Anonymous
Any Labour MP who thinks that they can just abstain in the vote on cutting the winter fuel payment in the HOC are then, as a constituency MP, making a conscious decision to not support the pensioners in their respective constituencies but instead they have decided to not vote against the party.
Party first and constituents second (if at all).
They think in not voting with the party but instead in them abstaining that then somehow makes them appear better and so, they may assume, lets them off the hook with the constituents in their areas who are effected by this if it passes in the HOC. It does not.
It shows them as spineless , without principles and those who are more driven by a desire to progress their own political careers than any true desire to serve (well) those who elected them as their political representative in the UK parliament.
One wonders what they each individually pledged to their own constituents in their respective areas during their respective GE campaigns.
What promises and assurances did they actually make and give.
Did they, like Michael Shanks, also falsely assert that they were “their own man” (woman) and not a party YES man (woman).
Where as a party YES man (woman) , they would then always do what they were told to do by the party and never vote with their conscious (assuming they had one) and so would always vote with the party to demonstrate that , as an MP, they only pledged their loyalty to their party first and foremost and not to those who elected them.
Surely with this particular vote, cutting the winter fuel payment, there is no grey area or doubts as to what it will mean for many of their constituents should this come into force.
If this cut goes ahead then many pensioners will indeed suffer a financial loss that formerly they relied upon to help with the increased heating costs they incur during the winter months.
Starmer , Sarwar and my new local Labour MP all promised “Change” from what most people , and I also, assumed would be from the financial hardship they, and I too, had suffered under the Tory UK government.
(Sent by them, the Labour party, via their way too excessive amount of campaign literature posted from them to me -and to others too- through my, and other people’s, letterboxes ).
That has now proven to have been false advertising.
Indeed Labour UK have now adopted the exact same tactics as the Tories did before them.
Where Labour UK, like the Tories before them, are now passing the buck in them blaming the former Tory UK government for Labour, as the new government, not now being able to adhere to all of the promises/pledges that they made to the UK public during their GE campaign.
All apparently because the UK finances are seemingly far far worse than they , Labour UK, thought they actually were .
Perhaps then they, Labour UK, should have reined in some of their (supposed) grand plans for “Change” until they had actually seen what’s what with the UK piggy bank.
Of course Sarwar being a supreme chancer is still asserting that with Labour there will be “Change” .
(With him, Sarwar, confident in the Knowledge that the media in Scotland will not challenge him and will also always allow him to hide from their (non) scrutiny , as and when needed by him , but with him also then able to emerge brazenly back into the public eye when he assumes that the SNP, as a party, are on the ropes because of attacks on all fronts from both the media and the opposition parties).
However as sure as night follows day, if he too, like Labour UK, is indeed also successful and then becomes , in 2026, the new FM, then he will, I am positive, also then ‘Do a Labour UK’.
As he , Sarwar, will then also choose to blame the former (Scottish) government’s supposed mismanagement and incompetence for being the main reason he and his new devolved Labour government (or coalition with another pro UK party) are then unable to fulfil all of the pledges/promises they had made during their campaign in the Scottish elections.
So , like Labour UK, there will be no change there then.
(Same Sarwar that recently said “blaming others was typical of the SNP” but it will be okay in the future for him to do that , and is indeed, it seems, okay for him to do that now- as in constantly always blaming others including the SNP).
The Q is when the H will more of the Scottish public , and others who live in Scotland, eventually ever learn ?
Or will they, as some of the public in Scotland, also decide to just always abstain from making a decision and taking a stand against those , like Labour and other pro UK parties, in stopping voting for them in elections and also stopping their support of and belief in the UK being (supposedly but not) best for Scotland when clearly , through our lives lived (endured) as being a part of their UK, it is NOT better for Scotland or for us as a people to be either British or a UK citizen.
BTW MP’s (from any party even the SNP) abstaining on any crucial vote such as this one is not them, as MP’s, being brave and so being seen as them “rebelling” against the party it is cowardice and also very much them failing their constituents who are as a result , if the vote wins, then negatively impacted .
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Anas Sarwar is the TRUE successor to Ruth Davidson, both in sleekitness and the chameleon ability to hide away and avoid questions (as if the mejah would ask any!) when times get tough.
Keep it up Anas—-you will get a seat betwix Lard Baron Ffoulksakia and Dame Ruthie of Chateau Glaikit.
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gavinochiltree
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By being the HoC Abstention Cup Champions over the last fourteen years labour were pretty much the midwives of austerity, loss of workers rights and do many more dreadful Tory policies. If they wouldn’t opposed them when in opposition why is everyone so puzzled that they refuse to get rid of them?
Sorry, I labour the point (Aye okay, pun intended). Their arses must get really sore sitting on all those fences, but abstaining is what labour MPs do.
As you say they think it absolves them, it does not. It is just cowardly.
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heard Blair McDougal saying it was all the SNP’s fault and they should mitigate it and not expect the SOS to bail them out with his poverty fund- conveniently forgetting the SNP still mitigate Uk policies such as the bedroom tax and child cap – bunch of two faced hypocrites
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John Trickett was the only Labour MP with a conscience and voted against his party because he was concerned about his constituents.
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Here’s what happens when you have a Labour UK government and a Welsh one :
“The Welsh government has announced above inflation pay rises for public sector workers”.
“Nurses, other NHS staff and teachers will get a 5.5% award, while doctors and dentists will receive 6%, all in line with England”.
“Officials are confident they will get extra cash from the UK government to pay for the rises, which First Minister Eluned Morgan said are worth £500m.”
“Officials said the teachers award was higher than the 4.3% recommended by the Welsh pay body and is in line with the English award, on the basis that there should be no detriment to Welsh teachers from decisions made by the UK government“.
“The Welsh government gets most of its money from the UK government. Officials are confident they will get cash off the back of extra funding for pay in England, helping to avoid cuts to funding elsewhere as a result”
“In an interview (Welsh Labour FM) Eluned Morgan said: “It’s not an insignificant amount of money. We’re talking about £500m. Most of that will come as a result of UK government handing that money over to us”
(As in the LABOUR UK government “handing that money over to the Welsh Labour devolved government)
“She , the Welsh FM, said the cash to pay for the rises will not be coming from existing budgets”
Meanwhile compare and contrast the position with the Labour UK government and the Scottish government in relation to the above news for Wales.
Where in Scotland the Scottish government are told that Labour’s UK man in Scotland, masquerading as a Scottish Secretary of State (of sorts) , will be given millions from the Labour UK Chancellor, for him to then decide who and where , via local councils, that money will go in Scotland (as in everywhere but the Scottish government).
In effect it is Labour’s way of bypassing (ignoring) Devolution in Scotland mainly because the current Scottish government is run by an opposition party to Labour who ,Labour UK, consider as the biggest threat to Labour in Scotland.
(So if Labour cannot beat the SNP fairly then they will resort to underhanded tactics and try to ensure the SNP gets even more bad press from an ever obliging pro UK media).
Further down the line we will then hear from the media and also the Labour party, both here and at UK level, how Labour in Wales, as the Welsh government , are supposedly outperforming the SNP in Scotland as the Scottish government.
However with that ‘Breaking News’ there will be the omission of how both the (Labour) Welsh and (SNP) Scottish governments were both treated differently by the (Labour) UK government as per , but I am sure not exclusive to, the above examples given.
**Who will , via a majority, among the media (of sorts) in Scotland ever even dream of highlight relentlessly any anomaly that they are aware of, or/and any disadvantage they see or know about, for Scotland under a Labour UK government**.
Well, let’s be honest, no one in the media will get crushed , with the lack of any of them rushing, to all try and publicise the above ** as being very much true.
(Think back to a former Labour FM Mark Drakeford who , in October 2023, stated that “the Welsh government had a funding crisis” and Labour’s Finance Minister Rebecca Evans “warned that the next financial year’s budget (2024), which starts next April, will be “even more difficult”).
Then along came Labour UK who then won the GE and suddenly , funnily enough, things now do not look as bad under a Labour UK government for the Labour Welsh government , as they once looked for them, the Welsh government, when the UK was governed by the Tories. Hmm.
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53 abstained. They could have voted against. Losers.They have lost the pensioners vote. 10 million of them. Labour are toast. Starving their own mothers. It was quite unnecessary They are a disgrace. They could have cut Trident, redundant weaponry, nuclear, war, tax evasion. Brexit rejoin the EU. Instead they attack the old and the young.
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BBC website top story on main Scotland page:
“Scottish alcohol deaths at 15-year high”
Nowt on Scotland page in respect to getting opinion of Anas Sarwar on the vote on WFA vote being passed today as per the cut applied by Labour UK Govt.
Operation deflect by BBC Scotland as if we, as a public in Scotland, were all daft and so unaware of what disgrace occurred, via a vote, that was passed in the HOC’s today.
2nd top story on Scottish Politics page is this:
“Matheson returns to Holyrood after iPad scandal ban”
But yet again also nowt there in respect to any article seeking the opinion of Sarwar on the vote today in the HOC on the cruel cut to the WFA being passed. (and too in only one non Scottish Labour MP voting against it).
Sarwar is in hiding no doubt and will not be sought by the BBC in Scotland until it is considered safe for him, Sarwar, to show his brazen brass necked self in public again (which would be when the same BBC in Scotland promote yet another #SNPBAD story and thus seek Sarwar’s partisan opinion).
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O/T More from Westminster: I note that the Lib Dem MP for Orkney and Shetland, Alastair Carmichael has been ‘elected’ unopposed to the chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee (EFRA) of the House of Commons.
In an interview on Radio 4’s Farming Today programme (10 September) the interviewer noted that :(i) the subjects the EFRA Committee deals with are devolved; (ii) Carmichael is an MP for a Scottish constituency; and therefore (iii) the work of the Committee will be of no relevance to his constituents, so why does he bother?
In response, whilst he agreed that much was devolved he explained that there were (in terms) ‘actually a lot of profound cross-border issues‘ as it is the Treasury and the Department for Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) that determines the amount of money available for farm payments in Scotland.
In his pitch for the role, Carmichael is reported as stating: “In the next few years we shall make key decisions that will set the shape and course of life in the United Kingdom’s rural communities for a decade at least.“
‘We’? All that power and influence of devolution – is it not something to behold?
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Labour’s Pre General election ‘talks’ with ‘some’ is now paying off for both parties, as in the political one (Labour) and also the wealthy business ones too.
The Canary has an article entitled:
“Maximus is co-hosting a talk at the Labour Party conference with DWP boss Liz Kendall”
(Liz Kendall is the Labour MP and now DWP minister who once was a regular with Michael Portillo on Andrew Neil’s BBC programme ‘This Week’ where she could have easily been mistaken as a Tory MP).
In this Canary article they state:
“Infamous DWP outsourcing company Maximus will be attending the Labour Party’s 2024 conference. Not only that, but the private firm will be co-hosting a talk with the Fabian society on ‘The future for work’. If it wasn’t bad enough that a US corporation with a torrid history of profiteering off the backs of disabled people thanks to DWP PIP is sponsoring an event on this, it only gets worse”.
“That’s because Maximus will be in conversation with none other than ardent right-winger and Labour DWP boss Liz Kendall”
“Maximus has long had its claws in the DWP. In less than the last decade alone, the DWP has handed the outsourcing giant 12 separate contracts.
(That would be under the Tory party as UK government).
The Canary also note that during the Labour party conference it will be:
“Unsurprisingly, it’s a Who’s Who of private corporations schmoozing with Labour ministers and officials. Arms company BAE System is sponsoring a talk on the ‘Future challenges to defence’ with defence secretary John Healey. Naturally, it isn’t the only arms company sponsoring fringe events on Labour’s defence policy either. Others include for instance Northrop Grumman, and Babcock at two further talks”.
Also in this article they note that:
“Big pharma companies have muscled their way in on fringe events from everything to do the ‘role of self-care’ in saving on GP appointments, to the NHS winter vaccine programme”
Also “Housing developers are sponsoring talks on Labour’s plans for more house-building. There are bigwigs from the finance sector in droves, and health insurance companies partnering on numerous events. Carbon sequestration corporation 1PointFive is funding a talk on ‘Working Together for a Net Zero Future’. It’s a subsidiary fossil fuel firm Occidental”
The Canary then conclude on the above that “In short then, the 2024 Labour Party conference will be a display of the prominent corporate capture that’s become a fixture under Starmer’s leadership and Labour right”.
Read the full Canary article via the header as given above.
Where websites such as The Canary , Open Democracy and Swawkbox tell you political (and other) news you do not get via much (majority) of the MSM as does this blog TUS (as do other independence blogs too)
So will a similar article be on the BBC website scrutinising the Labour party and observing that this same (dubious bad) behaviour was very much one that was witnessed as customary when the Tory party were the former UK government .
Consider how many voters within Scotland will be oblivious to the above information and what it actually represents.
Just as many of those same voters in Scotland were also oblivious to other articles and information prior to the GE that proved Labour, like the Tories, were courting wealthy donors while merely ‘paying lip service’ to being the party who will (supposedly but not really) support the working man via (the now proven lie ) that was to be an apparent “Change” under Labour as the new UK government.
What and actually where is that so called “Change” now ?
Also these are the same type of donors Labour courted prior to the GE who then, as donors, expected a significant return on their donation to the ‘party’ and also expected to profit from their public support/endorsement for Labour in the GE campaign, if and when Labour won the GE .
They, Labour, then did win the GE .
However is there any actual real journalists, outwith The Canary, who are, as journalists a part of the MSM, who will dare to comment and question whose actually sponsoring many of the ‘Talks’ at the next Labour party conference and why ?
Or will, as per, Hell freeze over.
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do we have a list of all the Scottish MPs who voted for or abstained in the winter payment vote?
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Go, via your search engine, into UK parliament votes
Select that particular vote which in this case is under:
“Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 (SI, 2024, No. 869): motion to annul” on 10 September 2024.
It will then list , for that vote, all of the Ayes, the No’s and also where No vote (was) recorded (which could be an actual abstention by an MP or an MP not in the HOC when vote took place as they were away on ‘official‘ business at the time of vote).
As far as I was aware all of the Scottish MP’s voted with the party to cut this WFA.
It also records all votes of MP’s by the party they are a member of.
Hope that helps.
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