The news that Scotland has now one of the highest prison populations in Europe, with 7,000 people locked up which is almost double what it was 20 years ago, caused a flurry of verbal activity amongst members of the Scottish Parliament. The SSP leader Colin Fox raised the question of new measures to deal with the problem at First Minister's Questions. The Labour leader Jack McConnell hit back at the SSP by pointing out that Rosie Kane of the SSP had served 7 days in nick because she wouldn't pay her fine just like her colleagues Carolyn Leckie and Tommy Sheridan. “If members of the Scottish Socialist Party would pay their fines, we would have had three less people who have been in prison in Scotland over the past few years”, Mr McConnell said. (Metro, 10 November) What neither the Scottish Socialist Party nor the Labour Party will ever state amidst their political mud-slinging is that a private property society must inevitably lead to crime and prisons. As supporters of the buying and selling system they can never attack the real cause of crime. RD
This is surely the point, in private property society prison is inevetable.
ReplyDeleteI am also certain that the bulk of the prison population don't go begging to be locked up as the likes of,Leckie,Sherriden,Kane et al do, to show their street cred.MC
And it also dawned upon me these are the same politicians who wanted, as a part of their election plank,more cops on the beat, in working class areas.Talk about "riding two horses wi' the wan arse."
ReplyDeletemc
"While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
ReplyDeleteAuthor: Debs, Eugene V.
And as an aside , i do believe that Tommy Sheriden was the only prisoner in his unit when he was detained during the Poll Tax non-payment campaign not to wear civvies , but to actually insist upon wearing a prison uniform . Indeed , it was all posturing as you say prolerat . All image and no substance
ReplyDeleteIt is uncomfortable to play the man rather than the ball.They just see it as propaganda ,a part of the political game.The real problem is they are not socialists and therefore seek support on the basis of pro-worker sympathies which they then have to provide evidence of,in order to get into the corridors of power,on the basis of doing a job 'for'the workers advocating for the provision of reforms of the system,which are pitched at just little more than the other mainstream parties.A more 'workerist than thou' message.Any message of socialism as a free access society,which workers will have to get for themselves, which some of their members know it to be, is trampled upon.I personally know an activist who was rebuked by Fox,for saying 'everything should be free', at a public meeting in West Lothian. He was told he had no right saying that.Probably correctly so, as a member of the S.S.P.,as it wasnt 'on message'and not the line.
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