Glasgow Election Count 2010 speech by Kevin McVey

A rousing speech was delivered at the end of the vote count in Glasgow's SECC by the candidate for the SSP in Glasgow North-East constituency Kevin McVey. The 2010 UK elections have been of intense interest because Labour looked set to lose and both the LibDems and Tories to gain. There was much speculation that there would be a hung parliament. In Scotland and particularly in Glasgow where Conservative has never been very popular there has been intense competition between Labour and LibDems. Smaller parties suffered due to tactical voting but could potentially gain in the future if the hung parliament leads to a fairer more proportional voting system being introduced. The Labour government on the other hand wanted to introduce an even unfairer system than the current first-past-the-post system. They wanted to introduce a single transferable vote system in reverse where surplus votes that are not enough to gain another candidate for a party are carried from the smaller to the larger parties. Ordinarily the single transferable vote is the fairest system and Brown wanted to call a referendum on the subject with the expectation that the population would vote for it without realising that his version of the single transferable vote is quite the reverse of what it normally means and would lead to less democracy, not more. The Liberals did not make the gains that they hoped for in Glasgow as many do not trust them any more than they do New Labour or Conservative but it will be interesting to see whether any coalitions that may come about as a result of the hung parliament will lead to an introduction of the LibDems' stated intention to introduce proportional representation, whether both parties will keep their promise on this one. It would be about the only good thing that could come out of the election as all the major parties are essentially the same when it comes to the economy. They will all bolster the capitalist markets and bankers with the public purse at the expense of services and jobs. Meanwhile, work goes on as usual for the Scottish Socialist Party. The SSP, as Kevin says in this video, has been campaigning for services, for jobs, against illegal wars and the following day there is more campaigning with a demonstration in Glasgow's George Square.

Category:

News & Politics

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• vote
• count
• hall
• speech
• UK
• elections
• 2010
• Glasgow
• Kevin
• McVey
• Scotland
• TrishMaryHill
• 7/05/10

[JamesBCS]

@deno914 Maybe it's all a bit boring and uninsipring and unoriginal for this guy to make this sort of speech, but I get tired of David Cameron going on about his party's idea of 'fairness' while coming up with all these anti-immigration laws, supporting the data protection act and pledging to cut inheritance tax - at a time like this!

[euanrocks]

@deno914 Fuck yer conservatives. The country is fucked now as we've got Clegg and Cameron who can't wait to cut the NHS, education and make the rich richer and the poor poorer!

Vote SSP 2011 Scottish Election!

[deno914]

What a wank. Tax the rich, stop the BNP, keep the public services going. Yawn, yawn. God Bless the Conservative party.