary and all the expenses that would be available to him. Quite where this, “modus-operandi” fits with representation of members of the Scottish electorate that voted him into office defeats me.

His behavior is seemingly widely practiced by UKIP MEP’s who attend the European Parliament, (from time to time) for the sole purpose of claiming as much money as possible by way of salary and expenses, (about £1million each parliamentary period). They rarely, (if ever) participate in debates which might influence policies in favour of the UK so their entire purpose of being is fruitless and expensive for the UK taxpayer but blissfully financially beneficial for UKIP members.

Nigel Farage himself recently admitted legally claiming £millions from the European Parliament, (all of which seemingly ended up in his pocket). 29 MEP’s and £29million, nice one. The Scottish electorate has opportunity, in September to set up systems ensuring effective and proper representation. Vote “Yes” to independence. Banish UKIP back to England.

An Interview with the Original UKIP founder Alan Sked

An Interview with the Original UKIP founder Alan Sked, (Professor of International History at the London School of Economics

His opening statement, “The party has become a Frankenstein’s monster”. He may have founded Ukip, but Alan Sked’s moderate, Brussels-boycotting party has gone rogue – and the academic is desperate to stop the bandwagon he first set rolling. Alan Sked founded Ukip as, “a non-sectarian, non-racist party with no prejudices against foreigners or lawful minorities of any kind”. The founder of Ukip is trying to prove to me that, when he was in charge, the party wasn’t racist.

He handed me a party application form. It makes for fascinating reading. In 1993, along with backing British withdrawal from the EU, prospective members had to be sympathetic to the following: “It is a non-sectarian, non-racist party with no prejudices against foreigners or lawful minorities of any kind. It does not recognise the legitimacy of the European parliament and will send representatives only to the British parliament in Westminster.” So no £1Million expenses fees then.

“They got rid of all that after I left,” says Sked, who resigned the leadership shortly after the 1997 general election. He claims that the tolerant, liberal and democratic party he founded was taken over by right wingers and that, outgunned and outmaneuvered by Farage and other leading figures after that election, he had no alternative but to quit.

“They took out the bit about no prejudices against lawful minorities and, as soon as I disappeared, they all decided they wanted to go to the European parliament and take their expenses.” But those changes alone don’t make 2014 Ukip racist, do they? “The de facto leader of Ukip since 1999 has been a racist political failure, ” Sked counters. He means, of course, Nigel Farage. But even if Farage’s recent statements about not wanting to live next door to Romanians suggest he is xenophobic, is there any proof he was racist when he and Sked worked together in the mid-1990s? Sked laughs at the question and recalls an incident from 1997 when the two men were arguing over the kind of candidates that Ukip should have standing at the looming general election. “He wanted ex-National Front candidates to run and I said, ‘I’m not sure about that,’ and he said, ‘There’s no need to worry about the nigger vote. The nig-nogs will never vote for us.'” Farage has denied that he said these words and always insists that he is not racist.

How did Sked feel to hear such language? Who uses such racist words unless they think they’re addressing a fellow racist or suspects they can co-opt the hearer into sharing their racist agenda? Sked shakes his head. “I was shocked,” he says. “I had never heard people use those words. At the time, others thought he was being funny. I didn’t. They showed what kind of man he is.” Sked argues that far-right wingers who have worked for the National Front in the past now work for Ukip. “If he [Farage] runs in South Thanet, his agent will be a man called Heale who was a National Front organiser in West London.” Sked means Martyn Heale, Ukip’s branch chairman in Thanet and former National Front branch organiser in Hammersmith. It was after Sked left that he was allowed to join Ukip, rising to become Farage’s election agent in the 2005 general election.

“The party I founded has become a Frankenstein’s monster,” sighs Sked. “When I was leader, we wouldn’t send MEPs to Europe because we didn’t want to legitimise it. My policy was that if we were forced to take the salaries, we would give them to the National Health Service – they wouldn’t be taken by the party or individuals. Now Ukip say they’re against welfare cheats coming from eastern Europe, but in fact they’re the welfare cheats.” Sked’s suggestion is that Ukip MEPs do little to no work in Strasbourg and Brussels but take as much public money as possible in the form of salaries and, especially, expenses. “They do nothing in the European parliament and take the money. Farage has become a millionaire from expenses.” Farage, of course, told foreign journalists in 2009 that he’d taken £2 million of taxpayers’ money in expenses and allowances as an MEP on top of his £64,000-a-year salary. “There’s no reason to vote for Ukip,” says Sked, “because if they believed in what they said they wouldn’t be there.”

But aren’t Ukip MEPs in Strasbourg and Brussels there to expose the workings of the European parliament, and aren’t their expenses funneled into promoting the party’s message that the UK should get out of the EU? Sked giggles. “Oh, that’s nonsense,” he says. “They’re hardly ever there. They just turn up for expenses. They don’t turn up for key debates.” And when Ukip does vote, he suggests, there’s no party line. “When there were only three Ukip MEPs, the LSE European Studies institute found they voted three different ways.”

A few days later, I rang Sked to get his take on last week’s local authority election results. Political pundits are widely suggesting that Ukip’s victories demonstrate the party’s emergence as a fourth national political force. Sked says he expects the party’s European ineptitude to be replicated in town halls, “I feel very sorry for voters who are now going to have as Councillors people who aren’t very sophisticated, who have no local government policies and who have no experience in running things. All Ukip is good for, if their behaviour in Strasbourg and Brussels is anything to go by, is taking public money.”

What of Farage’s suggestion that Ukip will hold the balance of power after next year’s general election? “He’s a fantasist. They always do well in Euro elections because they’re the obvious party of protest, but the idea that they’re going to come from nothing to be holding the balance of power is ridiculous. I don’t expect them to get any seats.”

Any vote for Ukip in the European poll, says Sked, was wasted. “If you elect a Ukip MEP, you’re just going to elect another incompetent charlatan that you’re going to turn into another millionaire. They go native in Brussels, take the expenses and the perks and do fuck all.”

This isn’t perhaps the language one expects from a history professor, a former student of AJP Taylor and a world authority on the Habsburg empire. But Sked is an unusual academic who became so anti-EU that his students complained to former LSE director John Ashworth. Nothing came of the subsequent inquiry. Nowadays, though, it looks as if the LSE is restraining Sked from dispensing dyspeptic Eurosceptic jeremiads to impressionable youth. The man who was the LSE’s Mr Europe in the 1980s now teaches courses on the history of the US and the rivalry between Prussia and Austria from 1618. He is currently finishing off his book Abraham Lincoln: The Critical History of an American Icon, due for publication next year, in which, he says, he will present the man venerated as “the great liberator” of African-American slaves as a “racist, war-mongering, illiberal president”.

Sked reckons it was his experiences teaching at the LSE that turned him into a Eurosceptic. Between 1980 and 1990, he was convenor of European studies at the LSE and chaired its European Research Seminar. “I would meet all these European politicians and bureaucrats who came over, and the cumulative effect was that I realised it was time to get out. We had an Italian senator and MEP once. I said, ‘How many mafiosi do you have in the European parliament?’ He said, ‘Oh, we only have about 12.’ I spent 10 years meeting these loonies.”

In the 1992 general election, Sked stood against Conservative chairman Chris Patten for the Anti-Federalist League in the marginal seat of Bath. Sked had experience of elections, having stood for the Liberals in 1970, but he had no history of humiliating Tory bigwigs. At a debate for the candidates, though, he did just that. “I stood up and said, ‘Yes or no – do you apologise for the poll tax?’ He had to say no. The headlines the day after said: ‘Patten refuses to apologise for the poll tax’.” Patten subsequently lost to Liberal Democrat candidate Don Foster – a scalp Sked claims was his.

“That remark cost Patten the election. I know he blames me for never becoming prime minister,” says Sked. “So, if I did nothing else in my life, I did this one good thing. Considering what a mess he made of everything from the BBC [Patten resigned as its chairman earlier this month] to Hong Kong [Patten’s was the colony’s last governor], he would have been a dreadful prime minister. My life was not in vain if I spared the country that.” The anecdote is worth recalling, because Sked hopes to repeat what he did to Patten in Bath in 1992 to Ed Miliband in Doncaster in 2015. As leader of his New Deal party, launched last autumn, Sked plans to stand against the Labour leader on a Eurosceptic platform. “My idea was, having created Ukip to put pressure on Tories on the right to make them Eurosceptic and campaign for a referendum, I would do the same thing for the left,” he says.

But there is more to New Deal than Euroscepticism. It calls for the renationalisation of British Rail. Why? “The railway that’s the most efficient is the east coast line and it’s under direct control. The franchise didn’t work. It came under public control and it gets the fewest subsidies of any rail company. It’s rather silly when half the others are owned by the state railways of Germany. Why have we allowed the German state railways to run our railways when the British state isn’t allowed to? It’s madness.”

So why has he, a former neo-liberal, plumped for state ownership? His reason is simple: “As Keynes said, ‘When the facts change, you have to change your opinions.'” Sked has even been tweeting links to articles by left-leaning Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz that rail against income inequality – unthinkable for today’s Ukip, whose own Twitter presence can be unwittingly hilarious.

“I’m basically a liberal, but we have huge inequality,” he says. “My grand plan is that minority parties would manoeuvre the majority ones. This is my megalomania. I should probably be taken away by the people in white coats.” Perhaps, but he’s no more deluded or megalomaniac than the other ex-Ukip figure who set up his own party, former Labour MP and TV presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk, who founded the widely forgotten Veritas party in 2005.

And he’s no more deluded or megalomaniac, perhaps, than Sked’s Ukip successor, Nigel Farage. “He’s been de facto leader of the party since 1999 and he hasn’t won a single seat [at Westminster],” says Sked. “How he thinks he’s going to get the balance of power I don’t know. He must be swallowing his own propaganda.” But some voters believe that propaganda, in part because Farage has managed to charm parts of the electorate with his beer-swilling everyman image. “Behind that image is someone who isn’t bright,” says Sked, who recalls trying to give the public school-educated Farage remedial grammar lessons: “I spent two hours trying to explain to him the difference between ‘it’s’ with an apostrophe and ‘its’ without and he just flounced out the office saying, ‘I just don’t understand words.'”

Sked recalls, too, the letters of complaint he received from Salisbury, when Farage stood for Ukip in 1997’s general election. “I remember one that said, ‘I’m very glad your candidate believes in education, but until he learns to spell it, I’m not voting for him.’ That’s the kind of person people are voting for when they vote Ukip. Why does anyone have time for this creature? He’s a dimwitted racist.”

UKIP & David Coburn

RIGHT-WINGER David Coburn left students from all over the world in the lurch after taking tuition fees in advance. UKIP’s top Scottish candidate in next month’s European elections left foreign students thousands of pounds out of pocket after he shut down their language school. Right-winger David Coburn left the students from all over the world in the lurch after taking tuition fees in advance. Coburn, 55, is described in a UKIP election leaflet as an “international freight forwarding business owner”. He ran the Lexicon School of English in London’s Kensington, which was dissolved in 1993 by the Companies Registrar after failing to file accounts. But Coburn improperly carried on trading, despite an outstanding rent bill of £45,000 and was still taking in cash until just before he closed the school. Angry students said they were left in extreme financial difficulties with one describing Coburn as an “absolute b*****d’’.

After Lexicon’s collapse, other language schools offered the students free courses. Two of Coburn’s other companies, Heliogabalus and DC Trading, were dissolved in 2010 and 2012 respectively. Coburn, now renting accommodation in Edinburgh, said: “I have had a lot of businesses. Some have been better than others. “The students all transferred on to other schools. It was the time of the Gulf War starting and everyone was having trouble. Businesses were doing badly all over the place. “Plus there were lots of cheap language schools opening up which undermined everyone. If you can’t make money out it, you have to close it.” Scotland has six European seats up for grabs this year and UKIP are hopeful of grabbing one, with Coburn top of their list.

Alex Salmond has previously insisted that an independent Scotland would have more liberal immigration policies than the UK. Coburn said: “Mr Salmond seems to want to fill the country with people from God knows where. “That’s what has happened in England where people are desperately unhappy about it and are voting UKIP.” Coburn also insists that Scots living outside Scotland should have a vote in the independence referendum. He said: “Salmond is destroying their citizenship. If they don’t get a postal vote in the referendum, it is not worth a candle. It is a fraud.”

Money for Old Rope

Taxpayers to Fund Westminster Drop outs

I expect a clear “Yes” to Independence in September will ensure Scottish taxpayers will not be required to find an extraordinary amount of money being payment to MP’s voted out or voluntary standing down at the next General Election in 2015.

So that readers & taxpayers are informed payments include;

1. Resettlement Grant: (tax free) £30,000+ (compensation for loss of MP status).
2. Redundancy pay: (tax free) £20,000+
3. Winding up Payment: £45,000+ Funding for office staff and any other incidental expenses.
4. Pension pot: £50,000 rising to £550,000, (for long serving MPS).

It is projected that in excess of 330 MP’s and their staff will qualify for the foregoing financial packages. Cost to the taxpayer £20Million. The, “Gravy Train” comes over the hill and she blew.

Annual operational costs of maintaining Westminster political systems is approximately £650Million. The split:

a. House of Commons. £365Million.
b. MP’s. (salaries, expenses. £175Million.
c. House of Lords. £140Million
Total Cost Annually. £680Million

Lifetime of Parliament. £3,755,000 YES!!!! Nearly £4Billion.

The Scandalous cost of maintaining the UK parliament cannot be justified. We Scots have, (in September) the opportunity to escape from the madness that is the UK. Vote yes to independence. We will also gain from a redistribution of financial assets at the time of independence

The Andrew Marr Show 23 March 2014

Andrew Marr interviewed Danny Alexander who offered the under noted comments on the make up of a UK government, (2015-2020).

I think that a Conservative Government on its own would be bad for the economy because it would try and take Britain out of the European Union. A Labour Government by itself would be very bad for the economy because it would wreck the strategy that has got the British economy this far. I think you need the Liberal Democrats in the centre ground of government, the centre ground of politics, to keep the recovery on the right track for the next Parliament.

These three parties, (poles apart in terms of political direction) are combined at present seeking to persuade the Scottish public to vote, “no” in the September referendum. What a nonsense! Mr Alexander views the Conservatives as a bunch of wreckers and Labour as political incompetents. But offers the Lib/Dems as the party with a vision. I oft wonder the purpose of, “Planet Alexander”. Vote, “Yes” to Independence in September so that we can be sure of electing a Scottish Government blessed with political competence, free from the old disastrous ways of the past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKI5-lCqdaU

Scottish Labour Party in Crisis- Change! What Change?

Scottish Labour Party in Crisis- Change! What Change?

In a brief to the Labour Party in Scotland, (following on from the SNP Landslide victory in the 2011 Scottish Election) Dominic Dowling, (Senior Election Agent) for all Labour candidates in Glasgow. assessed the performance of the party as having been dull and uninspiring.

Other noteworthy comments contained in his report;

1. The Party is perceived by the public to be, “a party principally of English interests, not Scottish ones”.
2. The Party offered no demonstrable opposition to the SNP administration.
3. Voluntary workers were poorly briefed with result that inconsistent messages were imparted on doorsteps.
4. The party persistently failed to give support to Holyrood to demonstrating a lack of commitment to Scottish affairs.

Evidence it’s performance, in the 4 year’s since the election, the Labour Party has failed to address and correct the issues raised. It is time Labour voters demanded the party abandon English Labour Party policies.

I doubt the existing leadership and other heid yin’s are incapable of change so someone within the Labour establishment will need to initiate the process, perhaps using the September Referendum as the impetus for change.

Labour Party Madhouse politics

Johann Lamont, (Labour Party leader in Scotland) in a speech providing support to her colleagues in England, attacked the SNP Government and policies it had introduced, (at variance with England) in Scotland, from 2007.

She went on to assure the full support of the Labour Party in Scotland of their colleagues in England, (who had only recently informed the public in England that a Labour Party UK Government would continue to maintain policies, (Public Sector Pay Freeze and any other austerity measures) outlined by the Tory Party.

She further stated that Scotland and it’s people enjoyed, under an SNP government the only, “something-for-nothing culture in the world” and went on to say that upon the return of the Labour Party in Scotland to power she would reverse the following scandalous policies;

1. Free Personal Care for the elderly to cease. Systems in place in England to be introduced.
2. Tuition Fees for Students, (mirroring those applicable in England), to be reintroduced.
3. The Council Tax freeze, (funded from central funds by the Scottish Government) to cease. Funding to be withdrawn. Councils to set local rates without subsidy from the Government.
4. Free prescriptions to cease. Charges to mirror those in England.
5. She also announced that the Labour Party would establish a, “Cuts Commission” undoing any other progressive policies introduced by the SNP. Namely Road Bridge Tolls.

Anyone, as yet undecided, should be aware of what a no vote in the September referendum will bring. Vote, “Yes” to Independence, preventing any future introduction of, ” madhouse politics” outlined by Johann Lamont and her colleagues who are simply, “cowtowing” to the English Labour Party. A few snippets of confirmatory facts:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/28/scottish-labour-hostility-snp

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/labour-reveal-taxes-will-rise-as-johann-1342878

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/staggers/2012/09/scottish-labours-support-cuts-plays-snps-hands

https://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2013/oct/johann-lamont-re-writes-history

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-20755329

http://www.government-world.com/lamont-challenged-on-something-for-nothing/

http://news.stv.tv/politics/191807-labour-leader-johann-lamont-demands-end-to-something-for-nothing-culture/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-19711805

Glasgow City Councillors Foolhardy Gamble with Public Finance To Be Reversed – Expect Chaos in Glasgow Throughout 2016-17

 

 

 

 

 

 

21 March 2014: Glasgow Council Rips Off Female Employees – But the lamb Nips the Lion. Remember this fiasco- and the cost of Attempting to Defend Their Actions

In the Inner House Lords Brodie, Drummond and Philip this morning handed down a major decision affecting more than 2,500 Action 4 Equality Scotland clients with equal pay claims against Glasgow City Council.

The Council then argued that these female employees could no longer compare themselves to male comparators who remained in the employment of the Council – the plain purpose of the Council’s strategy being to try and evade responsibility for equal pay claims.

“We began this litigation back in 2005 and over the past 10 years we have witnessed Glasgow City Council enter into complicated and costly avoidance measures to escape their responsibilities to low paid.

I might also add that none of the local Labour MSPs spoke out against these payments at the time – including Johann Lamont, the Scottish Labour leader – whose partner/husband Archie Graham was, and still is, a senior Labour councillor in Glasgow.

Finance Secretary John Swinney said the new rules will end payments to Councillors who sit on bodies known as arms-length external organizations, after a Holyrood committee discovered that Glasgow Councillors had claimed £260,000 between them.

True to his word during the Scottish election campaign – John Swinney has now put a stop to the practice which has been widely condemned – as a ridiculous waste of public money.

Glasgow City Council has lost a big appeal case, I’m pleased to say – over whether or not thousands of council workers transferred to various arms length bodies (known as ALEOs) – can continue with their equal pay claims.

The good news is that they can – so hip, hip, hooray – for the 2,700 claimants from Action 4 Equality Scotland who are affected by this decision!

Last year Glasgow City Council managed to persuade an Employment Tribunal that these ALEOs were not an ‘associated employer’ – in employment law terms.

The significance of which was that these ALEO workers effectively lost their ability to continue with an equal pay claim – once they had been ‘TUPE transferred’ to one of the new Arms Length External Organizations (ALEOs for short).

Now that always looked like a crazy decision – since the council controlled all of these bodies and even paid some of its Councillors extra ‘top-up’ payments for overseeing the ALEOs – which to many people, myself included, seemed like money for old rope.

My view has always been that Glasgow created these ALEOs in a cynical attempt to evade their responsibilities over equal pay.

Because the council calculated – wrongly as it now turns out – that by putting many of its low paid women workers into a separate, artificially created box (Cordia) – that the women would no longer be employed alongside higher paid male workers who were comparators for equal pay purposes.

Since the men – according to this train of thought – were all placed in their own ALEO (City Building) which was not the same or even an associated employer – so the was ‘off the hook’ as far as future equal pay claims were concerned.

All I would say is that whoever dreamed up this despicable plan – should be sacked forthwith by Glasgow’s ruling ‘socialist’ Labour administration – that is if they have not already departed the scene with an generously enhanced tax-free lump and final salary pension.

The Action 4 Equality Scotland clients were represented by Fox and Partners Solicitors – and Daphne Romney a leading QC who also represented A4ES during the successful GMF hearing against Glasgow City Council back in 2007.

Action 4 Equality Scotland now represents 5,500 clients in the ongoing equal pay claims against Glasgow City Council – whereas the trade unions represent only penny numbers.

 The unions in Glasgow kept their members in the dark about the huge pay differences between traditional male and female council jobs – and originally sided with the council when these big pay differences were exposed by A4ES in 2005.

So the trade unions have a credibility problem because of their behaviour in Glasgow which remains to this day – since the trade unions Glasgow also failed to put up any serious resistance over the creation of ALEOs either. So watch this space for news.

http://action4equalityscotland.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/glasgow-city-council.html
http://www.employmentcasesupdate.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed16273

 

 

 

 

GLASGOW’S largest arms-length body has overspent by almost £3million in the last nine months according to the latest council figures.

Cordia, which runs home care services and catering across Glasgow, is £2.8 million shy of what council bosses had budgeted for.

The figures were revealed in the latest ALEO report covering April 1 – December 18, 2015.

Care services are running at a loss of £3m which the shortfall expected to rise to £4.4m by the end of March, while catering is due to end the year £3m in the black.

Finance chiefs have put the problems down to higher staff absence levels, fixed fees for home-care services and staff pay awards, and said the high absence levels were related to the workforce reforms introduced by the company last year.

A Freedom of Information request seen by the Evening Times shows the company spent more than £1m on agency staff between April 2015 and January 2016.

For five of the last six months of 2016, the firm overspent by as much as three times their target for agency staff, which they said was due to staff absence and the opening of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital.

A spokesman for Cordia said: “Around 2% of Cordia’s overall home care operation is made up of agency staff, a figure which is lower than many other local authorities.

“This is to ensure a continuity of service provision during peaks in major holiday periods or exceptionally high volumes of work.”

The whole company is predicted to finish the year with a deficit of around £700,000, instead of an expected surplus of more than £2m.

Four other ALEOS, including Glasgow Life and City Parking are expected to end the year with less cash than budgeted for by the local authority, while five are forecast to come in on budget.

As reported by the Evening Times, the Cordia’s home-care sector has undergone a major restructure in the last eight months with staff moving to a seven-on seven-off shift pattern in June.

Union representatives slammed the shortfall and said Cordia has “mismanaged” its spending.

Sam Macartney, of Unison’s Glasgow City branch, said: “The home-care reorganisation was a shambles. It has weakened the service and it has not improved it.

“It stressed their staff out and it penalised the public.

“They have wasted a lot of resources, particularly within the home-care structure where there has been misspending.

“There has been far too much money being spent on agencies particularly if you take into account that the council themselves has ceased using agencies for years, especially in social work where it was shown not to be cost-effective.”

SNP councillor Susan Aitken, Glasgow city council opposition leader, said: “The value of removing social care services from the Council, both financially and in terms of the quality of service provided to vulnerable service users, was always open to question.

“The fact that Cordia is now not even delivering the profits it was set up to achieve shows that the original concerns were valid ones.”

Councillor Aitken said social care services must be returned to focus on the “needs of service users”, instead of “profit being the main driver”.

A council spokesman said: “Cordia is dealing with a number of increased costs – including overtime and associated pension payments and the delivery of key service reforms.

“This is being managed within Cordia’s own budgets and will not impact on the service delivered to home-care clients.

“The council has been fully aware of the position and has taken it into account in the probable out-turn for the current financial year.”

Earlier this month we revealed that discussions are at an advanced stage which would see the dismantling of Cordia.

The company employs around 7,000 staff, most will move across to Glasgow City Council by the end of the year, with workforce levels and terms and conditions expected to remain the same in the medium term.

 

Margaret Matts with her daughter Jane

 

 

A MAJOR overhaul of care services must be made by Glasgow city council, claim staff and clients at care provider Cordia.

In the last year, the Evening Times has highlighted a number of cases where Cordia failed to provide a service to vulnerable clients, some of whom were left for hours without help.

Home carers were moved to a seven on-seven off shift pattern in June 2015, sending the service in to meltdown within days of it being introduced.

Bosses said at the time the new rota would provide clients with “greater continuity of care” and vowed the service would improve once the new pattern “bedded in”.

Now staff and clients have called for Glasgow City Council to introduce vital changes to the service should they take on responsibility for home care provision.

Frances Smith previously raised concerns about care for her diabetic mum after she went without care for 17 hours one one occasion, and had reported at least 16 other missed visits from Cordia carers.

Frances, 59, said: “There have been too many apologies and something different needs to happen. Glasgow City Council must look at what they are able to provide. A lot will depend on whether the council get it right, and if it’s the same management. If all it is is a different name, that would worry me.”

Frances added that since she raised her concerns in the Evening Times, her mum’s care has been “excellent” but said she would be concerned if there were changes to the individual carers who come to visit, due to her mum’s dementia.

The daughter of 74-year-old Margaret Matts also said she hoped the local authority would improve the service should it take control.

Jane, whose mum Margaret was previously left lying in bed for hours when carers didn’t turn up for their appointment, said: “I think before [the service] became Cordia it ran much better.

“It was relatively new to our family anyway, but I’d hope the council would do a better job of it. This is a chance for them to sort out the issues which were happening before.”

Two members of staff echoed their concerns, but admitted they were not aware of the plans.

One employee, who has been with the firm for more than five years, said: “Whatever happens, it has to get better than it is now. Things must change, they need an overhaul.  We [the staff], never get told anything until the last minute. There were rumours that this might happen, but nothing has been told to us.”

Another home carer, who has held her post since the service was previously controlled by the council, said: “Cordia has just made a mess of everything, so hopefully it will be better going under the council. I don’t know if it will be the way it was under social work before, but hopefully, if they are going to do that, it would be better. When I first started…it has changed so much since then. It’s not the same any-more, you’re not treated the same.”

The carer said she hoped she would be given more time to spend with clients if the council were in charge, adding: “I’m just in and out with them at the moment, I hardly get to spend any time with them and some of them need much more time than I have. I’m hoping this will change things. It’s just terrible now, hopefully if it goes back to the council hopefully it will be a lot better.”

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk.news/14258432.Staff_and_families_call_for__major_overhaul

__at_Cordia_under_Glasgow_City_Council_s_control/

 

Thousands of staff will be on the move as plans are launched to scrap some of Glasgow's controversial council spin-off companies

 

 

 

Thousands of staff on the move as plans launched to scrap controversial council spin-off companies

Scotland’s largest home care provider is to be wound up and the country’s most successful marketing bureau merged as part of plans to overhaul Glasgow’s network of controversial council spin-off bodies.

Discussions are at an advanced stage which would see the dismantlement of Cordia, the arms-length agency which provides social care, catering and janitorial services.

The company employs around 7,000 staff, most of whom will move across to Glasgow City Council by the end of the year, with workforce levels and terms and conditions expected to remain the same in the medium term.

Cordia was set up almost a decade ago from the council’s social work department in a move primarily designed to avoid its predominantly female staff being caught up in the avalanche of equal pay claims.

Meanwhile, in a related move, the council-owned marketing agency, credited with generating hundreds of millions of pounds annually for the city economy via conferences and events, is to merge with the trust which runs Glasgow’s museums and sports facilities.

It is unclear what the new body combining the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau and Glasgow Life will be called but sources insist none of its functions will be diluted and the coming together is “about efficiencies and economies of scale”.

Questions have been raised, however, about the future of the council’s most successful spin-off merging with an organisation with a number of internal challenges, whilst unions and opposition leaders have expressed concern over the impact of axing Cordia on workers and the thousands of elderly people using their services.

Details of the plans, which it is understood is being driven by the council’s Labour leadership, come two months after it emerged the chief executives of both the Marketing Bureau and Cordia were stepping down.

Glasgow’s arms-length bodies, or ALEOs, have been an often controversial addition to the local government landscape in the past decade, not least because of the system of payments paid to councillors who sat on their boards.

However, after this was exposed and questioned the £250,000 top-up payments were axed by John Swinney.

One council source said the Cordia plan was “about tidying up the council family and simplifying complex arrangements” and that it would be gradually broken up.

The source also said the Marketing Bureau would continue with all its top staff continuing the work they do but under a different corporate. The source added: “It makes sense as far as efficiencies go, both organisations are also involved in events. It’s an economies of scale thing.”

Under the stewardship of chief executive Scott Taylor, the marketing bureau became one of the most successful in the UK. However, Mr Taylor announced in December that he was stepping down from the organisation.

Susan Aitken, leader of the council’s SNP group, said: “Dismantling Cordia simply exposes the reasons why this ALEO was set up in the first place, to avoid an equal pay settlement for low paid women workers and to provide extra paid jobs for Labour councillors. Since neither of those now apply, Cordia is no longer politically expedient.

“Protecting vulnerable service users and Cordia staff must now be the priority. People who rely on Cordia services, particularly home care, should not experience any disruption and staff must be kept fully informed about what’s happening to their jobs and be guaranteed that there will be no detriment to their pay and conditions as part of any move.”

Unison’s Brian Smith added: “Unions have argued for the ALEOs to be back under democratic council control for years. We find Cordia a particularly difficult ALEO to deal with, their current treatment of school janitors being a case in point.

“Home care service is also underfunded. We want Cordia workers treated with the respect they deserve.”

A council spokesman said they had to find savings of at least £133 million over the next two years.

He added: “A range of options to meet the savings target is being considered for inclusion in the council’s budget for 2016/17. Until then, it would be inappropriate to comment on specific proposals. Councillors will consider the budget at a meeting of the full council on 10 March.”

 

 

 

 

 

Prince William the “Butcher” of Culloden Infamy ensured the Scottish Highlands Would be Forever England

 

Hot Irish Battles | Page 16 | Political Irish | The Irish ...

 

The Legacy of the (Butcher) Duke of Sutherland, His Cronies & The Rape, Pillage and Theft of the Highlands of Scotland

In 1854 Britain declared war on Russia. Highland regiments, so conspicuous in the past, were now equally conspicuous by their absence. “Where are the Highlanders?” was asked. The Duke of Sutherland hastily travelled from London to Dunrobin Castle and enquired why there were no Highland volunteers, an elderly gentleman replied:

“Your Grace’s mother and predecessors applied to our fathers for men upon former occasions and our fathers responded to their call. They have made us liberal promises, which neither them nor you performed. We are, we think, a little wiser than our fathers, and we estimate your promises of today at the value of theirs; besides you should bear in mind that your predecessors and yourself expelled us in a most cruel and unjust manner from the land which our fathers held in lien from your family. I do assure your Grace that it is the prevailing opinion in this country, that should the Czar of Russia take possession of Dunrobin Castle and Stafford House next term, that we could not expect worse treatment at his hands than we have experienced at the hands of your family for the last 50 years.”

In Sutherland there were no volunteers. The dwindling number of men said: “We have no country to fight for. You robbed us of our land and gave it to the sheep. Therefore, since you have preferred sheep to men, let sheep defend you.” Those young men who refused to volunteer called a public meeting stating: “we are resolved that there shall be no volunteers or recruits from Sutherland shire. Yet we assert that we are as willing as our forefathers were to peril life and limb in defence of our Queen and country were our wrongs and long-enduring oppression redressed, wrongs which will be remembered in Sutherland by every true Highlander as long as grass grows and water runs.”

http://www.yourphotocard.com/Ascanius/documents/The%20history%20of%20the%20Highland%20clearances.pdf

Duke of Cumberland "The Butcher" When it became clear to ...

 

 

Over half of Scotland is owned by just 500 people, few of whom are actually Scots. As Britain’s great land-owning aristocratic families decline, a new breed of foreign laird is exploiting Scotland’s arcane land laws to buy up tracts of the Highlands and islands – Europe’s last great wilderness. The revelation comes in two new books which examine who owns Scotland. The authors have searched through ancient deeds and estate agents’ sales brochures to compile the most detailed picture of land ownership for a generation.

They show that most lairds no longer hail from Britain’s tweed-clad huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ classes; these days your local feudal overlord is more likely to be a self-made continental millionaire or an entrepreneur from Dubai, Egypt, Malaysia, Hong Kong or plain old America. The findings have sparked a political row north of the border. Many of the new lairds are absentee land-owners who, environmentalists claim, neglect Scotland’s greatest asset – the land itself.

Nationalist MPs and crofters, frustrated by the failure of Westminster politicians to bring Scotland into line with England and other European nations by abolishing feudal structures and regulating land use, are drawing up plans to limit foreign land ownership and introduce environmental codes for all estates.

The two books, “Who owns Scotland now?” and “Who owns Scotland”, update John McEwen’s ground-breaking attempt to sketch Scotland’s land-owning geography 30 years ago.

His study revealed that ancient British families dominated the hills, straths, glens and islands, controlling lucrative salmon beats and deer stalking from the Borders to Barra.

Since the Fifties and Sixties, however, the decline of some of the most distinguished and notorious names in the Highlands – the clan chiefs of the Frasers of Lovat, the Sutherlands and the Wills tobacco family paved the way for new owners to take to the hills.

Andy Wightman, author of, “Who owns Scotland”, recently published in April, explains: “Some of the old landowners like the Duke of Buccleuch, the Duke of Atholl and Cameron of Lochiel have survived. Their old money is still good and some of their estates have expanded. But other families have fallen on hard times and a new group of landowners has stepped in swiftly to take their place. Many of these are from overseas and as they move in, a new pattern of land ownership is emerging.”

A map of the Highland Clearances : Scotland

 

All over Scotland there are now glens and peaks that are forever Swiss, Danish, Malaysian, Middle-Eastern and American. One year ago the whisky distilling MacDonald-Buchanan family sold off the Strath Conon estate in Ross-shire, which they had held for three generations. The new kilted monarch of the 50,000-acre glen is Kjeld Kirk-Christiansen, who runs the huge Danish Lego corporation.

On the Hebridean island of Eigg, Keith Schellenberg, the fantastically wealthy former captain of Britain’s Olympic bobsleigh team who once described “his” islanders as “drunken, ungrateful, lawless, barmy revolutionaries”, sold up as part of a divorce settlement with his second wife Margaret Udny-Hamilton. The new laird is the chain-smoking, beret-wearing “fire” painter, “Professor” Marlin Eckhard Maruma from Stuttgart.

Visitors to Queen’s View in Glen Avon, where Queen Victoria used to look out on her Royal fiefdom, now look down on land owned by the mysterious businessman behind the Kuala Lumpur-based Andras conglomerate. He bought the 40,000-acre estate, once owned by the Wills family, for £6m last year.

Some ancient aristocratic families have hit the buffers in spectacular fashion. The Lovat Frasers’ downfall began when three family members died suddenly; one was gored to death by a buffalo in Tanzania, another collapsed while hunting, and the third succumbed to old age.

Others have been crippled by debt. Losses in the Lloyd’s insurance market forced Lord Kimball, a Lloyd’s Name, to sell the 47,000-acre Altnaharra estate in Sutherland. Whatever the cause, the result is that fewer than half of the big Highland estates are owned by Scots.

“It’s a dramatic change,” said George Rosie, the veteran Scottish land- reform campaigner. “In the 19th-century, parliament passed an Act allowing foreigners to buy any property. As Britain was then the biggest rooster on the midden, the idea that any foreigner would be able to buy into Britain was risible. But now there are millions of wealthy foreigners and Scotland is ripe for the plucking. And plucked we have been.”

Some of the new wave of overseas buyers enjoy good relations with locals and have earned environmentalists’ praise for their land management practices. Paul van Vlissingen, the Dutch businessman whose “holiday cottage” is the eight-bedroom white-washed Letterewe lodge on the banks of Loch Maree in Wester Ross, has helped to fund a new swimming pool and re-introduced native woodland on his 80,000-acre estate.

Other lairds, however, have been accused of barring access to walkers and neglecting the natural environment. “Mountain Closed” signs appeared on estates north of Ullapool. In Perthshire, His Excellency Mahdi Mohammed Al Tajir, from the United Arab Emirates who owns the Blackford Estate, home of Highland Spring mineral water, was accused of abandoning farms to nature on the slopes of the Ochil Hills.

Was the Highland Clearances the Main reason for Scottish ...

 

The winds of change are increasing

Nationalist politicians say Scotland’s free market in land (one of the few countries in Europe which allows wealthy foreigners to buy up unlimited amounts of land with no questions asked) has created a “land lottery”. And, while far-sighted landowners are welcome, they say new measures will need to be introduced limiting the size of their holdings and removing property from owners who neglect their land.

The Scottish National Party, set up an independent land commission and unveiled limited new proposals which encouraged the Scottish Crofters’ Commission to support crofting communities in their efforts to raise money to take over their marginal plots. In Scotland, land is suddenly a political issue.

Dr James Hunter, a Skye-based environmental historian, said: “Land has moved up the agenda ever since the first crofters took over their land in Assynt 1992. That showed that land ownership patterns could change. Since then we have had controversies over the Knoydart estate and other Highland wilderness areas. ”

The “winds of change” unsettled landowners who launched an unprecedented campaign to counter reformers’ demands. At a special public meeting Graeme Gordon, convenor of the Scottish Landowners’ Federation representing 4,000 estate owners north of the border who manage some seven million acres claimed that the debate over land ownership was based on “dangerous generalisations and misleading assertions”.

He told his audience that the “majority of landowners were committed custodians of natural heritage who provide jobs, housing and security for remote communities often at a personal financial loss”.

The battle for the Highlands is only just beginning.

Highland Clearances | Scottish Tartans Authority