DAILY RECORD SLAMS DAVIDSON

Yesterday we heard that the journalists' trade union, the NUJ, was taking issue with Ian Davidson's recent performance on News Night Scotland. Today, something I thought I would never see,  an article from Labour paper The Daily Record (reproduced here in full) deeply critical of not just Davidson, but of the whole Labour party, including Lamont and Darling, for doing the Tories' dirty work for them. 

This is a game changer. Labour supporters read the Record in droves. Their opinion has an element of sway. But, they also have their ear to the ground. They don't stray in their opinion far from what they are hearing on the streets of Glasgow, where they are based. If they are starting to lambaste leading Labour figures, they must be fairly certain that the mood on the streets is open to this criticism.

Yesterday Gordon Brown gave a speech and some amazing interviews in which he seemed to suggest that Chris Hoy couldn't have won a gold medal if it hadn't been for England. (Presumably Andy Murray couldn't have won without Spain then, s that is where he trained). He seemed to accept too that Scots are around 4% worse off than the English. I'm not sure why any Scot should accept that, even one that comes from North Britain! 

Further he seems to think that wage levels would change were the union to split up. But if he were a little more regular in his appearances in the House of Commons, which we pay him to attend, he would know that his friends the Tories, intend to have regional pay rates for all public servants, from council employees to doctors and teachers. 

I think you will enjoy this. The article is open to comments too...

MOST sensible people were glued to the London Olympics on TV these last two weeks.

So they may have missed Ian Davidson, a senior Scottish Labour MP, make a complete plonker of himself when he insulted a respected female BBC journalist.

Isobel Fraser, a poised and dignified presenter of Newsnight Scotland, asked Davidson a question he didn’t like last week.

The Glasgow MP blew a gasket, ranting about “Newsnat” Scotland and accusing Miss Fraser and her colleagues of being pro-SNP, something that will come as a surprise to Alex Salmond.

Davidson heads a Tory/Labour-dominated House of Commons committee charged with looking after Scottish Affairs. This is not the first time he’s landed himself in the proverbial.

The only SNP member of his committee, Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP, said she could no longer attend while he was chairman because she said he had threatened to give her “a doing” for speaking to the press.

His language so alarmed English members of the committee that he was forced to explain that he didn’t mean “doing” in a sexual way. Charming.

Mr Davidson was on Newsnight to discuss a report his committee produced into the planned independence referendum – or as they insisted on calling it, the “separation” referendum (no bias there, then).

His report says the Scottish Parliament has no power to hold a referendum. Only Westminster can do that, it says.

The Tory government in London could, however, give the Scottish parliament “permission” to hold the referendum, but only if Westminster called the shots.

Mr Davidson has done an excellent job of delivering for David Cameron.

His committee’s conclusion is exactly the same position as the Tory PM took when he tried to hi-jack the referendum back in January – a move that infuriated Scots.

There’s nothing we hate more than being patronised – and that’s exactly what Davidson and the Tories are doing.

Davidson feels no embarrassment that he is delivering the Tories’ wishes.

That must also go for his fellow Scottish Labour committee members who signed the report. Hang your heads in shame Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde), Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes), Jim McGovern (Dundee) and Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts).

These Labour MPs worked in tandem with the Tories on the committee to produce the shameful report.

Their true blue allies include Fiona Bruce, Conservative member for Congleton, David Mowat, Conservative member for Warrington South and Mike Freer, Conservative member for Margaret Thatcher’s old seat of Finchley.

Is this how low Keir Hardie’s party have sunk? They will use Margaret Thatcher’s successor to strip Scots of the power to decide their own future?

Johann Lamont, Labour’s leader in Scotland also stood shoulder to shoulder with the Tories – at the launch of the anti-independence Better Together campaign.

She believes Scotland is better off with a Tory Westminster government slashing benefits for disabled people, squandering Scotland’s oil wealth on tax cuts for the super rich, and sticking to a lunatic economic policy of austerity.

But there are murmurs of discontent. One front bencher, Neil Findlay, recently had a go at Alistair Darling, Labour figurehead for the Tory Better Together campaign.

Findlay wants the Scottish parliament to have the economic power to protect the poorest – yet his party leaders are trying to block a second question on that subject.

Even more damning for Lamont was the verdict of one of her predecessors, Henry McLeish, former First Minister of Scotland.

Mr McLeish said last week the anti-independence campaign was in danger of also appearing anti-Scottish. We can only speculate as to what he meant.