Damn, so much for my political punditry:
Labour lose to the SNP in the Glasgow East by-election. In the mini-contest, the SSP's Francis Curran out polls Solidarity's Tricia McLeish. Cue whispered accusations from the Labour Party that they lost votes over the confusion that people voted for the wrong Curran.
The Glasgow Herald editorial calls it a 'Moment of Truth', but the victor in the Glasgow East By-Election tonight will be the 'Don't care, who gives a toss, how did Celtic do against Cardiff tonight?' Party'.
I can't be too cheeky about such matters. I was meaning to do a regular blogsearch of Glasgow East stories between the calling of the election and the result itself but life, music, books, Brooklyn heat and more music intervened. The one time that Shettleston gets its moment in the political sun, and I'm too busy suffering from the New York sun to fully follow it up.
The pundits suggest that the Labour Party candidate will squeak by the SNP candidate but it won't matter a jot. Like I mentioned before on the blog, it will be Garscadden all over again.
Being the Left Trainspotter that I am, I'll put my hand up to the fact that I'll be fascinated to know who will win out between the SSP and the Solidarity candidates in tonight's by-election. Sheridan's celebrity cache means that Solidarity will in all likelihood win that particular contest, and once again the SSP activists will have to rue the day that they bought into the tribune of the people celebrity socialism bollocks, which meant that for so many people that not only was Sheridan the SSP but he was the personifaction of socialism itself.
Political heroes should be long since dead . . . old black and white photographs with their myth and reputations intact, and political celebrities should only be found in old episodes of the West Wing.
It will be a bit of shame with the SSP's candidate, Francis Curran, losing out to Solidarity's Trish Mcleish, 'cos I've always liked this clip of her that I found on YouTube.
She was speaking at a Socialist Resistance meeting in London back in 2006 in the aftermath of the SSP implosion, and I just love the way she calls the 'Generals without an Army', that is the SWP, for what it is.
Comedy gold from the Glasgow East by-election:
Less a case of 'the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton', and more a case of the battle for the soul of Scottish Republican Socialism was lost in the tuck shop queue at St Andrews Secondary School in Shettleston.
Someone over at the Glasgow East by-election thread on Urban 75 mentions the awkward fact that Trish McLeish "was in the same LPYS, Labour Party, Militant, Militant Labour, SSA and SSP with Frances Curran - and she waits over 20 years to come out with this tosh?" Sad that even the most rebellious mod could have been cowed by democratic centralism for over twenty years.
Hat tip to 'Fedayn' over at Urban 75.
