Labour councillor Ellen Hurcombe, who represents the Canal ward covering parts of the north west of the city, has become the ninth Labour councillor to resign from the party in Glasgow within the past few months. Ms Hurcombe’s resignation comes just over a month before the crucial local elections. She has announced her intention to stand for the new rival party Glasgow First, composed of disaffected Labour councillors.
The resignation leaves Labour with just 38 councillors in the city, against a total of 41 for the opposition parties.
Speaking to STV, Ms Hurcombe confirmed that she had resigned from the Labour party and had joined Glasgow First. The grouping of rebel former Labour councillors is now the third largest party represented on the council.
The new party was established by former Labour councillors who were disaffected by Labour’s controversial reselection process, after which 20 sitting councillors were told that their services would no longer be required by the party. The bitter and ill-tempered fall out from the reselection process witnessed allegations of bullying and control freakery levelled at the Labour group’s ruling group.
Ms Hurcombe was one of those councillors who were deselected by Labour.
Councillor Tommy Morrison, leader of Glasgow First said: “I am absolutely delighted that yet another councillor has decided to join Glasgow First, putting the citizens of Glasgow before party politics and fighting for Glaswegians.”
A spokesman for Glasgow Labour said: “Being a Labour councillor is not a job for life, and Labour Party members in Glasgow made difficult decisions about who would and would not go forward for election.”
Aye some will have a reversible jacket with independent on the outside and a red lining with co-op pocket on the inside.
I hope they don’t split the SNP vote too much.
Good luck all you posters and canvassers in Glasgow.
These B List Labour rejects shouldn’t split the SNP vote in their various wards at all. They should split only the Labour vote, as surely no SNP supporters will vote for either Labour lot.
They had 2 or 3 candidates per ward, the exception being Pollockshiels where they only put up 1. (Maybe someone who knows Glasgow a lot better than I do can explain that).
Pollokshields is probably the least typical ward in Glasgow – for a start 30% of the voters are Asian ethnic minority. The rest divide up into the very posh villas of West Pollokshields and High Shawlands, and the younger, livelier community of Shawlands. There’s very little “Old Labour” territory in the ward, so Labour in 2007 were relying on the Asian vote to get in here. Now that that vote is turning to the SNP, I think there’s a real chance it’ll remain a Labour-free ward after May.
Hey brusque, mine just disappear altogether. I had made another comment at the bottom of this thread, and b*****r me, it’s gone. Never mind, there’s always Gerry Hassan and that fella Roy; they dont need us
So it would seem Ed quine. I’ve been a member of this site since it was just a 1 page email, and have never used foul language, or said anything which is not already in the public domain. Some Mods here are taking themselves way too seriously!! I’m giving up though, I have a sense of humour and it seems that is simply not on here any more.
If your comment is deleted by you or the mods all comments after yours are automatically deleted by default I’ve noticed. Your comment may vanish because it came after someones comment which was deleted.
To be honest brusque I’ve had comments deleted and I’ve been banned. At the end of the day it’s worth still being involved.
I would have no problem if I had actually breached the rules, but I haven’t. Light-hearted comments are part and parcel of a cohesive group of posters anywhere; it is ok for those people who “add value” to the site, but not for us commoners.
I will continue to read, and I will never stop supporting Independence, I just won’t be doing it on here:-)
I’m done commenting, it seems that saying something which is true, reported on television, and apt! is removed if the Mod wishes it so, and there seems to be no actual standard applied!
After a team discussion we have decided that I made the wrong decision brusque and I can only apologise. Your post has been reinstated. NNS Mod
I very much appreciate your gracious apology, and accept it with the same good grace. Thank you for restoring my faith in the Mod Team’s sense of fairness.
But do we give our remaining votes to the Greens/Solidarity/Socialists in order to make it is difficult as possible for the British and Unionist parties to get in or will this make it more difficult for the SNP?
Yes. It won’t have any impact on the SNP. The ideal anti-Unionist vote is to put all the SNP candidates top, then Green/Solidarity/Socialist (depending on where you are – I’d say Green first out of these if it’s a fairly well-heeled area). Then don’t vote for Labour/Lib Dem/Tory/Glasgow First AT ALL – you don’t need to number every party.
In Glasgow, I think it’s two candidates that the sNP are standing in each ward. As far as voting is concerned, it’s ‘one, two, that will do’ for Glasgow. (Both SNP candidates only) If in any other districts there are three SNP candidates in a ward, then it’s ‘one, two, three SNP. If you are an SNP voter, only give preference to sNP candidates to try to get them all in.
This will do nothing to stop Labour or other Unionist party candidates though.
Say you are voting in a 4-member ward, with 2 SNP candidates. STV works with a “quota” system, so it’s possible that the 2 SNP candidates get elected with votes to spare. If all you’ve done is say 1/2 SNP/SNP, then that’s it, your vote has no more effect.
However, if your vote becomes surplus to SNP requirements, you can help prevent Labour/LibDem/Tory candidates getting into the other ward seats by maximising the effect of any surplus. After giving 1/2 to the SNP, give 3/4/5 to other nationalist parties, like the Greens, SSP or Soldarity.
For a near-miss, see what happened in the Pollokshields ward in Glasow, in 2007 (my ward). Here we ended up with a Labour/SNP/Tory trio. However, the Green candidate only just missed out on transfers, despite being miles behind the Tory on the first count. By the time the last-but-one candidate was eliminated, the Green was only 4 votes behind the Tory!
Don’t waste that excess – give your lower-order preferences to the minor nationalist parties.