Wild West Dunbartonshire.

Interesting insight into the world of not so New Labour politics in the West of Scotland, involving serious allegations against two senior Labour politicians.

"ONE OF Scotland's most senior MPs and his local MSP have been accused by a former colleague of overseeing a "thuggish" clique within the Labour party. John McFall, the MP for West Dunbartonshire, and Jackie Baillie, the MSP for Dumbarton, were named by Marie McNair in a devastating resignation letter when she gave up the Labour whip on West Dunbartonshire Council. McFall is the chair of the powerful House of Commons Treasury select committee, while Baillie is a former minister and ex-chief of staff for Labour at Holyrood."

Mr Smith tends to believe that you don't get fire on this scale without there being some substance to what is being said, but you decide.

Propaganda.

Mr Smith finds it hard to believe that some of our elected representatives would have the audacity to use publicly funded Parliamentary postage and materials to send out communications to their constituents in an attempt to win themselves more votes in the run up to an election. Then again ... perhaps he doesn't. But yet again the Holyrood authorities seem to have closed the stable door after the horses have already bolted ... and been re-elected.

"MSPS HAVE been banned from spending more than £5000 a year on office supplies following fears they were using the publicly-funded system to boost their re-election chances. Holyrood officials imposed the cap after MSPs racked up a record spend on postage and stationery last year. The £477,000 bill, up 75% from the previous year, was incurred while MSPs were trying to regain their places in the parliament."

And some of the worst offenders? Step forward ... "Christine Grahame, the SNP MSP for South of Scotland, who spent £26,465 on central office supplies ... Her bill was around seven times the average and almost 10 times the £2701 she spent in 2005-06. Another big spender was Labour's Cathy Craigie, who racked up £17,302 while defending a 520-vote majority in Cumbernauld and Kilsyth. Craigie's office spend was more than triple the £5358 she used from the central budget the previous year. Fellow Labour MSPs Wendy Alexander and Jackie Baillie were close to the top of the office supplies league table, spending £14,450 and £14,649 respectively."

Parking Bays.

Mr Smith is all for equal rights for people, but Jackie Baillie MSP's proposals for legislation on strengthening the powers in relation to the misuse of disabled parking bays may be one idea that goes to far.

"Plans to hammer able-bodied drivers who park in disabled spaces could have big financial consequences for Scottish councils. Dundee City Council has revealed that the cost of setting up and running the scheme would be around £330,000 in the first year."

If it is going to cost Scottish councils millions of pounds to enforce the new legislation and the actual benefit of the moves may be quite limited by comparison, this seems to be going to far. The whole point of disabled parking bays is to make it easier for disabled people holding blue badges to park, but that is not a right, it is merely an additional benenfit which society has chosen to create.

To Mr Smith this smacks of the Dog Fouling Act and the Breastfeeding Act which were well intentioned measures when the Scottish Parliament passed them but which have generated minimal public policy benefit.