Edinburgh Sucks! | Portobello Porkies?

Lawrence Marshall

Portobello Porkies?

By The Basa ⋅ April 23, 2007 ⋅

It seems that the NuLabour candidates in Portobello are ruling the local community with a fist of Iron and making sure that the only message that gets out is from themselves. Not all the porkies are in the form of meat and coming from the excellent Findlay’s.

Disgraced ex-councillor, Paul Nolan’s favourite Parliamentary candidate, Norman ‘nae pals’ Murray (NuLab) had attendees of the Portobello hustings walking away with ear to ear grins when in his final minute he was given the chance to tell the voters what he was most proud of in the last 8 years of Labour rule in Holyrood and he blurted out free personal care for the elderly and Scotland-wide free bus travel for the OAPs. It was lost on Murray, but not the audience, that Murray (NuLab) had just cited two of the FibDems major policies that they pushed through as coalition partners. My, how we laughed!

Also muddying the waters down Portobello way is the Child (NuLab) and Marshall (NuLab) roadshow following in the footsteps of their parliamentary candidate and taking the credit for everything good that has been done in the area.

A couple of quotes from emails we have received over the weekend will fill you in. A lady writes…….

Hi there,

I write to highlight East Edinburgh Local Labour Councillor’s attempt’s, to thwart Portobello Campaign Against the Superstore (PCATS)Campaign in halting the 85.000 sq ft tin can in our community.

Its high time these Labour councillors were exposed for what they tried to do.
I would put this article on talkporty.org but sadly I (like many) have been barred - without an explanation, from the Nazi Jefferson.

thank you.
NEW LABOUR FANTASY

Our Councillors claim in their election leaflet to have “seen off the threat of the Portobello Super Store”. Cllr Child has stated this in the past in an email but this is the first time she has touted this fantasy publicly. Let’s get the facts right from the people who actually stopped the superstore.

We first decided to hold a public meeting and asked, because we had no funds, Cllr Marshall to hire the Portobello Town Hall (he could get it free). He said that it was not worth our while to start a campaign or even hold a meeting .The subsequent meeting was the biggest ever and the crowd were 100 per cent against a Superstore except Cllr. Marshall who had the brass neck to turn up at the event and try to hog the microphone .It had to be wrestled away from him by one of our PCATS women!

PCATS (Porto Campaign Against the Superstore) was formed and we had a meeting with Marshall, Child and Cllr Davies, Chair of Planning. We were told that our appeal would not succeed and “we should consider co-operating with the developer” over peripheral details. Our request for financial assistance was met by a loud No from Cllr Child. (This from a woman whose council subsequently spent £7million on an ill thought out congestion scheme; and blamed the public for kicking out the plan in a referendum. A similar amount was also wasted on a housing stock transfer referendum. And needless to say the Council can always find money for the really important things like pay increases and(WAIT FOR IT!) redundancy payments in case we are churlish enough not to re elect them! Any pretence that the Council was against the Store vanished when they ducked out of putting a retail argument at the first Public Inquiry meeting in the Town hall with the official reporter.

Then in the midst of our campaign we discovered that the Council had hatched a plan to buy out the lease on the Pitz, mini soccer site, move it to the golf course, move the public library and the community centre to the promenade next to the Sports Centre, and sell off all three sites for PRIVATE housing. We argued successfully to stop this as it would compromise our appeal by allowing the developers to argue that the relocation of these facilities and the erection of housing would make the Store site more a central part of Portobello

We managed to raise over £23,000 to successfully defeat the developers. Our Councillors attended many of our fundraising events; not to help in any useful way but to be seen and pretend to be on our side. Nobody was fooled by this faux, and somewhat distasteful, display of “friendship”.

The Superstore battle was won by PCATS and the community, despite the actions and inactions of the Council or its local representatives. Their machinations in relation to PCATS and the developers has left a nasty suspicious taste that won’t go away.

Personal P.S. Casting a disinterested eye over the New labour pamphlet I am intrigued by some other of their promises eg “NEED FOR GOOD AFFORDABLE HOUSING Very laudable but when did the Council last build council houses? In 1987 that’s when. Is Cllr Marshall proud of this particular record?

LEISURE OPPORTUNITIES and EXCELLENT SPORTING FACILITIES; How have they hoped to achieve this? Surely not by trying to sell off Meadowbank stadium and Portobello
golf course for PRIVATE housing ?.

and…..

Recently I was asked, out of the blue, by Bobby Jefferson to submit questions via his website to put to the local election candidates.

I responded with questions about music and also the question “Who is the Dalriada Drunk?”.

I was interested academically because of my research into local low life and this was a person who is reported as having acted in a disgraceful manner(fuelled by drink,I believe,) got arrested by the local police and charged with a breach of the peace.

Imagine my surprise when my questions were immediately wiped off the web site and I was blocked sine die from communicating with Porty online by Herr Jefferson.

Can you imagine the great big gap this has created in my social life. I wonder whether my question about the Dalriada Drunk touched a raw nerve? Does Little Bob know this person? Or,worse still is he a friend or a loved one?.

I shall never find out (via wee Bob’s personal web site).

yours perplexed and in misery,

dickie alexander

What this clearly shows is that NuLabour seem to be pulling out all the stops to keep their detractors from not only asking the correct questions but also to correct their lies. Politicians always like and take the credit but at least up until now when they were caught out they admitted it. It now seems that the Porty Krew of NuLab Nancies are really going the extra mile to further their lies.

The websites TalkPorty and Portobello Online should at least let people know that they are run by NuLab lackeys and that any post off-message will be deleted by the local labour henchman known as Nazi Bob. We have an even funnier story about this whole saga coming up…………….don’t we Bob?