Ill keep this short.
It’s another Reporting Scotland-only story, not fully written up for their website because it’s just a feed directly to John Beattie or some other New Labour Luvvie in Pacific Quay.
It is, of course, not news to help viewers make sense of the world they live in.
Which former Labour leader thinks English-style city mayors are needed in Scotland?
Gordon Brown, former PM.
Which thinktank agrees with him?
This one:
Reform Scotland, like most right-wing, unionist, so-called think tanks is keen to project itself as somehow independent or non-partisan. Any social science student will tell you there’s no such thing but Reform Scotland is an easier target than that.
It’s director is Chris Deerin, a New Statesman writer, Blairite and regular critic of anything the SNP does. Just Google his name and SNP and you’ll see just how non-partisan he isn’t.
Its research director is Alison Payne. That name ring a bell? It should.
In recent years, popping up as just a ‘mum’, unattributed, on Reporting Scotland, GMS and Kay Adams to moan about SNP school policies, Payne began her career within the Scottish Conservative MSPs’ Research Unit, going on to spend four years as Head of Research. She later went on to become Political Adviser to Annabel Goldie MSP, Leader of the Scottish Conservative Group of MSPs. This role included acting as adviser to the Scottish Conservative Policy Advisory Group. She also spent 10 years as a Girl Guide leader, prior to the birth of her second child in 2010.
And, how did she become a Research Director with no evidence of research training – PhD, MRes, even an honours degree with a dissertation? Girl Guide connections?
Talking-up Scotland / Scottish media fact checking is like shooting fish in a barrel 
Scotland may be too centralised but Alison Payne would need to tell us whether it is from Edinburgh or London.
The MSPs and Councillors who are members of the branches of the London based Labour, Tory and Lib Dem Parties are controlled by, answer to and take their policies from their party headquarters.
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Paid Mayors for Scotland’s cities/towns ?
Sounds like a nice wee earner for the usual cabal of Labour apparatchiks and an opportunity to influence contracts , perhaps ?
Not suggesting that some Labour councillors have a long history of corruption while in Public Office …
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Their in-laws just happen to own taxi firms, construction…..
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And why exactly do we need to consume the time and go through all the bureaucratic upheaval and electoral processes to replace COSLA with an English mayoral system.
When we disposed of the Scottish mayoral system long ago.
Aha! it’s leav-a-go, no, no, it’s actually kick the can.
Any incline of any acceptance of this drivel and our government descends in authority to a council talking shop.
And the independence can goes so far down the road you’ll need a TARDIS and a telescope to see it.
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All part of the Ein Reich,Ein Volk narrative being pushed by the Westminster establishment.
Scotland,as far as their agents are concerned,cannot be seen to be different from England in any significant way,hence the reaction to the Gender ID legislation etc.
In fact,Scotland cannot be seen.
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The “Englishing of Scotland”.
Sound familiar? Like Mayors? Lord Mayors?
This was a sound-bite from Lord Baron Jaikie Ma’Coalbunker when he was just a foot-soldier in the New Labour army as it trampled across the working class.
‘Course he would say no such thing now-a-days; now that he takes the Kings Shilling and sits in his ermine sookie-blanket.
The Scorrish (sic) mejah is awash with ex-labourites giving “opinions” like the handing down of tablets of stone (Miliband?) written by the Godlike Blair. All approved by Rupert and fit for Sun publication now the News of the Screws if defunct.
Did they stop tapping phones? Eves-dropping? Spying on folk?
Labour set the secret services on the SNP in the ’70’s–the files are still locked away. “Oddly” (haha) no news outlets are curious enough to ask for FoI’s on this issue.
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It’s all about ‘devolution’ for the regions, aww, how sweet. The website I link to here, is quite fancy, though a while back they included Scotland in as much as it was about ‘UK devolution’, not just England. Some money going into this, and a few jobs for the boys. I see the NE of England is getting a couple of £billions to quell the natives, given it’s a crime ridden, drugs ridden, jobless, poverty on stilts ‘region’. They talk about ‘elected mayors’, who elects them?
Have a look at ‘Devoconnect’ twitter, it’s all sunny uplands and ‘levelling up’. When the Tories and Labour talk about ‘reform’ of public services, they mean squash, underfund, wreck and sell off, then make the plebs pay through the nose for the services they already pay for in taxes and NI. Win win, for the rich and powerful.
https://www.devoconnect.co.uk/
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The ‘Brown commission’. How much is he paid to come up with this, er, fabrication I wonder.
https://www.devoconnect.co.uk/post/what-will-devolution-do-for-me
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