There are less than 5 weeks to go until the most exciting election in this blog’s history. On 4th May, for the first time in 5 long and miserable years, we have a chance to elect our local councillors! This is the day when the 37 year reign of Glasgow’s Labour council may finally come to an end.
If you’re not registered to vote, you can do it here until 17th April but the deadline to nominate candidates has closed, the full list has been announced… and WHAT A LIST. The Single Transferrable Vote (STV) system, means voters will rank candidates in order of preference, with 3 or 4 candidates being elected per ward. If no candidate receives enough 1st preference votes to hit the quota to be elected, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated until, eventually, we finally have all the seats filled. This means transfers (2nd, 3rd, 4th preferences) can be as crucial as 1st preference votes in deciding who wins.
In the interests of avoiding accidentally electing a total bellend with your stray transfers, here’s a rundown of just some of the horrors trying to gain your votes in Glasgow.
Flying the Fleg
Firstly, we shouldn’t really have to say this but TORIES. There’s no doubt the Tories will be hoping to gain significant ground in our City Chambers, given their recent performance at the Holyrood elections. So it’s worth remembering the one Tory councillor we currently have, Weekly Wanker David Meikle who represents the Pollokshields ward. You may remember him from such memes as #BallustradeLanyard and being married to Natalie “no further comment while criminal proceedings are ongoing” McGarry – but the truth is he’s no joke. More David Meikles is not a good thing, so if you can use your transfers to keep the Tories out, do.
Cease and Desist, both of you.
The new ward of Dennistoun sees a battle between 2 legal minds who’ve committed corporal crimes against the ATF family.
First up is Michael Kusznir, the Tory candidate. Obviously crime number 1 right there [see above] – but I’d note what really got us onto him was a sarcastic tweet on the day Tom Daley came out. We hope he lives to regret this chain of events and learns not to belittle Tom Daley on our patch, ever again. Also: if you don’t get why it’s news, learn.
Kusznir has media credentials he probably wishes he didn’t, longing for Ashton Lane like a true East Ender, an article on “how to bullshit” (admittedly a vital skill for GCC) and of course, this piece in which he complains of “a distinct lack of any real looking student boudoir beauties”, but confesses that “the variety of tits and teeth shots lures you into gawking” before ending with an encouragement to readers to use Craiglist to pick people up “if you are so desperate a STD infected killer appeals”, a reference to the murder of Troy LaFerrara.
The internet never forgets
When he’s not “balls deep” in “journalism”, he can be found desperately begging for a retweet off Murdo Fraser, for the same joke, two years apart. We’ve got news for your Michael, Murdo once tweeted a WHOLE ARTICLE we wrote. Which coincidentally was about silly wee boys who didn’t know their willie from their ability to hold public office…
GET SOME NEW PATTER
One of his opponents in Dennistoun is Lib Dem Daniel Donaldson, who despite not even being anywhere close to power yet has already been featured on ATF, admittedly not in a starring role. Donaldson is the guy who threatened to send a cease and desist letter to a Twitter account and told students to stop their #defamation – for pointing out blackface was racist. In this case, it seems his client was the ICON Awards, a commercial LGBT awards ceremony founded by an events company run by guy fined for the homophic bullying of his staff (obviously?). If you want to hate the ICON Awards more, we’d refer you to the fact they have a “SPECIAL STRAIGHT ALLY” category, for all you snowflakes who want a pat on the back for not openly hating us. The award was given to Michelle Visage, who doesn’t even do that – and is best known to many as the straight “ally” who bullied a gay man on national TV.
Donaldson’s company, Legal Spark, feature in several news articles about the launch of the awards and he even appeared on Xpress Radio, to warn everyone who didn’t like blackface not to say anything nasty about this poor corporate event, whose official partners included…Xpress Radio. Fair and impartial.
Whether either of these 2 will make it the City Chambers is a matter for the public to judge. But now you have the evidence…
Flying the Fleg pt.2
When we heard news that Kris McGurk, long time leader of loyalist faction/ATF regulars The Regimental Blues had quit, we wondered what might be going on. Was our man finally about to give up his life of bigoted baiting which has seen him flitting back and forth between Scotland and his beloved Ulster? Had he finally decided to just stop being such a roaster? It turns out not, as Kris has now registered to stand in Calton under the catchy title “No Referendum, Maintain Union, Pro-Brexit”, doubtless all vital local issues which the council can do a lot about.
SOMETHINGINSIDESOMUCHSTRONGERTHANYOU-MOREYESTHANYES2INDYREF2-MARXIST-LENINIST (RETIRED)
Kris McGurk is far from the person with the most cumbersome title in this election, that goes to our old friends at Solidarity, the Tommy Sheridan fanclub. Of course the man himself has (we really, really hope) retired AS PROMISED. That hasn’t however stopped his party registering a more ridiculous name for themselves than I’ve been able to come up with in my decades of trying, “Tommy Sheridan- IndyRef2/Tommy Sheridan-Solidarity-Hope Over Fear.”
Let’s break that down: Tommy Sheridan (who’s not a candidate), Indyref2 (which will not be decided in the Council Chambers), Solidarity (with who? Oh, Tommy), Hope Over Fear (definitely not a front, definitely not a political party, definitely a broad movement and not just another name for Tommy Sheridan). Are we all clear what we’re voting for? The legacy of a disgraced, retired, serial fantasist who isn’t even standing. YES! YES! YES! YES! YES!
Gone But Not Forgotten
Before we conclude, let’s pause to remember just a few of those who’ve declined to seek re-election. We’re entirely unsure why Yvonne Kucuk who was arrested last year, suspended from Labour and who ATF revealed was working in a position which didn’t appear on the Council’s Register of Interests prior to us contacting the Councillor for comment, doesn’t seem to be standing again. Her fellow former Calton Councillor George Redmond will also be missed, particularly by those “regenerated” out of their facilities in the community – or for that matter, the community itself, to make way for temporary car parks and other shiny things, in the form of the Commonwealth Games. And even though he left ages ago, we can’t forget who led the Labour administration for the majority of the last 5 years, so Gordon Matheson, we will not forget your legacy when we cast our votes.
Manky Franky
If you didn’t come here for the wee roasters, it’s the whole rushed lunch: another former Weekly Wanker Frank McAveety, who represents the Shettleston ward. He’s a man whose rise to power as an MSP came to a sharp halt when he got caught telling a lie about eating a pie and was quietly put back in the pantry. Frank’s previous run at the Council was best known for his war against George Square, which he dug up without notice prompting the fury of all Glasgwegians. His defining Holyrood moment was when he was caught perving on a schoolchild, so quite why he was re-elected to the Council in 2012, never mind elected leader is an intergalactic mystery. But we very much suspect his leadership will be coming to an end, very, very soon. So Frank, from all of us:
MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU.
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Further reading:
Lolitician of the Year: Ten Gordon Matheson fails since 2013
WEEKLY WANKER #056: FRANK MCAVEETY
WEEKLY WANKER #036: DAVID MEIKLE
We found out about a Glasgow councillor’s other job…and now you can too
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A Thousand Flowers 