Read Colin Fox's clash with First Minister Jack McConnell during First Ministers Questions at the Scottish Parliament.

The Scotsman Jack McConnell, the First Minister, and other supporters of the transfer blamed yesterday's No vote on "scaremongering" and "misinformation" by campaigners, including Colin Fox, leader of the Scottish Socialists.

Mr Fox described the result as a "hammer blow" to privatising Scotland's housing stock.

The Times Edinburgh Against Stock Transfer, the campaign group, said it was pleased with the result of the vote. Johnny Gailey, a tenant from the Dumbiedykes area, said: “Finally, after all the council’s hot air, the tenants have had their say. I am pleased that the tenants of Edinburgh have seen through the council’s plans to abandon their tenants and privatise their homes.

“I trust the council will now represent their tenants’ wishes and work on their behalf to pressurise central government to release the money which was there on the table as a sweetener for the private sector. If the money was there for a private organisation, it should now be there for the council, too.”

Letter to the Herald

Let me see if I understand the facts correctly on these "rendition flights".
It is not disputed that the CIA uniformly charters flights which stop off at UK airports. This is in the course of its "normal business" and it has done so for many years. The CIA also insists it is entitled, as a legitimate part of its "war on terror", to pick up "suspects" all over the world and to interrogate them. Indeed, it admits it often transports persons it wishes to question from country A to country B. Country B is often preferred because it allows more "robust interrogation" techniques than other states which appear to respect the UN Charter on Human Rights.
Several former "suspects" of the CIA, now released, allege they were kidnapped and flown to interrogation centres abroad in Syria, Romania, Uzbekistan or Egypt and claim to have landed at various European cities en route. But our government insists that on all the 400-plus occasions that Scottish airports were used by the CIA none included "extraordinary rendition"/torture flights. All were rather part of the normal spying business of the Americans.
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, is indignant that people even suggest that he would allow such practices, although he concedes that the CIA is not obliged to tell him if these flights are being used for nefarious purposes and he never asks. And we now understand that in the late 1990s, when Bill Clinton asked to use UK airports for rendition flights, two out of three were allowed by the Blair government.
Am I the only one who gets the impression the British government knows full well what its "coalition forces" partner is involved in here and is desperately trying to cover for them?
The Scottish Socialist Party demands an immediate investigation into these flights because we do not believe the British government has so far supplied the facts.

Colin Fox, MSP, Scottish Socialist Party national convener, The Scottish Parliament.

Evening Times

SHOPPERS in a Scots town have been banned from wearing hoods and baseball caps.
Police in Paisley say the controversial move will help them catch shoplifters who try to conceal their faces from CCTV cameras.
However, the ban was criticised by Donnie Nicholson, the national organiser with Scottish Socialist Youth.
He said: "I'm disappointed by this ban. Those enforcing it should really get a grip, not least because it's winter.
"They should look at why crime occurs, it's nothing to do with youth culture. This has been tried elsewhere and it won't solve anything."

Evening Times

THE true scale of Glasgow's first superhospital was revealed today.
NHS bosses said the Southern General in Govan would have by far the nation's biggest accident and emergency unit...

Scottish Socialist MSP Carolyn Leckie, a former midwife who has long argued against superhospitals, said: "The Southern is going to be one of the biggest and busiest hospitals in the country. My main concerns are staff-to-patient ratio and pressure on beds."

SSP Research, Policy & Media Unit Press Release:
15/12/05

SSP: “People power defeats Edinburgh housing stock transfer"

Scottish Socialist Party national convenor and Lothians MSP Colin Fox today paid respect to the “magnificent” campaign against Edinburgh council house stock transfer saying that “the giant has been slain by the people, this is a victory for people power”. Colin also demanded two things following this result;
1) City housing chief Sheila Gilmore must now consider her position having spent years championing the cause of stock transfer
2) The billion pounds that was dangled as a carrot in front of the tenants, £300 million to write off the housing debt and £700 million investment in the housing stock, must now be spent on badly needed public housing in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh City Council had poured millions of pounds into persuading Edinburgh council tenants to transfer the city’s council house stock into housing associations.
Colin is also calling for an inquiry into Edinburgh City Council’s use of public funds for what is now two failed projects after the defeat of the City’s proposed congestion charging and now council house stock transfer.
Colin played an active part in the campaign against the stock transfer, spending the last few days leading up to the ballot leafleting his own area of Edinburgh, the Inch.

Colin said today;
“This is a magnificent victory for the campaigners against the stock transfer, the giant has been slain by the people, this is a victory for people power.
“The entire multi million pound attempt to sell stock transfer to the council tenants of Edinburgh lies in ruins because of the courage and tenacity of those who believe in the principle of publicly owned council housing but who had not a shred of resources to campaign with, only the belief that what the council was doing was fundamentally wrong.
“The billion pounds that was dangled as a carrot in front of the city’s tenants must now be spent on badly needed public housing in Edinburgh.
“There are now also big questions to be answered by Edinburgh City council about their use of public resources.
“Millions of pounds were poured into this attempt to privatise Edinburgh’s council housing with the use of highly paid consultants to advise the council.
“There must be an inquiry into why this money was spent when it is clear that there was a majority of council tenants opposed to the scheme.
“Sheila Gilmore must now consider her position having spent years promoting the stock transfer.
“This is now the second time that Edinburgh City Council has spent millions of pounds only to find that they are hopelessly out of step with the people they are supposed to represent.
“This vote also now places a huge question mark over the Scottish Executive’s entire housing policy as it has completely committed itself to the principle of stock transfer.”

Scottish Socialist Party - Easter Ross Branch
Press Release

The news that public-sector quango, the Cromarty Firth Port Authority (CFPA) has won ‘preferred bidder’ status in the sale of the Nigg Oil Fabrication Yard has been welcomed as “a positive development” by Easter Ross SSP spokesperson, Luke Ivory.

Outlining how the plans were a “vindication” of SSP ideals Mr Ivory commented:
“For several years the Easter Ross branch of the SSP has been raising the issue of public ownership as the only viable long-term future for the yard.

“Our campaign to 'Nationalise Nigg' has been two-fold: To provide long-term secure jobs at the yard for oil platform construction and decommissioning; and to utilise the existing modular engineering skills-base for the development of renewable energy technologies as part of a National Strategic Plan for Renewable Energy.

“We have advanced this vision on the doorsteps, on street stalls and during several election campaigns, distributing thousands of leaflets in the process. Other parties have failed to offer any reasoned alternative, other than continuing to hold out the begging bowl to the so-called “free market”, jumping on the back of any fanciful notion that has come along, usually at election time, only to disappear into the mists shortly afterwards. Only the SSP has consistently forwarded a thought-out and considered approach based on principles rejected by the parties of big-business – Public Ownership.

“We therefore welcome the news that the CFPA plans to develop the Nigg Yard along these very lines not just as a much-needed jobs boost for Easter Ross, but as vindication of the ideas first raised by the SSP.”

Pledging SSP opposition against plans to dismantle "toxic ships" at the yard Luke continued:
“The SSP played a key role in mobilising local opposition against plans to decommission nuclear submarines at the yard in 2003, taking the fight out onto the streets of Invergordon, Alness, Tain and Inverness. We saw this as posing a serious environmental risk not just to Easter Ross, but to the whole of the Highlands. This was an approach we were pledged to repeat had the bid from Able UK to dismantle the notorious ‘toxic ships’ at Nigg looked like succeeding.

Outlining support for the bid to save Nigg “from the worst excesses of free-market boom & bust production” Luke said:
“Obviously the CFPA bid falls short of the full-scale democratic public ownership that would be our goal in an independent Socialist Scotland, however it should remove the yard’s future use from the worst excesses of free-market boom & bust production, and prevent the criminal neglect of the yard that has been its recent condition under the ownership of Halliburton subsidiary, KBR Root.

“It is at this stage only a small step that has been taken. However the estimated 1000 new jobs in the oil, gas and renewables industries in a region blighted by some of the lowest wages in Western Europe cannot be seen as anything other than a positive development”.
[ENDS]