Quote of the Day: OK Tuesday Yet Again Michael Connarty

Looks like I missed the most dismissive quote ever of Labour, that's right Labour, MP Michael Connarty in defence of his spending £250 on an alarm clock.

He told the Scotsman defending his claim for a £250 alarm clock from John Lewis by saying that he should not be forced to "shop at 99p stores". Now I don't think there is anything wrong with the 99p stores that fill the main streets just down the road from his office but £250 for an alarm clock is just not acceptable to be claimed on expenses and there are other options between the two when you are not spending your own money but the peoples.

Do I Suddenly Really Need to Have Three Labour Constituency Offices?

I have to admit that at the time in the morning I usually am heading to the bus I'm not that awake. So for weeks now I may well have walked down Hopetoun Street in Bathgate and turned right unto South Street to pick up my paper from the newsagents then had my head in it looking for a headline to blog about as I returned up South Street to catch the bus.

It may well me that the sign for the offices of Mary Mulligan MSP (pictured right) have stared me in the face for all those weeks since I posted this about Mary's name being removed from the offices near my house.

Now I'm not casting aspersions as I'm sure the claim for this new office is all above the board with the people at Holyrood. However, after 10 years of sharing office space, first with Tam Dalyell and then with Michael Connarty, why now does Mary Mulligan feel the need to burden the taxpayer with a second constituency office no more than 300 metres from another for the same party? Sharing offices between MPs and MSPs of the same party is not uncommon practice so why the need for the DMZ between the two now?

Is it because of the current unearthing of MPs expenses that are embroiling her Westminster colleague that she wants to distance herself?

Have they fallen out over irreconcilably? Michael has shown staunch support for Gordon Brown and lately the Speaker in a failing Westminster regime. Is Mary trying to distance herself from that?

I had specualted that maybe Mary was moving to Whitburn in preparation for the contesting the Airdrie, Shotts and Whitburn seat which may be approved by the Electoral Commission for Scotland this week. But as this office is in Bathgate that would not appear to be the case.

However, the fact that now we have two constituency offices in Bathgate (indeed Michael also has one in Grangemouth) so close to each other seems like a cause for explanation to the taxpayers and the electorate who share Mary Mulligan and Michael Connarty. At a time when other people and business in the private sector are tightening budgets and rationalising why have these two expanded in to even more office space?

Where's Something About Mary?

The other day I took this video of them changing the sign outside the Bathgate offices of the Labour Party.


Multimedia message on 12seconds.tv

Sadly it's not that clear but the white part of the sign that's visible announced the offices of the MSP for Linlithgow Mary Mulligan.

This evening I decided to go back past to see the completed work. After all it is only a handful of seconds longer on my trip home. I was greeted by this:



The sign is totally dedicated to Michael Connarty who I contested the seat of Linlithgow and East Falkirk against in 2005 and nothing about Mary. Now there are boundary changes coming up in 2011 at the next Scottish Parliament elections. Bathgate will become part of the Linlithgow and Bathgate seat but the rest of Mary's seat becomes part of Lanark, Shotts and Whitburn. As this is the part of the constituency that Mary lives in I suspect the change of signage indicates that she will be standing there.

New Holyrood Constituency Proposals

New Proposals for the Scottish Parliamentary constituencies for the West Lothian area are available to view as a PDF file on the Boundary Commission for Scotland website.

The rapid population expansion in the area is the principle reason why the boundaries and it means that West Lothian residents will now be in one of three constituencies when voting for Holyrood elections:

1. Livingston
2. Linlithgow and Bathgate
3. Lanark, Shotts and Whitburn

The areas proposed to move into Lanark, Shotts and Whitburn are Whitburn (obviously), East Whitburn, Greenrigg, Longridge, Fauldhouse. The new boundary of Livingston being just beyond Bents and Breich to the West. The southern boundary of the Linlithgow seat will the the Armadale and Blackridge/Whitburn and Blackburn ward boundary and the Western fringe will be at junction 4 of the M8.

Uphall, Broxburn, Dechmont and Ecclesmachen will move from Livingston into the new Linlithgow and Bathgate seat.

It will will mean that it will be possible for people in the Whitburn and Blackburn ward to have MSPs in common with either Lanark and Shotts, or Livingston and their MP in Common with either Linlithgow and Bathgate or Livingston. However, with the expansion in various areas this is the most equitable shape of the three leaving the elctorates based on 2007 as:

• Livingston 54,840
• Linlithgow and Bathgate 54,230
• Lanark, Shotts and Whitburn 54,930