Another one bites the dust - Sylvia Heal MP stands down

The House of Commons Deputy Speaker Sylvia Heal, MP for Halesowen and Rowley Regis has now announced she is to stand down at the General Election.

With less than sixty days until the expected General Election the Labour MP - who has a majority of only 4,337 at the 2005 General Election - said she did not want another five years of working 12 to 14 hours per day, six days a week.

Sylvia Heal, won the West Midlands seat back in 1997, has said she would continue to work hard for the constituency.

I should hope she will as she will also continue to get paid!

How many more Labour MPs will stand down this side of the General Election?
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J. Arthur MacNumpty: The Strange Case of Steven Purcell

J. Arthur MacNumpty: The Strange Case of Steven Purcell

An excellent, well thought out piece on, as the title says: The strange case of Steven Purcell.

Perth - the future is bright

I haven't been tweeting or blogging much from the Scottish Liberal Democrats conference in Perth because it's been both a busy conference for me, 12 hours in a basement meeting room, The Old Library meeting MPs and candidates and their campaign teams and the fact that the mobile phone reception is so awful, not just in the Library but generally around the conference centre and the Royal George Hotel.

A great day on Friday with a great speech from Nick Clegg and a fantastic photo session with a stack of our candidates signing the NUS pledge on tuition fees.

Yesterday saw a fantastic speech from Leader Tavish Scott and a great election presentation by Alistair Carmichael MP where apparently even I got a mention and a round of applause - many thanks AC and the people in the audience, much appreciated.

Well, today is another busy morning and still great debates and speeches but I have more meetings to do so doubt I will make the hall, but you never know, I might even get to visit the exhibition!

There is a great buzz here, much better than last year, and as you know we went on and won the MEP seat when pundits and journalists were writing is off, well let's see where we go from here this weekend.

We are in second place to Labour here in Scotland, with Cameron's Conservatives only having a solitary MP in Scotland, and he is under threat from a Lib Dem surge and the SNP being irrelevant in Westminster elections polling day, whenever it may be will be an interesting election.

How many MPs will we have after polling day? I am very confident we will have more than we do now, I know that because voters are switching to us all across Scotland, getting fed up of the UK red/blue swingometer and it is Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats offering an alternative choice for people.

Let us see, but we will go from Perth with a spring in our step and fired up to campaign, campaign, campaign.

SNP prove their irrelevant at Westminster

This week has seen a meeting of small Nationalist parties, where they have discussed joining together in Westminster to get a voice.

This just proves what the Liberal Democrats have been saying all along, the SNP are irrelevant at Westminster.

They are just too small with only seven MPs to make any difference.

The SNP are saying they have met Plaid Cymru and now want to meet the Democratic Unionist Party and the Social Democratic & Labour Party.

In other words a vote for the SNP is actually a vote for four parties and still it won't be heard in the corridors and Chambers in Westminster.

I'm not saying they are irrelevant in other elections, I fully accept they are the minority administration in Holyrood and that in 2011 they will want to create another list of promises to get elected and like now will just end up with a list of broken promises!

In 2007 they said anything and promised all sorts to get elected, then just let us down by breaking promise after promise.

People in Scotland are starting to realise as the teflon falls away that the SNP are still run, not led by Alex Salmond and its still the same ranting wee eck under all that gloss.

This General Election the fight in Scotland is between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, Cameron has his own 'one' show with David Mundell the single MP. Many people are still bitter about the damage that Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives did in Scotland last time they were in power!

It is the Liberal Democrats offering real change at this election, Labour are offering the same as before and had 13 years to change things, the SNP are irrelevant at Westminster and with the one Conservative MP, well, are not going to change anything.
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Michael Foot RIP

Although I was never a fan of his politics it is a sad day as we hear that Michael Foot the donkey jacket wearing former Labour leader has died.

Jack Straw announced in the House of Commons that Michael Foot, aged 96 had passed away today.

Michael Foot succeeded James Callaghan in 1980 but stood down after losing
the 1983 election to Margaret Thatcher.

Mr Foot served in both the Callaghan and Harold Wilson governments as
Minister for Employment and Commons leader.

Jack Straw said of him, " He was held in very great affection in all sections of
the House and the country."

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow described Mr Foot as a 'quite extraordinarily distinguished Parliamentarian'.

He entered Parliament in 1945, in Clement Attlee's post war landslide victory, served as an MP for 47 years and was a founder member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

British Politics has lost another of the great characters.
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Exclusive: ‘Stressed’ city leader Councillor Steven Purcell to stand down

As any big named celebrity, politician and member of the Royal family will tell you, don't believe everything you read in the newspapers, so is this morning's exclusive in The Herald spot on or way out?

The headline screams - Exclusive: ‘Stressed’ city leader Purcell to stand down.

It is of course talking about the leader of Glasgow City Council, Labour Councillor Steven Purcell.

A statement issued to The Herald last night said those around him had become “deeply concerned about the stress levels he had been displaying” recently.

Now, if he is genuinely standing down for personal reasons, ie his health then I and many others will wish him a speedy recovery, if this is a quick way to get him into Westminster then I don't agree in the manner in which it has been done - please see my own health warning in the first line of this blog post!

Steven Purcell is one of Labour's rising stars in Scotland and so many Labour folk want to get him into Westminster or Holyrood, and given he has led Glasgow City Council since 2005 and been key in securing the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014, you can understand why.

If however this is Labour's way of fast tracking him into a Westminster seat, then shame on them.

However, the statement issued to The Herald continued;

The recent expenses debacle at the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and the “enormous pressure” surrounding preparations for the Games had “got on top of him and he was exhausted”, the statement said.

“Steven agreed to seek medical help immediately and subsequently he is now under doctor’s orders.

“He would hope to get back in to active politics in the next few weeks and months,” the statement added.

“He hopes the people of Glasgow would appreciate what he has tried to do for the city that he loves.”

Let us therefore watch this space.......