Edinburgh Evening News - Politics - Sheridan claims new MSP pay deal could save £4m a year

A NEW pay structure for MSPs could save nearly £4.2 million a year, according to Scottish Socialist Tommy Sheridan.

He wants backbench wages to be set at the average wage of skilled workers in Scotland.

That would mean MSPs dropping from £48,224 to £25,000.

Edinburgh Evening News - Top Stories - Shooting protest to target city consulate

Hundreds of people are expected to voice their anger at the Italian government’s release of a police officer accused of shooting dead a protester during last year’s Genoa riots.

Carlo Guiliani, 23, was unarmed when he was shot and killed by a police officer during the protests at the G8 summit in the Italian city.

The officer who fired the fatal shot has now been released without charge by the Italian authorities, angering anti-globalisation groups around the world.

The Italian government has also cracked down on activists involved in last year’s riots, arresting some of the country’s leading left-wing activists.

Monday’s protest has been backed by the Scottish Socialist Party and anti-capitalist group Globalise Resistance.

Protest at the Italian Consulate, 32 Melville Street, Edinburgh, Monday 23rd December, 4.30pm

SHERIDAN SLAMS GREEDY McLEISH
Scottish Socialist Party MSP and Convenor Tommy Sheridan today attacked Henry McLeish on the publication of the Standards Committee report of the Scottish Parliament.

This report details the original complaint by Tommy Sheridan that Henry McLeish lied to Parliament in contravention of Article 2.8 of the Code of Conduct which says “Members have a duty to act honestly”. Today’s report details McLeish’s excuse that he changed his mind after he was forced to resign as First Minister for fiddling his office rent and expenses.

Tommy Sheridan said,

“This report confirms what we all knew, Henry McLeish lied to the Parliament. He said he wouldn’t take the money, then he did. We now know that he claimed it within a month of resigning as First Minister and then refused to admit it until I reported him! Now he claims he only took it because he was no longer First Minister. Yet when he resigned as First Minister he got a pension of £34,000 a year, plus a lump sum payout of £18,000 in addition to his MSP salary of £48,000, making a total of £82,000 a year. He then claims £30,000 from the House of Commons as a resettlement grant and next May will get a further £24,000 when he ceases to be an MSP plus a further pension of an estimated £30,000 as a former MP and MSP.

I calculate that Henry McLeish will have got over £1 million from the taxpayer by the time he is 70. Meanwhile, 1/3 of Scottish pensioners live in poverty. There is only one word for this, and it is greed. I have written again today to David Steel as I did last year urging a speed-up of the review he promised me last year on Ministerial payouts. This kind of snout in the trough behaviour brings the Scottish Parliament into disrepute. For the Standards Committee to find Mr McLeish innocent of breaching their Code of Conduct makes a mockery of the Code itself and further diminishes the credibility of politicians in the eyes of the public.”

For more information, contact Tommy Sheridan on 07887 795075 or Hugh Kerr on 0131 348 5631/07713 063647

McLeish cleared of code breach

Former First Minister Henry McLeish has been found not guilty of breaching the MSPs' code of conduct.

Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan claimed Mr McLeish had broken a promise not to use his golden handshake to pay off £30,000 he owed to the expenses office at Westminster.

The Scottish Parliament's standards committee ruled that there had been no technical breach of the code.

However, it also described the Central Fife MSP's behaviour as "regrettable" and said it was not within the spirit of the code.

Mail union ballot papers 'lost in post'

The Communication and Workers Union in London refused to count the block vote for Edinburgh branch secretary Derek Durkin as Scotland's regional secretary, claiming it failed to reach the union?s headquarters before last week's deadline.

That was despite the secretary of the Grampian and Shetland branch personally handing in the result to Aberdeen's main Royal Mail delivery depot on November 29 - a week and a half before last Wednesday's voting deadline.

Supporters of Mr Durkin, a member of the Scottish Socialist Party, said he would have been elected to the position, which involves representing about 15,000 postal workers and thousands more telecommunications staff, had the vote been included. Edinburgh Evening News