Labour leadership hopeful's staffer tells student to "shut the f*** up" at demo

Labour MSP Ken Macintosh comes over as a quiet, thoughtful man. He's certainly always been very mild mannered whenever I've seen him interviewed. I'm not sure he would be impressed with the actions of one of his staffers at today's anti fees march at Holyrood. Edinburgh University Students Association organised the protest against the University's decision to charge students from other parts of the UK £36,000 for their degrees from next year.

Ken Macintosh turned up at the demonstration to show his support for the students, saying he didn't want universities to become the preserve of the rich. Of course, university tuition in Scotland is free for Scottish students - something secured by the Liberal Democrats in the first Holyrood coalition in 1999.  If Labour had got their way, they would, supported by Ken Macintosh who was an MSP at the time, have introduced fees in Scotland the same way as they did in England.

One of his staffers, believed to be Peter Swindon, was overheard telling a student who had the temerity to gently point out Labour's record on fees to "shut the f*** up". Charming.

Funnily enough, the last Labour person I heard abusing people in that manner was Jim Devine, the now disgraced former MP for Livingston who told a bunch of kids to "f*** off" during the by-election in 2005.

Such foul-mouthed public tirades have no place in politics.

Jim Devine will be home for Christmas - or before

Disgraced former Livingston Labour MP Jim Devine has been sentenced to 16 months in prison for defrauding his election expenses, the BBC reports.  At most, he'll actually serve 8 months inside, so he'll be home for Christmas. According to his lawyer, if he behaves well, he could be out in 4 months just in time for my birthday. For the avoidance of doubt, though, he's not invited.

His crime, described by the judge as a "calculated and deliberate" defrauding of public money, was deemed not to be as serious as David Chaytor's, who is serving 18 months, but more serious than Elliot Morley's, who's in for a year.

This, I guess, brings to an end the litany of surreal and bizarre stories of Devine's tenure as my local MP. From a press story not long after he was elected in which he talked about a random woman sending him an interesting picture at himself after he'd met her at an event, to stories of bullying staff, to being ordered to pay damages by an Industrial Tribunal to bankruptcy to imprisonment. It doesn't make pleasant reading at all. For more background information, you might want to read the post I wrote when he was found guilty about the inglorious end to his chaotic career.

Former MP Jim Devine declared bankrupt

It's never nice to see a life disintegrate, however much the problems are of that person's own making. So I feel sad to read that Jim Devine, the former MP for Livingston recently found guilty of MP's expenses fraud has now been made bankrupt.

His former office manager took the bankruptcy action after he failed to pay £35,000 awarded to her in compensation for the appalling way he treated her. I'm sure that no amount of money can truly make up for the bizarre ordeal she underwent and in the end of the day, it would have been much better if those events had never taken place.

It's clear that when he leaves prison, after the inevitable custodial sentence is passed in a couple of weeks, he's not going to have much when he comes home and his future employment prospects are not great.

A sad demise for someone who abused the enormous privilege that came his way.

Jim Devine found guilty: an inglorious end to a chaotic career

Before I start, let me do a bit of a Nick Ross thing. Remember at the end of Crimewatch every month he used to say that crime was actually really rare and tell us to sleep easy.  Well, that's just as true today. Most politicians, of most parties (racist thugs like the BNP excepted of course), are good and decent people who are in politics to help people. Don't let the behaviour of a very small number of people detract from that.

Anyway, I feel quite sad and disappointed at how my former MP, Jim Devine, has behaved on many occasions since he was elected. The guilty verdict on two charges of false accounting is the tip of a very large iceberg.

I first came across Jim Devine in the by-election in 2005. His selection as candidate was rapidly followed by a mea culpa interview in Labour rag the Daily Record in which he outlined his drunk driving convictions and womanising past.  During that campaign, a group of our activists came across him canvassing on a north Livingston council estate and saw him tell a child of about 8 to f*** off. Without the asterisks.

On the face of it, he seemed to be your average take-the-constituency-for-granted Labour MP. To give him his due, though, he did a lot of work on  the Farepak issue, and on the vexed issue of land management and property factors. It wasn't until 2009 when he became embroiled in the expenses scandal that we got more of an insight into his shambolic lifestyle. The charges he faced today were unrelated to the issues which actually got him deselected. Then it was all to do with questionable receipts, and shelving. I have to say, though, why did the whips investigating him not pick up on the stuff he was charged with?

He made bumbling, inarticulate, tv appearances at that time and then was charged for something quite different.

We also knew in 2009 that he was being taken to an employment tribunal by his former office manager. That case was finally heard four months ago and revealed some really weird behaviour on Devine's part. Apart from trousering £10,000 of expenses which should have been paid to Marion Kinley in mileage, he engaged in this bizarre hoax, getting someone to ring Marion Kinley up and pretend to be a journalist investigating expenses. He then totally fabricated some story about an expose that was supposedly going to appear in the press about her. He was subsequently ordered to pay her damages of over £35,000 plus the expenses.

The charges he was found guilty of today were of false accounting. He asked a printing company to provide him with receipted invoices that he used to claim money for work that hadn't been, and wouldn't be, carried out. At his trial, he said that he did this to pay a temporary member of staff, whom he wouldn't name because she'd be charged for benefit fraud, cash in hand. A former member of his staff said on the lunchtime news that there had been no such person.

Jim Devine's public life was chaotic, shambling and pathetic, with fabrications and unnecessary complications at almost every step.  We will find out how he will pay for his illegal actions in around 4 weeks' time.

Update: I rather like the question the very perceptive Mr Calder has posed in his article on the subject.

Mark's MPs Meme

The UK's third most influential Lib Dem blogger, Mark Reckons has challenged us to name all the MPs who had ever represented us.

That'll be a breeze, I thought, being the political geek that I am, they will all just trip out of my brain, just like that.

Not so - most were easy, but a couple took some checking on the internet.

I've been lucky enough to have been represented by a cabinet minister, and a good one who resigned on a matter of principle, a couple of ministers, a Scottish Party leader, a UK Party leader and a complete maverick - not so bad. I've lived in mostly safe seats, but with a couple of marginals in there too.

So, in chronological order, here they are:

1967-79: Russell Johnston, passionate about both home rule and Europe. I'm sorry that I was just that bit too young to get to know him properly, although I met him on several occasions.

1979-87: Robert Maclennan. Bob was the last leader of the SDP and one of the most decent people I've ever known in politics. Although I moved away from Caithness in 1985, I continued to go back to help in elections there until 1992. If you read this blog regularly, you'll be fed up of hearing how I got detention for skipping school to go canvassing for him in 1983 when I was 15!

Those of you who have known me for a long time will know that I was in Aberdeen for a couple of years as a student but I never came off the electoral roll in Caithness so I could vote for Bob in the 1987 election. Just to show I'm a geek, my local MP in Aberdeen North at that time was Robert Hughes

1987-88: Ron Brown, who added colour to the House of Commons and who eventually pissed Labour off so much that they deselected him.

1988-89: The one and only Lord Foulkes.

1989-92: After we moved to England, I was quite disconcerted to be represented by a Tory for the first 3 years, and one with a very Scottish sounding name, Andy Stewart, at that. He lost his seat in the 1992 election that saw John Major cling to power. Paddy Tipping, the Labour MP who succeeded him, is still there.

When we moved back here in 2000, we not only had a Westminster MP but an MSP too. Robin Cook, Foreign Secretary at the time and Bristow Muldoon had seemingly unassailable majorities at the time.

Sadly, Robin, who resigned from the Cabinet over the Iraq war, passed away in 2005 to be replaced by Jim Devine, who, it has to be said, is significantly down the food chain and who has recently been deselected by the Labour Party over his expenses.

Bristow lost his seat in 2007 to the SNP's Angela Constance. I've known Angela ever since I moved here when I was on the local Community Centre's management committee. As a local councillor, she attended practically every meeting. I have a lot of time for her. She works very hard and has always been very friendly and polite.

It's quite disappointing that I had to wait until I was almost 40 years old to be represented by a woman. The preceding list is depressingly male, and white for that matter. The issue of getting more women elected is something I want to explore more more fully over the next few weeks.

I am not going to tag anyone with this, so just go ahead and do it if you want to.

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Devine fails to show at constituency surgery

I'm just watching Reporting Scotland and have been horrified to see that Jim Devine failed to show at a constiteuncy surgery in Livingston this afternoon. Devine has been in the news a lot this week after being deselected as MP for Livingston over his expenses claims.

If he's going to stay on as an MP, he can't hide away from local people. If someone goes to see their MP, chances are they are desperate and need urgent help. The least he could have done would have been to send along a local councillor or a member of his staff to at least find out what their problems were so they weren't left over the weekend.

If he can't fulfil his basic obligations as an MP, shouldn't he just resign now?

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"Devastated" Devine threatens to force second by-election in Livingston

The BBC is reporting, as I have speculated here on several occasions in the last few days, that Jim Devine, recently deselected MP for Livingston, is threatening to stand down immediately and force the second by-election of this Parliament in Livingston. He's apparently feeling devastated by his treatment by the authorities, but, to be honest, he hasn't yet offered a plausible and consistent explanation of his claims for public money.

I wonder if the NEC sub-Committee will have to think again if the Police investigation Devine invited on his claims leads to nothing - there is always that option, although I think it's unlikely because Labour are not judging on whether the law has been broken.

It isn't clear whether Devine would stand in this by-election because he has also said that he is considering holding out to the General election and standing as an independent.

It would be interesting to see whether the local party, with whom he has had a long association, first as Robin Cook's agent and most recently as MP, would back him or the candidate forced upon them by London Labour high heed yins.

Jeff has speculated that there might be an all women shortlist here which would be interesting given that Devine won in an all male contest in 2005. I remember being completely shocked at the time that they didn't put any effort into ensuring that they had a balanced shortlist, but then I've often found Labour's commitment to equality and diversity to be either dogmatic or patchy. If there is an all woman shortlist, that may not please Bristow Muldoon, the former MSP, who may be interested in standing for Westminster.

Whether it's a by-election now or the general in less than a year, I would be very surprised if Labour holds on to this seat, with or without the intervention of Devine. Their vote has been leeching away and they no longer control the Council. While Devine may have a long association with Livingston Labour, I don't sense any particular affection for him amongst local people - in fact, for those of my friends who have been to see him, it's quite the reverse.

Although the SNP runs the Council in coalition with the hospital campaigners, there is still dissatisfaction with health service provision locally, though, and the SNP Government is not achieving much at Holyrood. They have failed on Police and teacher numbers, their Scottish Futures Trust is a joke and they are being completely thrawn about increasing the powers of the Holyrood parliament. It annoys me that they just go on about independence and nothing else and have not been constructive about the Calman process. There's no huge appetite for independene, but there is for further devolution of power and it's ironic that the biggest barriers to progress and consensus in that regard are not the Tories, for once, but the SNP.

So, whenever it comes, we could see some surprises the next time Livingston goes to the polls.

However, let's leave the last laugh to the BBC's Brian Taylor. I guess someone had to do it...

UPDATE: My good friend Stephen has been doing the shelf joke thing too

UPDATE 2: Mr MacNumpty has been ruminating along similar lines - well not similar to my last main paragraph, of course, but a good read nonetheless.

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Jim Devine - an ignominious end to an unremarkable career

There are some politicians you don't really mind that much being beaten by, and Robin Cook was one of them. His re-election to Livingston in 2005 was not unexpected and also not particularly unwelcome. His stance on the Iraq War, and resignation from the Cabinet on principle, a rare thing in this Government, as well as his diligent service as a constituency MP showed him to be a decent human being. I had cause to visit him once with a problem and he sorted it with some sensitivity.

When he died in August 2005, I was genuinely saddened. Yet another good senior Scottish Labour figure had been struck down too soon.

It was going to be hard for anyone to step into Robin's shoes, but, to be honest, Devine was never really up to the job. His political obituary is not going to take very long to write.

He was someone that I really did object to being beaten by, particularly after he was seen being really rude to some children during the campaign by some of our people. I also know that friends of mine, who have nothing to do with politics, have been less than impressed with him when they've gone to him seeking help.

Having promised to continue in the Cook tradition, he then proceeded to vote with the Government on virtually all of their illiberal anti terrorism measures and was particularly strongly against an Inquiry into the Iraq War, as you'll see from this excerpt from his They Work for You site profile.

"How Jim Devine voted on key issues since 2001:

"Has never voted on a transparent Parliament. votes, speeches
Voted very strongly for introducing ID cards. votes, speeches
Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws. votes, speeches
Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war. votes, speeches
Voted very strongly against replacing Trident. votes, speeches"

He also voted with the Government on the Gurkhas last month, much to my disappointment.

To be fair to him, though, he did vote against the replacement of Trident, and had to resign his unpaid post as a PPS as a result.

He didn't even have the political nouse to realise what the problem was going to be with his expenses. In a pretty poor display of political judgment, this is what he told the Scotsman just under a month ago:

"Meanwhile, Jim Devine, the Labour MP for Livingston, said he feared media criticism for claiming around £4,000 claimed towards a house purchase in London – but told The Scotsman it paled into insignificance when compared to Tories such as Douglas Hogg, who claimed for moat-dredging."

So, now that he's been told he can't defend his seat, what next for Labour in Livingston? The party is not in good shape locally, having lost both the Holyrood seat and control of the Council since Devine's election. They were pretty much invisible during the Euro election here.

The question is will Devine resign now, like Ian Gibson, and cause another by-election? If he did, that would be a major headache for Labour in Scotland as they also have to defend Speaker Martin's Glasgow seat. While having the first Livingston by election on the same day as the Scottish Parliament Cathcart by-election split the Nationalist effort, the climate was very different then.

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Jim Devine MP deselected by Labour "Star Chamber"

Jim Devine, MP will now never face the Livingston electorate at a General Election after being deselected by the Labour Party's NEC sub Committee which is investigating MP's expense claims.

Clearly they were less convinced than the local Labour Party who backed him last week by his explanations of thousands of pounds being paid for shelving, which has yet to be found, to Mr Devine's pub landlord. He also paid over £2000 to an electrician he met in a pub in London and who carried out rewiring work to his London flat. The invoice submitted for this work had an incorrect VAT number and other details were found to be false.

Whether Mr Devine will continue to the next election, or stand down and cause another by-election, which Labour would surely lose, is yet to be seen.

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Today's the day for Jim Devine

As I wrote last week, my own MP (and I don't say that with any pride, believe you me) is up before Labour's star chamber because of certain discrepancies with his expenses.

Since last week, the Sunday Herald have spent more time and money trying to track down the 66m of shelving Jim Devine's pub landlard received over £2000 out of office expenses to build. They were shown some potential suspects in the basement of a Blackburn pub, but they are not so sure these are the ones.

Also, the local Labour Party backed Devine after hearing his explanation that the shelves were in the basement of the pub and being used, against the rules, to store Labour party election tat.

As a concerned constituent I wrote to Jim Devine last week, asking him 3 questions I had about his expenses, taking pains to point out that I held the view that most MPs were good people and that I was aware that you couldn't necessarily believe everything you read in the papers. I got a reply to the effect that I would get my answers next week.

It seems that today is the day, though - the star chamber will give its verdict on whether he should be allowed to be a Labour candidate at the next election.

Their conclusion will be interesting - and if they do allow him to stand, I hope we will be allowed to see all the evidence on which they based their decision. I think we at least need to know what happened to the shelves and to have evidence, via withdrawals from bank accounts or whatever, that Jim Devine did, as he said, pay cash for the rewiring of his London flat to the company which then gave him an invoice with false details.

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Could there be another by-election in Livingston?

The underlying assumption to this is that Gordon Brown survives whatever level of disaster the voters visited him and the Labour Party when they voted on Thursday and is able to persuade his backbench Labour turkeys not to vote for Christmas when he meets them tomorrow.

That's probably more likely than most people in the media are portraying - this is a man who showed enormous stubbornness and made his life a whole lot more difficult than it needed to be for 10 years while his arch enemy Blair was PM, so the current turmoil will be something like a default position to him. Anyone else might give up, but he's been used to living life in the full blast of a storm, sometimes a self inflicted one.

Anyway, to get back to the point, if Gordon does survive, I'm wondering if my home town of Livingston will become the focus of a second by-election during the course of a single Parliament. Its current Labour MP, Jim Devine, was elected in September 2005, in a by election caused by the sudden and sad death of Robin Cook. As another aside, at the time BBC Political Editor Brian Taylor said that one of the stories of the night was the fact that the Liberal Democrats had not been squeezed - we virtually held on to our General Election vote from earlier that year in a campaign with now Edinburgh Councillor Charles Dundas as the candidate and Your's Truly as the campaign manager.

Anyway, Mr Devine's expenses have, to say the least, been the focus of some controversy with over £2000 being paid for electrical work to his flat in London - but the invoice submitted had a number of irregularities including an incorrect VAT number and a a company name which isn't registered. There's also the matter of over £2000 being paid to the landlord of Mr Devine's local pub for 66 metres of shelving - that's quite a lot, surely - which doesn't seem to be visible at either his home or his constituency office.

This is all on top of him claiming almost £17000 for constituency mileage but apparently the person who was driving him around only received £60 of it. The former member of staff who drove him round is apparently taking him to a Tribunal, as is his successful. Lady Bracknell would be looking on disapprovingly.

What's also become very clear in recent weeks is that local Labour councillors in Livingston hate Devine's guts. Two have taken up work in his office and left in varying degrees in disgust. The local Labour party are apparently circulating one of these letters that seems to have become de rigeur when you're trying to get rid of someone. He faces them this afternoon - if he's recovered from the illness which led to him having to cancel a meeting with Labour councillors on Friday.

It is, of course, perfectly possible that everything is all completely above board and Mr Devine's record keeping is simply shambolic and chaotic and his memory has let him down. The Labour Party's "star chamber" NEC Committee will be investigating him this week. If they recommend that Devine should be de-selected, would he do an Ian Gibson and stand down immediately?

If so, would he be the only MP never to have fought a General Election and would Livingston be the only seat ever to have 2 by-elections in a single Parliament? I can't find anything to say it isn't, but I'm sure one of the history geeks who read this will tell me if I'm wrong.

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