DUMBARTON NOTEBOOK BY BILL HEANEY

We said it in this column at the very outset. Starmer is a warmer. I don’t have much to smile about this weather, but I laughed out loud when I read this headline in The Independent: Keir Starmer suspends Labour rebels after repeated backbench revolts.

It was followed by this: “Labour prime minister seeks to reassert his authority after welfare revolt leaves £5bn hole in the public finances, prompting speculation the chancellor Rachel Reeves will be forced to raise taxes in the autumn.”

Rachel and her posh pals should not be forced to raise taxes. They should be forced out the door of no 11 Downing Street. And never allowed back in again, suspended sine die.

They couldn’t spell socialism, and that is what they and people like Dumbarton’s relatively recently elected Labour MP Douglas McAllister are supposed to be representing.

Working class parliament for working class people, my ass. Me first, more like it.

McAllister is no democratic socialist. Douglas could not punch his way out of a political paper bag. He supported all those welfare cuts that Starmer had to shame-facedly withdraw at the eleventh hour.

Had he had the principle of the West Dunbartonshire electors who voted him in then our ex-provost would be amongst those Labour MPs whom Sir Keir Starmer has suspended “as he seeks to reassert his authority after a series of damaging backbench rebellions”.

Now that would be a trick since Starmer didn’t have any authority in the first place. Authority and respect have to be earned. They are not something that can be inherited.

We understand from The Independent that the Labour rebel leader Rachael Maskell, along with Chris Hinchliffe, have been called in to see the chief whip over the recent revolt over the detested welfare reforms.

Others who have had the whip suspended, including Kirkcaldy MP Brian Leishman and Neil Duncan-Jordan, have confirmed they are amongst those MPs who have lost the party whip over “persistent breaches of party discipline”.

This disastrous move by Starmer comes before politicians depart Westminster for the summer early next week and follows speculation some Labour MPs could have been in talks to join a new party being created by ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana.

But a senior Labour figure commented: “Shows how weak they are. It only hastens Starmer’s fall by showing his absolute weakness.”

Sir Keir suffered a serious blow earlier this month when dozens of his own MPs voted against his planned welfare cuts in Parliament.

The chancellor Rachel Reeves has left him with the task of filling the £5bn hole.

The prime minister was forced into two humiliating U-turns on the legislation in less than a week to head off a revolt that threatened to defeat his government on one of its flagship policies.

Despite the climbdowns, the revolt was still the largest backbench rebellion Sir Keir has suffered so far. It may be the largest, but it won’t be the last.

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Hi Amanda, the complaint said, I’m just wondering if the council will find the time to address the problem of upstairs WASTE water flooding our property on Bontine Avenue [Brucehill]?

We’ve been here a year and it has been one thing after another. We have regular flooding, sewage flies, damp, black spores, mould and I have a baby crawling about.

We have had bees entering the property, which I’m ALLERGIC to. I had to get an epi-pen because apparently there’s nothing West Dunbartonshire Council can do about bees as they’re protected.

My children have skins irritations/rashes and breathing issues now. That is not a coincidence.

I have had to contact the GP about my nine year old’s mental health as I am really worried about her. She is absolutely miserable and anxious.

But does anyone actually care?

No. I have to wait for her to hurt herself before it’s taken seriously as she is under ten. But, hey, we’re local people, so obviously not a priority.

It takes a great deal to bring tears to my own eyes, but this complaint in the Council’s infamous Complaints Column in which people bare their soul about how bad Dunbartonshire has become as a place in which to live almost did that.

I remember my own childhood in Brucehill. It was tough, but never as bad as has been described here.

When things got tough, the tough got going in Brucehill at that time.

On the face of it, the young mother who sent in this complaint should be immediately re-housed in a property that is wind and water-tight and damp and disease free. A suitable place to bring up a family.

The Council will soon have to reintroduce sanitary inspectors and Green Ladies on to their staff.

I know David McBride, the councillor for that part of the town, has family connections in Brucehill going back more than half a century.

Isn’t it time he got the finger out and took steps to alleviate the huge burden on this poor woman’s shoulders — immediately?

I note elsewhere that the police at Crosslet Police HQ have taken up bee-keeping. Perhaps the Council could call in the Blue Light Brigade and ask them to lock up the Bees from Brucehill. For safety and sanitary reasons, of course.

* Definitely not living in the same world is Amanda, the council employee to whom this complaint was addressed. She’s the press officer who takes calls about uncut grass and bins that have not been uplifted and receives £129,000 a year for the privilege of doing that. All that palaver about local government having to compete with the private sector when it comes to recruitment, pay and condictions is just that. Palaver.

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I’m going on holiday for a couple of weeks. Like most people, other than politicians, of course, I can’t afford ten weeks off. I’ll let you know when I get back to work. Meanwhile, please remember to keep your council tax and brown bin payments up to date. And write to the Council begging them to cut the grass and use the £millions they are making out of public property sales to fund that. They were keeping that money secret until The Ferret investigative journal exposed them. Find The Democrat at democratonline.net