By Liz S
Paul Hutcheon the Daily Record’s political Editor for the Labour party in Scotland tweeted this on ‘X’ on 6 May.
“Reading that SNP list of Holyrood candidates, it’s like a revolving door of Westminster rejects”
MSM Monitor in a tweet yesterday on ‘X’ then responded to Paul’s tweet in reminding us all about Anas Sarwar (as in his political career thus far).
“Scottish Labour is not only led by a Westminster reject who lost his seat to Alison Thewliss in 2015. It is led by someone who has been repeatedly rejected as a constituency candidate in every Holyrood election he has stood in”.
I mean really glass houses and all that Mr Hutcheon.
Then of course we also have Paul Sweeney the current Labour MSP also lost his Labour MP seat at WM to the SNP and now he too is a list MSP. (is he a “WM reject” too Mr Hutcheon).
Then there is (Baroness) Katy Clark, also a former Labour MP who lost her seat to the SNP and now a list MSP but who is also a life peer. (is she also a “WM reject” too Mr Hutcheon)
Then there is also list Labour MSP Martin Whitfield who was also formerly a Labour MP who then also lost his seat to the SNP . (is he also a “WM reject” too Mr Hutcheon)
So what exactly is Paul Hutcheon’s point ?
Paul BTW is very much part of Labour’s client media in Scotland and often a spokesperson for Labour here in his many (media) attempts to try to discredit the SNP.
Is it okay for Labour to be what Paul calls being “WM rejects” but not the SNP ?
That’s way too politically partisan and also kind of unfair of Paul surely ?
Paul hopes that people, as in those not politically engaged, will have forgotten that Sarwar was one of many Labour MP’s who formerly lost their seat in 2015 (to the SNP).
Now Sarwar , as another Labour “WM reject”, is now also another Labour list MSP (and now he is also the branch office manager in Scotland).
Then Sarwar , as an MSP and Labour leader (ITO) in Scotland, hopes that one day he too will be awarded a life peerage (for failure) come next year post the Scottish elections, where it is predicted he and his party will lose that election.
I mean another Labour reject was Margaret Curran who also lost her Labour MP seat in 2015 and now Keir Starmer has awarded her a life peerage as a “WM reject” , and then former Labour MSP and also a former Labour branch office manager (involved in a scandal while at Holyrood) Wendy Alexander has now also been awarded a life peerage by Keir Starmer.
Wendy’s brother Douglas was formerly also a “WM reject” in 2015 but he was then chosen again as a Labour candidate, 9 years later, and then he was elected (again) as a Labour MP last year in Scotland .
Margaret’s son, Chris Murray, was also elected as a Labour MP in Scotland last year.
It was then purely coincidental that both Margaret and Wendy got their life peerages after their relatives were both elected as MP’s in Scotland and also post a substantial increase in elected Labour MP’s in Scotland last year in the UK GE.
#Timing………as in assuming that the time is right to do that , which otherwise , would be considered both very very wrong and also , as an action , that which we formerly often saw done by the Tories .
(Examples being Malcolm Offord, former Tory donor, failed to be elected as an MSP then parachuted into the HOL and also Ian Duncan , a former Tory MEP, who failed to be elected as an MP in the 2017 UK GE, then he too was parachuted into the HOL – so like the the Labour party now we also saw life peerages awarded for failures in the Tory party too).
Tory political rejects also rewarded, like Labour political rejects, for Failure as well, it seems most uncanny how they both have the same solutions to those rejected by the electorate, as in jobs for the boys and girls post them being democratically rejected by the public.
Then what about Thangham Debonnaire , she lost he seat as an English Labour MP last year in the GE and then as a Labour “WM reject” Starmer rewarded her with a Life Peerage.
Also former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth he too also lost his seat as a Labour MP last year then he , as a “WM reject” was also rewarded as he became the new Director of the Labour Think tank ‘Labour Together’.
Then another one Luciana Berger who lost her seat as an MP in 2019, she had left the Labour party because of Jeremy Corbyn , now she too as a “WM reject” was rewarded by Starmer with a life peerage.
Paul Hutcheon just cannot get a break when he tries to diss the SNP as some clued up people in Scotland , who are politically engaged , know that his comments in relation to the SNP were actually applicable to some within the Labour party.
Of course he calls the SNP former MP’s “Westminister rejects” but surely the Scottish parliament is their, the SNP’s, ‘natural home’ as opposed to the hostile English parliament at WM .
The same WM where other MP’s and also various PM’s from some pro UK parties have a tendency to disrespect SNP MP’s who , as SNP MP’s, are democratically elected in UK GE’s by people living in Scotland.
(Paul knows this too, but he does not care, as Paul is on the side of those within the English parliament who are disrespectful and hostile towards the MP’s in the SNP , as in those SNP MP’s that many of us elect in Scotland to represent us in order that they, as SNP MP’s, may then challenge various UK governments often unfair Reserved policies and also challenge many bad decisions made at WM that impact our devolved Scottish government).
Vote SNP in 2026 , if nothing else to prove to Paul Hutcheon and his employer the DR (owned by Reach PLC whose HQ is in London) that their propaganda on behalf of Labour is not working (this time or rather any more) via the majority within Scotland.
As now that Labour HQ have completely messed up their short time, so far as the new UK government, then one assumes the bubble has finally burst on Labour ever being considered as a first option to vote for in all future elections in Scotland or indeed in any elections within the UK, via a majority of people.
Though one does hope the time is coming , as in sooner rather than later , when we no longer, as a nation , have to participate in UK GE’s any more.
Liz S
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
This is a great piece of work and completed in a short space of time. Well done Liz. And thanks.
LikeLiked by 1 person
🙂
Liz S
LikeLike
Praise where praise is due Liz. Well done with your research on this, and many thanks for all of your contributions.
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
Liz S
LikeLike
there is actually an argument that in a proportional representation system the real representatives are the list Msp’s with the constituency Msp’s as a kind of lower class.
Unfortunately, our media is completely blinded by first past the post, and use the same measure for Holyrood as they do for Westminster
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually, a wee bit more research needed. We do NOT have a D’Hondt additional member system which awards seats in proportion to the votes the parties receive. We have an ‘amended D’Hondt system whereby seats are awarded disproportionately. Bruce-Dewar created a method to reward electoral failure.
LikeLike
In keeping with the ”rejected” theme , is that why Paul Hutcheon writes for the Daily Rancid .
Has he been rejected by decent newspapers . (ed. Name a ”decent ” newspaper that would employ Hutcheon )
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nope, can’t name a “decent” newspaper mj. Personally, I gave up on all newspapers many years ago. B.T.W, I see another Labour reject, wee Dougie, got three of the belt in the H.O.C yesterday, administered by the Speaker, for trying to delay a statement on Starmer’s “great” trade deal with the felon in the White House. The detail on that will be very interesting, once revealed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They have absolutely no self-awareness.
Either that or a brass neck three inches thick.
Take your pick.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Long comment, apologies .
In February this year it was reported (not on the BBC obviously) that:
Jackie Baillie had quoted a nurse working in south east England to supposedly depict the ‘reality of the NHS in Scotland’ .
This of course was an insult to all of those who work within our Scottish NHS.
However Ms Baillie was driven more by her own personal ambition in her ‘playing politics’ to try and help her party (undeservedly) win the Scottish elections next year as opposed to her ever considering the negative impact and consequences on the morale of those who work in our Scottish NHS.
In fact in March 2024 Ms Baillie had written a piece on the Reform Scotland website , a so called Think Tank , that exists only to try to maintain the UK State , as opposed to actually ‘reforming’ anything for the benefit of those of us who live within Scotland.
(Of course part of their name, as in Reform, is now most unfortunate considering we now have Farage’s party , Reform UK , as a political party, yet actually that is really what Reform Scotland should be called as they too represent the UK , being sustained that is , indeed just like the Reform UK party does as well ).
In the article she, Baillie, states “ (Scottish) NHS staff feel undervalued” , but could that feeling of being “undervalued” be mainly because MSP’s like Jackie Baillie treat them as if they were political pawns in misrepresenting their (hard) work to the public in Scotland.
Indeed this very blog reported on her twisting of the truth to try and suit her selfish political agenda .
Which proves that if one needs to steal a quote spoken from a Nurse elsewhere, as in from a different country and working within a different NHS Trust, then one assumes she must have found it too difficult to have acquired a similar quote from a Nurse from the Scottish area where she pretended her original quote was sourced from.
The desperation and futility of misrepresenting and attributing a quote to be that from a Scottish Nurse in the Scottish NHS and then (wrongly) assuming that either no one would notice this major faux pas or her being so (too) confident that the media here would either publicise it without verifying it’s authenticity or choose to ignore it as news when it was discovered to be a lie, in a classic example of how both UK politics and UK media works within Scotland.
Of course one is supposed to assume that all NHS staff elsewhere in other nations within the UK never feel “undervalued” , which of course we know not to be the case.
I mean if Nurses in Scotland felt so “undervalued” why was it that they did not strike in the past , as it was the Nurses elsewhere between 2022-2024 in England & Wales who went out in strike in both the then Tory run England and the Labour run Wales. (which then surely disputes Ms Baillie’s non argument against our Scottish NHS)
Those strikes elsewhere were on pay and conditions.
Scottish Nurses accepted the deal they got from the Scottish government.
(Same was applicable for the Junior Doctors prolonged striking elsewhere but not in Scotland as a deal was reached for them in Scotland).
However the article below is from the BBC today on their main UK page (currently third story) and also on their ‘Health’ section page , but it is not on the main English news page or indeed on the UK (English) Politics page. (#NotPoliticised).
BBC Website 9 May under ‘Health’ “NHS plans ‘unthinkable’ cuts to balance books”
The NHS in England is planning “previously unthinkable” cuts to try to balance the books, health bosses say.
Services including diabetes care for young people, rehab centres and talking therapies are in the firing line, according to NHS Providers, which represents health managers.
Staff, including doctors and nurses, also face the axe – and some NHS trusts are stopping overtime for doctors, putting the drive to cut the hospital waiting lists at risk.
NHS Providers said some of the savings were “eye-watering”, but the Department of Health and Social Care said NHS services should focus on cutting bureaucracy and driving up productivity.
One chief executive of a large hospital trust said it was looking to shed 1,500 jobs, some 5% of its workforce, including doctors and nurses.
Meanwhile, a boss of a mental health trust told the BBC they had had to stop accepting referrals for adults with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), while waits for psychological therapies exceeded a year.
They said morale had “never been lower” among staff.
Other services at risk include stop smoking services and palliative care.
NHS Providers received evidence from 114 trusts, more than half of the total in England.
Nearly all said they were cutting or planning to cut jobs which in many cases would affect clinical staff such as doctors and nurses too.
A majority also reported they were looking at closing services or at least scaling them back.
To be clear the above is in reference to the English NHS just in case Ms Baillie yet again chooses to (cherry) pick certain quotes from this report and declare it is relevant to the Scottish NHS.
I feel BBC Verify missed (deliberately) Ms Baillie’s major (deliberate) faux pas in her (mis)presenting a quote from what she stated was a Nurse in the Scottish NHS when actually it was from a Nurse in the English NHS.
Though BBC Verify, just like BBC Scotland news , have other political ‘Fish to fry’ when it comes to Scottish politics, so with them not highlighting this disgraceful behaviour from Ms Baillie, well that’s because they would know that it would potentially damage a British Nationalist party more while also potentially benefitting the SNP, and that is unthinkable for the BBC as an action to ever be taken by them.
If Ms Baillie wants to see staff that are “undervalued” then she should look to the English NHS currently being mismanaged by her own Labour party and perhaps also to Labour run Wales.
Labour as the new UK government seems to think that (any measure of) success in any public service, like for example the English NHS that they are responsible for, is only attainable by either cuts to funding, cuts to jobs and also allowing more privatisation within the NHS.
(Indeed it would make even Nigel Farage proud at the way Labour are embracing more privatisation in order for him (in 2029 ?) to eventually introduce his preferred Health care system of an insurance based Health Care system).
Vote SNP in 2026 via a majority to prove, that as a voter in Scotland, that ‘Liars like Jackie Baillie should never win’ but instead be consigned to remain as those who, although still irritating and those who remain annoying, but then they , after elections, are still those who remain as an opposition party , same ones who always ‘carp from the sidelines’ , but only do so , because of their ultimate goal which is to try to sustain their UK State.
Liz S
LikeLike