Meeting on standards of public officials in Glasgow.

'La Plus Vielle Alliance Du Monde' - A Communication With The French Consulate

The letter handed to the French Consul reads as follows:-

Dear Monsieur Coffinier,

We wish to note our concern at BBC Scotland portraying the position of the French Government as opposed to Scottish independence.  The French Republic, rightly, has made no such statement, or shown any desire to dissuade or persuade Scots to vote for independence.  Nonetheless many Scots have been left with that impression after remarks made by a French Euro MP were reported by the BBC as if they reflected the ‘French view.’

It is with incidents like this in mind that we respectfully ask that you make representations to the French Government to request that OSCE-ODIHR international election monitors are brought to Scotland to monitor the independence referendum.

France has always been an ally of Scotland.  The French Government has stood by Scottish democracy in the past.  The ‘father of Scottish democracy,’ the suffrage campaigner Thomas Muir, was granted citizenship and asylum after being persecuted by the British Government for his commitment to democracy in Scotland.  When de Gaulle visited Scotland he described the relationship between our two countries as “La plus vielle alliance du monde.”

It is in the spirit of that ancient amity and friendship that we ask for your support today.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Durie

Organiser @ Power In Community

Press Release: Honour The Auld Alliance - A Fair Poll For Scots

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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CONTACT DETAILS
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Email: nick.durie@googlemail.com
Telephone: 07798903944

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NOTES TO THE EDITOR
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* The BBC has portrayed a number of foreign ministers from EU states as opposing Scottish independence. This has led to statements from two foreign governments correcting the BBC for their impartial reportage. (http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/6888-exclusive-scotland-a-qhighly-valuedq-part-of-eu-says-dutch-foreign-minister)

* The BBC is a state broadcaster for the UK. In respect of Scotland's referendum, after multiple complaints about the BBC's biased coverage it has stated, "We are not in an official referendum campaign and therefore do not have to balance it out between yes and no." (http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/referendum/6740-we-dont-have-to-be-balanced-in-referendum-debate-says-bbc)

* The BBC portrayed "the French view" on independence by interviewing a French Euro MP who was previously a New Labour special advisor. Her views reflected nothing more than personal bias but this was reported as if she were a government spokesperson (http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/propaganda-against-scotland/)

* The Organisation for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights is an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe executive agency; its election monitors are recognised the world over as guarantors of fair polls, and fair media, and they take a dim view of media bias (http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/oh-dear-new-labours-control-of-bbc-scotland-must-be-curbed/)

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BEGINS
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Demonstrators are gathering outside the French Consulate in Edinburgh today at 1pm, to urge France to honour, 'the Auld Alliance.'

"We have had enough of media bias undermining Scotland's democracy, and a fair independence poll," says Nick Durie, one of several lobby organisers. Demonstrators are assembling today outside the French consulate in Edinburgh to ask France to support Scottish calls for an election monitoring mission to be dispatched from the Organisation for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - a European election monitoring body.

This year BBC Scotland - the state broadcaster - has claimed that three foreign governments have opposed Scottish independence. The former British ambassador, Craig Murray, has claimed that this is because the BBC in Scotland is controlled by New Labour. Earlier this year the BBC interviewed a former New Labour special advisor, who is now a Euro MP. She opposed Scottish independence. Her views were aired as if they reflected the position of the French Government. Scottish viewers were left with the impression that France had been denouncing Scottish independence.

On the 18th of September, next year, Scots will decide if Scotland should be an independent country. When De Gaulle visited Scotland he described Scotland's relationship with France as "La plus vielle alliance du monde." Historically France has taken a great interest in Scottish democracy. When the 'father of Scottish democracy,' Thomas Muir, was rescued by French officials after having been transported for campaigning for the vote the Republic gave him citizenship and hailed his efforts. Today Scotland needs the help of "La plus vielle alliance du monde," to prevent the British government using state controlled media to influence the independence referendum through biased reportage.

"Fair faw the Auld Alliance!" Said Nick, in the Scots language. "Vive L'Alliance Franco-Ecossaise."

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ENDS
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CONTACT DETAILS
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Email: nick.durie@googlemail.com
Telephone: 07798903944

-------------------
NOTES TO THE EDITOR
-------------------

* The BBC has portrayed a number of foreign ministers from EU states as opposing Scottish independence. This has led to statements from two foreign governments correcting the BBC for their impartial reportage. (http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/6888-exclusive-scotland-a-qhighly-valuedq-part-of-eu-says-dutch-foreign-minister)

* The BBC is a state broadcaster for the UK. In respect of Scotland's referendum, after multiple complaints about the BBC's biased coverage it has stated, "We are not in an official referendum campaign and therefore do not have to balance it out between yes and no." (http://newsnetscotland.com/index.php/referendum/6740-we-dont-have-to-be-balanced-in-referendum-debate-says-bbc)

* The BBC portrayed "the French view" on independence by interviewing a French Euro MP who was previously a New Labour special advisor. Her views reflected nothing more than personal bias but this was reported as if she were a government spokesperson. (http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/propaganda-against-scotland/)

* The Organisation for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights is an Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe executive agency; its election monitors are recognised the world over as guarantors of fair polls, and fair media, and they take a dim view of media bias (http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/03/oh-dear-new-labours-control-of-bbc-scotland-must-be-curbed/)

On Open Letter Regarding Standards of Fidelity at Glasgow City Council

"On behalf of the Committee of 100."

On Open Letter Regarding Standards of Fidelity at Glasgow City Council

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=195f3febf8c3e95f41f374c75&id=6620141684&e=ae97e0e467
Dear Gordon Matheson,

You will perhaps have heard of the sorry tale of the footballer Garry O'Connor who was sentenced to a community payback order for possession of Cocaine; the financier David Fleming who was fined and placed on the sex offenders register for a public indecency on Sauchiehall Street; the J&M Services company run by Mervyn Johnston and Joe McFall which rightly had to pay out £27,000 for sexual harassment, and of Susan Forsyth the Glasgow social worker who fraudulently claimed benefits and was ordered to pay 20,000.  The public too have heard of Stephen Purcell and his 'chemical dependency' but not of the other allegations which were made of him, of Gilbert Davidson and his ongoing record of sexual harassment and sexual assault, of Stephen Curran and Ann McTaggart and their public liaisons, and of Ruth Black and the money which went missing under her administration of an LGBT centre, and indeed of you, and the events for which you say you are sorry.

What they perhaps have not heard is that each of your team escaped prosecution for very similar misdemeanors. Standards of fidelity in public life are not about how you choose to enjoy yourselves privately. They are about holding you to promises you have made, to standards that government expects all citizens to follow, and they are about financial probity as we invest power in you to look after our public finances.  What again perhaps most people have not heard is that Councillor Paul Rooney from your team is a former Depute 'Fiscal.  Given the tremendous good luck that none of the misdemeanours committed by your team resulted in prosecutions this raises some serious concerns with regard to the separation of the local state and the local Scottish Justiciary.

Such fabulous good fortune however may have gone unnoticed had it not been for the way your administration handled the corrupt payout to Ronnie Saez after was it was exposed beyond doubt by the charities regulator as indeed corrupt and immoral. While they stated that they were not in a position to prosecute because it was beyond their powers, we understand that citizens are considering a legal challenge after your response to this investigation was not only to fail to order the repayment of the £500,000, but to indicate that the Councillors responsible Cllr George Redmond and Cllr Jim Coleman (both from your team) would also go unpunished.

But even so, in your desire to turn over no stones, this bad politics is further compounded by your support for the waste incinerator  being built in Polmadie, which is contrary to your plans surrounding combined heat and power.  To hand over this plant to Viridor, under a deal approved by Robert Booth, then GCC director of land and environment who is the brother-in-law of a senior executive at Viridor, looks to be nothing short of scandalous insider trading - a fact you have overlooked, and continue to overlook despite it being pointed out.

Subsequent to our investigation of these facts the 100 Promises campaign has also been told a number of other apocryphal tales. Until these reports are corroborated we can't take them seriously but the fact that we cannot dismiss them as malicious rumours because of the wrongful actions that we can observe with certainty speaks volumes for the state of political fidelity in this city.

To that end and owing to the seemingly unendless tales we hear about financial irregularity at GCC we will be holding a public meeting in that part of the city that Ronnie Saez, George Redmond, and Jim Coleman robbed from (which your Council has allowed and endorsed) to present our findings.

We will of course invite you to defend your record.  I will send full details to your office in due course. It provides us with no pleasure to be holding a meeting on this subject as we would rather be challenging you on other promises than your promise to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour but sadly your record as a council on these standards applying to yourself is now being called into question.

Reportage from action around day of remembrance for ATOS victims and Labour's Promise 74

Protesters blast Tory cuts and claim breadline payments cause deaths of 73 Brits every week

4 Dec 2012 00:01

THE campaigners held the protest against the Tory cuts at the Cenotaph in George Square, Glasgow,and blamed the Conservatives for causing the death of compassion and decency.

The wreath protesters laid at George Square

CAMPAIGNERS laid a wreath yesterday to mourn the death of decency and compassion caused by the Tory-led crackdown on benefits.

The Daily Record has been highlighting the plight of those who have had their disability payments taken off them by medical testing firm Atos.

Yesterday the consequences of the benefits blitz were laid bare as protesters claimed 73 sick and disabled Britons – from the terminally ill to those with industrial injuries – die every week while trying to scrape by on breadline payments.

The demonstration at the cenotaph in George Square, Glasgow, was followed by a protest outside Atos’s office in the city’s Cadogan Street.

It was led by whistleblowing nurse Joyce Drummond and Nick Durie from the Committee of 100 pressure group.

Joyce said: “Today is a mark of remembrance to everyone who has died due to the policies of Atos and the DWP.

“It is fitting that it is International Disabled Person’s Day.

“Now anyone placed in the Workrelated Activity Group by Atos, and sanctioned by the DWP, will have to work for nothing in work placements to get their benefit.

“If you are placed in that group, you are deemed not to be fit for work, so why would you be working for nothing if you can go out and earn a wage?

“All that’s going to happen is that more and more people will be kicked off their benefit.”

Some of the Atos protesters at George Square

 

Under the Work Programme, disabled people will be told to take unpaid work or risk losing up to 70 per cent of their employment support allowance.

Joyce said the plight of the most vulnerable was being worsened by cash worries.

She said: “I worked for Atos and they are a shambles.

“They are making profits on the backs of sick and disabled people in this country.”

The ex-nurse also slated the response of politicians. She added: “No political party has stood up to them.

“It was introduced by Labour, the Lib Dem-Tory coalition have made it even worse and in Scotland the SNP are doing nothing about it either.

“I know from the inside that people are set up to fail these assessments. It has got worse under the coalition.

“We all know that these assessments are a joke.”

Nick said Labour had failed to live up to their pledge to protect people from the impact of Government welfare reforms.

He told the protest: “Labour made this bold commitment and we want them to live up to it.

“We have found evidence that they are participating in the work programme.”

Nick slated the move to make Atos sponsors of the Commonwealth Games, adding: “It will mar the image of the city.”

Ex-MSP Tommy Sheridan said: “It is important Atos are exposed as rogues. You wouldn’t let them run a bath, never mind part of the welfare state.”

The protest continued outside Atos’s base in Cadogan Street.

David Churchley, 59, of Pollokshields, Glasgow, is waiting for Atos to rule on his case.

He said: “They are not in a position to state what my circumstances might mean despite the fact my right arm and my right leg don’t work.”

David has been sickened by the cases highlighted in the Record. He said: “There are people with cancer who have months to live and yet their benefits are being cut.”

The image of Glasgow mired? Never. Meet 11:30am, Mon the 3rd of December @ George Square. Say NO to ATOS.

First published: http://bit.ly/V02F9a

TELL GLASGOW CITY COUNCIL: NO TO ATOS, NO TO WORKFARE

Nick Durie argues that Glasgow City Council must be held to account for their appalling decision to have Atos as chief sponsor of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014, as well as their support for workfare programmes.

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Published 28th November, 2012

Nick Durie

NIck Durie is a community activist in 'Power in the Community'. He is organising a campaign called 'Committee 100' which aims to hold Glasgow City Council to their 100 election promises.

“Notes the Workfare scheme introduced by the Westminster Government that forces people on welfare to work without payment under threat of loss of benefits; Believes that this undermines paid employment, genuine volunteering and the social welfare system, and does not benefit individuals or communities, but perpetuates poverty; Resolves not to take part in any Workfare or other forced labour scheme.” – Edinburgh City Council motion

Last month Edinburgh decided it was not going to participate in workfare. Labour and the SNP followed up their parliamentary opposition in to the welfare reform bill by backing a Green motion to divest The Council of any relationship with the UK Government’s workfare programme.

I recently went to a conference where both Cllr Gordon Matheson and council executive Liz Cameron stated that Glasgow was “the real capital of Scotland”. Certainly the text of Labour’s apparent opposition to ‘welfare reform’ in Glasgow could not be any clearer if the party’s 100 Promises manifesto is anything to go by.

Promise 74: “Labour will work with social housing, financial advice providers, the third sector and faith groups to protect our people from the impact of the Coalition Government’s unjust welfare reforms.”
Nonetheless Glasgow City Council is participating in the work programme. Evidence is mounting of widespread use of benefits claimants being forced to work as gardeners, drivers, and GCSS security workers, although The Council is anxious to avoid talking about this (presumably because it would look like hypocrisy).

This enthusiasm for workfare is not the only way The Council is in breach of Promise 74, however. As yet there is no sign of the grand coalition Labour bosses claimed to seek to build in May to oppose ‘welfare reform.’ Indeed the visible signs are of an embrace of welfare cuts, at the most public level. No event has come to symbolise the Labour Council’s strategy more than its efforts to secure and deliver the 2014 Commonwealth Games. This event has been central both to the City’s marketing strategy, and to its economic goals. Without getting into whether this is a sensible policy, or whether it is being carried out in an effective or enlightened way or not, the Games has been seen by The Council as a way to revitalise the City’s East End, and place Glasgow on a world stage. Council bosses took no chances, and put Scotland’s most powerful businessman in charge of the Games – Green Investment Bank supremo, boss of Scottish and Southern Energy, asset stripper private equity boss, Robert Haldane Smith (or as the man who lords it over his private island in the Firth of Clyde has liked to style himself since Labour gave him a peerage, Lord Kelvin). He has taken a decision that utterly flies in the face of Promise 74. He has brought in ATOS to sponsor the Games.

ATOS have been administrating the UK Government’s cuts to welfare. They have punitively struck thousands of vulnerable and disabled people off the welfare roll with their fantastic “work capability assessments,” declaring cancer patients, heart transplant patients, the terminally ill, and the mortally sick ‘fit for work,’ sending many to an early grave, and forcing thousands to spend their last living days penniless and starving. There is no greater symbol of what is wrong with this country than what is being done to kick the crutches away from the poor, the disabled and the dying.

The testament of ATOS’ own staff has recently come to light, and it shows the inhumanity of the system that they have put in place. Here is how one ATOS worker describes what goes on:

The staff are broken beyond usefulness. They are too few, with the wrong training, cobbled together from various departments after cut backs and reshuffles, with no direct chain for the administration. Each claim can pass through more hands than a gift at a children’s pass the parcel game. No two members of staff can do each others job and no one person knows how to process the claim from start to finish. The senior management are completely ineffectual.

Meaning that when a member of the public phones to enquire about their claim they cant effectively be dealt with. Every call will get a different result to the same enquiry.

They are under that much pressure to input the data that it doesn’t matter if it’s wrong, who cares if someone gets too much or too little, or lost in the system, they are only a stat. Their life may be ruined, but the staff can’t care, they just have to type, type, type, and hope that someday they’ll get on top of it.

I found a member of staff crying today, they had just processed a claim for somebody who was just about to discover they had been denied their ESA. The client had just survived a heart transplant, an actual full heart transplant. Atos disagree with the surgeons and doctors, and have deemed this person, “fit to work”.

As a result of Lord Kelvin’s brutal decision, this is now Labour’s chosen Commonwealth Games “partner” – the company they have chosen to stand alongside them in showcasing Glasgow to the world. Do we really want the image of Glasgow to be mired in the image of the dead and the callous?

That is why the community campaign (dubbed the Committee of 100) which aims at holding The Council to their 100 Promises is calling on Council leader Gordon Matheson to slap down the jumped up peer. The ‘Laird of Inchmarnock’ has gone too far, and his decision risks tarnishing the image of the City of Glasgow. It also flies in the face of stated Labour policy.

On Monday the 3rd of December across the UK people will be gathering to remember the victims of ATOS. An early day motion in the UK Parliament calls for the day to be an official day of remembrance. The Committee of 100 has called a demonstration to coincide with the day of remembrance. We are asking Gordon Matheson to join with us and to slap down this spiv. We will be meeting, with copies of Labour’s promises, outside the City Chambers at George Square on Monday the 3rd of December, at 11:30am. We would ask everyone who opposes the ATOS regime, and workfare to join with us. We must not allow Glasgow to be tarnished in the eyes of the world.

Meet 11:30am, Mon the 3rd of December @ George Square. Say NO to ATOS.

The Promise Inspectors

"I've just won a budget vote!" An adrenaline pumped Councillor Matheson beams.  It was the moment many of us realised that the May elections in Glasgow were going to be a cut-throat political contest that would determine the city's future.

In that election, an embattled Labour Party launched a campaign that would see it spend money it barely had in a defensive fight to retain control of its heartland city from a bullish SNP. No expense was spared in campaigning, and the Labour Party came out fighting, promising to build publicly owned wind turbines to fund district heating (like in Scandinavia) for working class communities (eliminating fuel poverty) - a huge capital works programme.  It didn't end there.  Health inequality would be eliminated in five years.  The coalitions benefit cuts would be fought tooth and nail with all the Party's powers, building a grand coalition.  1000 new jobs every year would take the recession head on - part of a "Glasgow Guarantee" to provide every young person with a job, education or traing.  Loansharks, landlords, privatisers, Tories - Glasgow would take them all on.

And then stop.

So Labour won the election, and its 100 Promises now comprise its mandate for action.  Too bad then the party chose to celebrate its victory by breaking six promises in six months.  A councillor is an illegal landlord, a councillor has breached licensing laws designed to tackle problem drinking, the council is actually sacking hundreds of people, and all the while it has been taking part in the work programme attacking the unemployed.  ATOS - the company widely credited with killing disabled people by removing their benefits in punitive assessments - is chosen as the Commonwealth Games sponsor.  The party has abandonned the council tax freeze.  A high profile new 'combined heat and power' gasification plant is instead to be simply a privatised power station, spilling toxic chemicals out into a poor community.  There is something wrong with Glasgow politics.  The rot has set in again already.

"I recall Glasgow Labour saying that Glasgow children were exceptional.  I remember it.  I think it typifies everything you need to know about Glasgow politics," Community Organiser Nick Durie explains. "Unlike weans in other parts of the world apparently Glasgow's bairns learn better in class sizes over 35."  The anecdote tells the story of how the council explained its plans to cut over a dozen schools - the second such closure programme in the years of the previous Labour administration.  "People in this city are treated with contempt and taken for fools.  That's why we have to preserve and extend the changes we have started to see in Glasgow politics."

Nick is helping to organise a campaign - which has been given the working title of the "Committee of 100."  The fledgling coalition met on the day of US President Barack Obama's re-election in the Quaker Meeting House in the city centre.  A smaller affair, the launch was nonetheless attended by four of the city's commmunity councils, as well as dozens of concerned citizens.

Speakers talked about the need to uphold promise 74, which commits the council to opposing workfare and welfare cuts, of the need to insist on the council upholding its promise number 17 which states that the council will only take action with the agreement of communities, and will be led by their desires; campaigners rallied to take action on the ATOS sponsorship of the Games, with a promise to take part in demonstrations set to mark the deaths of all the people the UK welfare cuts have killed (currently 73 a week die after having been found 'fit for work' - their benefits cut off).

As community campaigner Emma Nicol ended her speech outlining the approach the new coalition would take (to be expressly non-party political, and to hold the council - regardless of political persuasion - to account on its 100 Promises), the meeting then adjourned for citizens to meet each other and exchange stories and contacts, after which strategy groups were formed to discuss how to take forward holding the council to account on three general themes.

As the meeting drew to a close and sponsorship was collected for the film about the campaign to hold the council to account, those in attendance each returned feedback forms detailing what they would do as a result of the evening's meeting.  Many promised to take further action, becoming 'Promise Inspectors' for the Committee of 100.

If the evening's events were anything to go by, had Labour expected that they might be able to quietly file away their manifesto into some dark recess, never to be leafed through again, it looks increasingly likely that they have been badly mistaken.

Further details of how individuals can get involved are available at: www.powerincommunity.blogspot.com