Welsh left looks to Sheridan for advice on how to succeed

DISAFFECTED left-wingers in Wales are to seek advice from Tommy Sheridan on how they can achieve the same kind of electoral success as the Scottish Socialists.

The SSP leader will travel to Wrexham next month to address a conference at which it is planned to announce the setting up of a left-of-centre political party in Wales.

John Marek, a former Labour MP, who won a first- past-the-post seat at the Welsh Assembly this year as an Independent, is the man behind the attempt to emulate the six-seat electoral breakthrough achieved by the SSP.

After serving as a Labour member of the assembly, he failed to be selected as a candidate and defied the party by standing under his own banner.

He said: "We want the SSP to tell us about their experiences and we want to hear their views on how they got to where they are in Scotland."

He said the new Welsh party, which has yet to be named, would be determined to defend public services and would support increased powers for the Welsh Assembly. It would back the renationalisation of the rail network and oppose the creation of foundation hospitals.

Mr Sheridan said: "Wales, like Scotland, has suffered from the failure of New Labour and there are many good socialists in Wales looking for a new home. John Marek's victory at the Welsh Assembly election in May shows that Wales could follow the Scottish example and have a successful alternative to Labour and Plaid Cymru."

A hastily set up John Marek Independent Party won about 6.5% of the vote on the North Wales regional list at the May poll, which was almost enough to secure a seat. Mr Marek claimed this showed the potential basis of support for a new political grouping. The Herald

SNP challenger 'no stalking horse'

The activist challenging Scottish National Party leader John Swinney has said he is giving grass roots members a chance to speak out.

Bill Wilson has put his name forward to stand against Mr Swinney at the party's September conference...

Some former SNP members said they were not surprised by the move.

Bill Taggart was a member of the party for 24 years but left to join the Scottish Socialist Party.

He said: "SNP members were banging their heads against a brick wall and there was a lot of in fighting and backstabbing.

"The party has gone down hill, it has lost its way and a lot of people are not happy. The leadership don't listen." BBC News Online

Experts call for new Holyrood vote system

ELECTION experts are calling for a new voting system for the Scottish Parliament.

The Electoral Reform Society claims Labour and the Liberal Democrats both won more than their fair share of seats in this year’s elections.

They want a change to a system which they say would link each party’s seats more closely to the votes it won.

And if applied to the May 1 poll, their proposed alternative would probably have left Labour and the Liberal Democrats without enough seats to form a coalition unless they involved a third party...

The SNP would have won an extra two seats, taking them to 29; the Tories would have had one more, giving them 19; the Scottish Socialists would have had eight instead of six; and the Greens would have had eight instead of seven; but there would have been one less independent. Edinburgh Evening News

BBC hopes tape of Dr Kelly proves to be 'smoking gun'

Last night, both the Scottish National party and the Scottish Socialist party called on the prime minister to resign over the war.

The SSP, which has submitted a motion to the Scottish Parliament condemning the war, demanded that the Scottish Executive recognise that it was "misled by the Westminster government, and declare it wrong to support the war". The Herald

This week Carolyn Leckie MSP will be providing Tommy Sheridan's Daily Mirror column.

Dark Actors

Rosie Kane and I took a walk in the Botanic Gardens the other weekend. From over the hill we heard a cry, "Stab him! Stab him!" As we were in the West End of Glasgow, we assumed it was a posh fight and ran up the hill to get a swatch. Turned out it was just a rehearsal for Shakespeare in the Park.

Growing up in the Gorbals, Shakespeare seemed about as relevant to me as quantum physics. But I've been fascinated by the brilliant series In Search Of Shakespeare on BBC2.

He wouldn't be struggling for material today.

The apparent suicide of Dr. David Kelly, who was Head of Microbiology at the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment, Porton Down, for eight years, was a ghastly twist in a tale that takes in a murderous war, a power-mad leader and a court of liars. The phrase "theatre of war" has never been so cruelly appropriate.

In an e-mail, Kelly talked of "dark actors" and referred to having spent five days under the "protection" of the MOD. MI5 have "cleaned" his home. What more did he know?

That people like Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon may be capable of driving a man to take his own life does not shock me. That they might be capable of lying comes as no surprise either. Nobody trusts Tony.

And no wonder. When he appeared on telly on Saturday, asking for "respect and restraint" to be shown, Alastair Campbell was rounding up such trustworthies as the Prince of Darkness, Peter Mandelson, to turn up the heat on the BBC.

The ruling powers may not hang, draw and quarter its victims anymore, but they sure hang people out to dry.

And lie, distort, manipulate and murder.

Just like Dubya and Papa Bush.

Half of all Americans now don't believe a word Bush says. Last week, he said, "We gave Saddam a chance to allow weapons inspectors in and he wouldn't let them in..we decided to remove him from power."

A blatant lie. Despite the fact that Hans Blix pleaded for two more months, Bush removed the weapons inspectors.

Now the all-conquering USA can't find WMDs. (Despite supplying them in the first place)

Making the justification for...

1.5 million deaths through sanctions
7000+ civilian deaths and rising
152 American military deaths and rising
14 British deaths
who knows how many more deaths through torture, rape and lack of food, medicines and water?

..ever less credible.

All of those victims have names, families. They all used to have a future. The children have been denied any chance of contributing their talents to the world.

There won't be televised church services for any of them.

It would be horribly ironic if the death of one man finally led to some of these "dark actors" exiting the stage.

Blair's clearly feeling the pressure. His post-Senate golden glow has been replaced by a gaunt greyness. He looks more haunted than Hamlet.

But his regime will remain intact even if Tony bows out; he'll just hand his star-spangled collar on to Gordon.

And the occupation will continue to cost Britain £5million a day. And people, not statistics, will continue to die.

The only end to this carnage is total regime change. The billions who took to the streets against this war can make it happen. Socialists share the dream of a world without poverty and war, and without shadowy figures playing our destinies like a game of poker.

The current situation is the stuff of Shakespeare alright. Blair and Bush have dragged us into the new "dark" ages and I believe that only socialism will offer us a way back out.

Domestic abuse

Every ten seconds, a woman in Scotland gets a doing from a man.

Research by Professor Elizabeth A. Stanko, conducted on a random Thursday, showed that:

In the last twenty minutes somewhere between 60 and 200 incidents of domestic violence happened.

4 out of 5 will be women abused by men.

Twenty of those affected will ring the police for help. Injuries reported will include:

• bone fractures


• rape


• stabbing


• chemical burn in the eye


• throat slashed


• broken jaw


• bleeding due to being kicked while pregnant

Few arrests will happen.

Despite the thousands of women trying to escape violent relationships, there are very few places for them to go.

In East Kilbride, valiant Women's Aid have only six refuge places. There should be ten times as many, and funded by the government. It's an outrage that Women's Aid has to depend on charity.

That's where the proceeds of the column will go this week.

Morning after pill

Young people shouldn't have sex before they're ready. Agreed

Parents should be open and honest and talk to their children about sex and relationships. Agreed

But real life is rarely like the Waltons. (Thankfully)

Talking about parental responsibility till Paw comes home hasn't worked.

While we wait for Paw, the 'moral' minority are quite happy to leave young women holding the baby. I'm not.

The morning after pill can be bought over the counter at chemists. Make it free. Make it available confidentially in schools, and back it up with access to proper, non-judgemental advice and contraception.

Malcolm Chisolm never has to wonder where his next period or pay packet is coming from. But he doesn't seem to mind condemning young women to unwanted pregnancy and poverty.

Get on his case.

When you fail to take the above

We want it all, us women.

If we do decide to have babies, we want them where we want and how we want.

I'm a midwife and a mum. I resent the way the male-dominated medical profession has wrested control of childbirth from the women going through it.

For instance, I believe that a woman has a right to an Epidural. Maternity Hospitals across Scotland face closure. Epidurals won't be available in the Midwife-only units that will replace them.

Women will be forced to elect whether they have an Epidural before they even know what a contraction feels like! If they get it wrong they'll face a very painful ambulance journey across hills and glens at the height of their labour.

Maybe the NHS should consider providing a complimentary tarot reading to help them decide?

Bamstick Bush

Whilst Blair basked in the dubious glory of Washington last week, 70 British passport-holders languished beneath an escalator at Heathrow Airport.

No standing ovations for them. Not even a handshake of welcome.

What's the connection? These people came from an island called Diego Garcia, forcibly cleared by the British in the 1950s to make way for a US military base. That military base was used during the recent US-led war on Iraq.

Britain has been quietly signing away sovereignty to the USA for decades. Hence the love-in at the Senate. That sovereignty is now in the hands of George Bush, a self-confessed bamstick.

You think I'm kidding?

"I'm...not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."
-- aboard AirForce One, June 4 2003

Special Needs

Jason is eight. For a quarter of his life he was miserable. And all because he went to school.

His mum Lesley describes how he went from being a confident, affectionate wee boy to one with so little self-esteem, he wouldn't even meet your eyes.

Jason is a boy with special needs whose needs weren't being met in a unit within a 'mainstream' setting. It took two years to get a placement at Craighead School in Hamilton. But ever since, he has been regaining his confidence, thanks to the support of expert teachers, skilled in helping children like him.

Unfortunately, like lots of schools across the country, Craighead has been selected for culling. The building is deemed inadequate. But rather than rebuild, the council have decided to disperse special needs pupils across mainstream schools.

Jason, robbed of the chance Craighead gave him, is about to be tipped back into the very system that damaged him.

He doesn't want it. His parents don't want it. The education professionals, who know that social interaction between mainstream pupils and those with behavioural and educational problems can sometimes cause more problems than it addresses, almost certainly don't want it.

Properly resourced, integrated education can and does work for lots of children. But it should be a choice.

The Council, led by the Scottish Executive, pretend to be combating prejudice and encouraging intergation. But all they're doing is seeking new ways to slash the education budget and it's vulnerable people like Jason who bear the full brunt of it.

People’s fest to challenge ‘elite’ Fringe

AN alternative to the Fringe Festival is to be launched next month amid accusations that the world-famous event has become elitist and turned its back on the city’s ordinary population.

The Edinburgh People’s Festival, which ran for just one night last year, is to be expanded to a week by organisers as part of a drive to reclaim the Festival by taking theatre, poetry, comedy and music to the outskirts of the city.

With prices for some Fringe shows reaching an unprecedented £15 this year, those behind the alternative event – to run from August 10-16 – say the need for the People’s Festival has never been greater. They are confident that their festival can expand further next year and become an annual part of the Edinburgh Festival calendar.

Scottish Socialist MSP Colin Fox, who is organising the event, accused Edinburgh Festival bosses of running “nothing more than a tourist attraction” with no cultural benefit to the working people of the city.

He said: “The Festival has become too commercial and expensive. It’s no longer aimed at the Edinburgh people and it can’t pretend it is an event for the people of the city. It’s become nothing more than a tourist attraction. Nothing takes place outside of about three streets.

“It’s actually quite ironic because the Fringe was born out of criticism that the Edinburgh Festival was elitist and now it faces the same charge. Our event puts the Edinburgh Festivals in context. What Edinburgh has now is a multi-million pound tourist extravaganza which leaves the city cold.” Sunday Herald

People's Festival to challenge 'corporate' Edinburgh Fringe

Colin Fox, who is organising the People's Festival, said it would give a platform for new performers in areas such as Wester Hailes, Portobello and Gilmerton. 'The same thing is happening to culture that happened to football,' he said. 'It is being taken over by brewers and multi-nationals and prices have shot up.

'The festivals make millions for the hotel chains and big pubs in the heart of town, but does little for the people who live in the parts of Edinburgh not being shown off to the rest of the world.'

A one-night prototype People's Festival was held last year at the Jack Kane centre in the Craigmillar area. Its success encouraged Fox, who is also a Member of the Scottish Parliament, to organise a full week of events this year. Tickets costing just £2 will sell for performances of theatre, music and art. The Observer

For more information see the Edinburgh People's Festival Website

COVER-UP: Files on brutal schools closed to the victims

THE Scottish Executive was accused of a cover-up yesterday after files on brutal schools run by monks were withdrawn from public access.

The records had been open to the public for years but were closed after three men were jailed last week for beating and molesting boys at a school run by De La Salle monks...

Last night, Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan called for a public inquiry.

He said: "If Scottish Executive officials are found to be deliberately closing files to prevent further outing of abuse, they stand accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

"This smacks of conspiracy at the highest level.

"It's a sad day for democracy when government officials are closing files that may prove the widespread abuse of children." Sunday Mail

Schools to be sued over junk food Sunday Herald