Tweeting time: social media - Celtic, and party indifference in Glasgow East

moridura Peter Curran

@hspolitics Solidarity, like Tommy, is committed to Scotland's independence - George Galloway is committed to the rotten UK dependency.

moridura Peter Curran

@alisonthewliss Pop round to 10 Ardenlea Street, Alison - Margaret Jaconelli would love to see her councillor before 16th Feb court hearing.

moridura Peter Curran

Disenchanted Labour voters and trades unionists have few real choices in England - but in Scotland, they do - the SNP. May 5th is critical.

moridura Peter Curran

The Labour Party at the top is rotten to the core, fatally compromised. But Labour people - and TUs - are not - they're in the wrong party.

@Michael_Grieve I read it, Michael, and I care. But Labour put us in this mess and the ConLibs are compounding it. But I know you care too

moridura Peter Curran

#SNP Margaret Jaconelli goes to court on 16th Feb to face GCC and the Glasgow Labour political machine. If the SNP won't help, who will?

moridura Peter Curran

#SNP Big statements, bid ideas, vision and hope are needed, SNP. 96 days left - no time for trivial social media messages. Scotland waits -

moridura Peter Curran

Mubarak's leadership is threatened by social media and democracy. Take a hint from the SNP - tweet about musical preferences. That'll do it!

moridura Peter Curran

Glasgow Eastenders look after their own. Well, they did when I lived there - but not any more. Ardenlea Street? Margaret Jaconelli?

moridura Peter Curran

Exactly what community do you think you're in, Celtic? Could a persecuted family in Dalmarnock be part of it? Persecuted over Big Sport. ???

moridura Peter Curran

Celtic Football Club has Celtic in the Community, but ignores all appeals over Margaret Jaconelli and GCC. Who is the Chairman? John Reid...

moridura Peter Curran

The Arab countries use social media to break the power of power elites. A critical election in Scotland imminent - social media are vital >>

moridura Peter Curran

>> but we tweet trivia about Desert Island Disks. The UK is controlled by a privileged elite, the nuclear threat is latent - big messages???

The Poppy–a symbol that has lost its meaning?

These are my uncles – Peter and Edward McCluskey.

They volunteered as teenagers for service in the Great War – they didn’t have to fight, they weren’t conscripted, there was no military tradition in their family, they were both born in Glasgow, and both of their parents – my grandparents – were Southern Irish, and had no love for England or the UK. They fought for Scotland, the country of their birth.

Both died before their time, indirectly as a result of their injuries in that appalling war - Eddie at the age of 28 and Peter well after World War Two. I never knew my Uncle Eddie, but my Uncle Petie was a familiar figure during my childhood. He rarely spoke of his experiences, but was horrified when WW2 broke out and he saw his younger cousins Gerard and Peter, whom he had taken into his home after they lost their father, conscripted into the Highland Light Infantry and the RAF respectively. He spent the war crouched at the radio, following every report, devastated at the casualties and praying for peace.

Peter McCluskey was moved to tears each Armistice Day, and maintained the two minutes silence, but he would not have been seen dead wearing a poppy – he felt that this potent symbol of life, rising from the blasted earth of the battlefields, amid the corpses of his comrades, had been debased by its association with Earl Haig and that it had been hijacked by militaristic politicians.

Hence my identical feelings about the poppy, reinforced by experiences in industry and commerce, where people who never had a thought for others, or the dead, or any injustice, who never contributed a penny to funds for wounded and disabled ex-servicemen, suddenly acquired a poppy in November, and accosted me, asking “Why aren’t you wearing your poppy, Peter?” They wore their poppy like they acquired their golf handicap – it was the career-wise move.

They got a dusty answer, plus, on more than one occasion the challenge from me to write a cheque there and then for an ex-serviceman's charity and I would match it. I never had an acceptance …

The demonstration at Parkhead was profoundly misconceived, and has damaged the anti-war movement. These people were misguided fools, and  I wish they hadn’t done it. But I do understand the sentiment, however wrongheaded.