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The architect of the anti-foxhunting (Scotland)
Bill pleads guilty of being a drunken wilful fire raiser, endangering
the lives of others as they slept in a prestigious Edinburgh hotel.
Editorial
filed 07 Sep 05
©www,land-care,org.uk
Lord Watson, a former minister for culture sport
and tourism in Scotland's cabinet, pleaded guilty of wilfully setting
fire to curtains in Prestonfield House Hotel on the occasion of
"the politician of the year awards" in November 2004.
In so doing in endangered the lives of others as they slept in the
hotel at 2.00 am. Thus, on 1st September 2005 the political career
of this troublesome labour politician was at an end, or so one might
think.
Fire raising is a serious crime at any time. To
do it in a hotel at night when many guests are asleep beggars belief.
What kind of man had become a minister in the fledgeling Scottish
parliament? What kind of a man had been made a life peer? What kind
of a man pioneered the anti-hunting bill that so damaged rural Scotland?
Mike Watson was born in Cambuslang in 1949 and
was brought up in Invergowrie by Dundee. He went to Dundee High
School. He graduated from Heriot Watt University with BA Economics
and Industrial Relations (1974). He entered the labour movement,
taking a post with the Workers Educational Association (1974-77).
He then became an official with the Association of Scientific, Technical
& Managerial Staffs (ASTMS) and then the Manufacturing, Science
and Finance (MSF) Union, laterally based in Glasgow.
In 1989, Watson was a elected a Member of Parliament
representing the Glasgow Central constituency until 1997, when it
disappeared following boundary changes. He found himself facing
Councillor Mahammed Sarwar, a powerful representative of Glasgow's
Asian community, for selection as labour candidate. There were rumours
of pressure and arm-twisting on all sides. The first count saw Mike
Watson win by a single vote. Mr Sarwar refused to accept the result
and demanded a re-run, which he duly won.
George Galloway, expelled from the Labour Party
for his outspoken comments about the war in Iraq and who is now
Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, writing about Mike Watson
in the Mail on Sunday, said:
"The anti-racist who, when his position was challenged by
Scotland's only ethnic minority MP, Mohammed Sarwar, dredged every
barrel, spun every stereotype and relied on a set of dirty tricks
that would have shamed a segregationist senator in Mississippi".
Such a bad looser, Mike Watson took his own party
to court, contesting a youthful Labour official by the name of Jack
McConnell, the current First Minister. Watson lost and Sarwar was
chosen.
Perhaps because the Labour party felt some guilt
over the way Mike Watson was treated, Tony Blair got him made a
peer. So, and apparently for no other reason, he became a member
of the House of Lords and came to be known as Lord Watson of Invergowrie.
Such is the so-called reform of the House of Lords.
But peers can stand for the Scottish Parliament.
So Lord Watson contested and won Glasgow Cathcart and won in 1999,
holding it again in 2003 despite the controversy over local hospital
provision. While supporting the community in their efforts to keep
their A & E Department open, he voted for its closure.
There have been many other charges made against
Lord Watson for being a hypocrite. With his years as a Union Official
supposedly supporting the rights of members, he is accused of being
rude and offensive to hotel staff when they tried to tell him the
bar is closed at 2.00 am and he could not be served even more drink
- just before he set fire to the hotel's curtains and returned to
the scene to ensure that they had got well alight.
A hypocrite too in regard to the Private Member's
Bill he introduced to the Scottish Parliament directed at banning
hunting foxes with dogs, which developed into the Wild Mammals (Scotland)
Act. Watson is not known to have any particular interest in wild
mammals, or whether foxes are hunted by dogs or not. His interest
was to see whether he could get a private members bill through the
Scottish Parliament. An anti-foxhunting topic just came to hand
and suited his purpose. Thus the untutored will of the Scottish
Parliament was imposed on rural Scotland, much to its detriment.
But who cares if you are a self-centred, pathologically ambitious
politician from the Central Belt.
As a Director of Dundee Football Club, Lord Watson
should have been promoting the elimination of any element of hooligan
behaviour that might exist amongst its members. But what does he
do? In a drunken state he wonders about in the middle of the night,
verbally abusing staff and wilfully sets an hotel on fire.
As a member of the House of Lords he can claim
expenses. While his contribution in the Upper House does not appear
to be spectacular, it is alleged that his claims for expenses exceed
those of any other Scottish Peer.
Again, George Galloway, writing in the Mail on
Sunday, had a few more choice words about this Peer of the Realm
who is on his third wife:
"The inadequate husband who strutted ever more unconvincingly
with ever younger women, giving rise to the best political joke
of the decade. Mike Watson sends his apologies for being unable
to be here, he is attending the birth of his next wife"
In 1998 Mike Watson was awarded an honorary degree
by the University of Abertay, Dundee. Ironically, this was a Doctorate
of Laws. The citation recorded his contribution to society as
"a distinguished parliamentarian and his commitment to the
promotion of educational opportunities for all sections of society."
But it has to be questioned whether Labour efforts
to promote educational opportunities for all have raised educational
standards in Scotland, or achieved the converse. Indeed there is
much cause for concern regarding what has been happening to Scotland's
centres of learning. The driving force seems to be the politics
of envy, as with the Land Reform (Scotland) Act and the Wild Mammals
(Scotland) Act. From an employer's point of view, in many areas
a university degree has now become so devalued that it is hardly
worth the paper it is written on. Was the award of an honorary doctorate
to Mike Watson another example of cronyism, an effort to find favour
in political circles, or what? As with being made a peer, the award
of honorary degrees seems to have become debased.
When charged of fire raising at Prestonfield House
he categorically denied any wrong doing. That was in November of
last year. In the words of Gerald Warner, writing in the latest
issue of Scotland on Sunday:
"By Thursday of last week he had fine-tuned that spin to
'Guilty'. How else would we expect a Labour politician to conduct
himself, in a sticky corner, than by the traditional Blairite
resort of lying - blatantly, remorselessly, futilely?"
Mike Watson consequently resigned his seat as
MSP for Glasgow Cathcart. It is also understood that he resigned
from the Board of Dundee Football Club. He is currently suspended
by the Labour Party. Whether or not he will be dismissed from the
Party will depend on the sentence that he gets from Edinburgh Sheriff
Court later this month.
But he can apparently continue to legislate over
us as a Labour Peer and continue to acquire lucrative expenses from
the taxpayer for doing so. There is much disquiet about this. Even
if it does take an Act of Parliament to sack him, he should be sacked.
If that does not happen, Mike Watson will need to have an even tougher
hide than he is credited for, to withstand the odium that he has
attracted.
But an even deeper concern is that Mike Watson's
behaviour may be symptomatic of rather too many of our elected representatives
at the Scottish Parliament. To again quote Gerald Warner in Scotland
on Sunday:
"The context of the crime is not without significant symbolism:
it was perpetrated at the Scottish Politician of the Year awards
dinner, the climacteric annual occasion when the complicit media
and their cronies in the political consensus foregather to freeload
in a mutual admiration society that defies reality as hydrogen
defies gravity. While the organisers retain sufficient sense of
the boundaries of credibility not to employ the term 'statesman',
the very notion of presenting awards to the rabble of ex-councillors,
union apparatchiks and similar socialist detritus that pillage
and bully us would be absurd anywhere outside the hothouse atmosphere
of the Scottish progressive consensus. In that rebarbative environment
Lord Watson was a fish in water."
Who is going to be the new MSP for Glasgow Cathcart?
In view of the debacle described above, it will
be important to observe whether matters are conducted in a somewhat
better form at the by-election scheduled for 29th September. Will
the successful candidate raise the standard of ethical behaviour
and professionalism within Scotland's political body. One can only
sincerely hope so.
©www.land-care.org.uk
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