Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Public used election to correct their views
What planet is Megan Colgan on [ Advertiser, Facebook comments, June 14]?
When she says [of Labour’s regaining the Coatbridge constituency in the general election]: “Disgusting! Have we learned nothing from having Tom Clarke as our MP for 30 years?”, she answers her own question.
Of course they did. Having recognised their folly and in g ratitude in 2015 by undermining such a man, people took their first chance to undo the damage they knew they had done by booting out the worst MP anybody can remember in the history of our town.
They also knew that even as they heard little from Philip Boswell apart from the unfavourable publicity he brought with him, Mr Clarke showed complete dignity over the last two years, even though he must have felt gutted at being snubbed by the very people whose needs he put first during his whole adult life. His silence speaks for itself even as political pygmies seek to attack him.
Possibly Ms Colgan is too young to compare the records of our last two MPs Mr Boswell and Mr Clarke in an objective way. If she is, I simply invite her to do two things: speak to people in Coatbridge who have known Mr Clarke over the years and look up Google for a balanced account of performance.
As a local politician, I remember Mr Clarke coming to speak to my class and the impression he made on me. My offspring told me that they had the same experience years later, and we were not alone.
No matter what job he had he was to be seen at church events, community gala days, sports days, prizegivings, family gatherings and other activities which most politicians would not have touched with a bargepole. At a family social last week I was not the only one who thought that he made everybody feel that they were the most important person he met that day.
In elected office, I invite Ms Colgan to look up the opinions of those who knew Mr Clarke best. When he was in local government his colleagues from all parties around Scotland elected him president of the Convention Of Scottish Local Authorities.
According to the records I have checked, once in parliament those who worked with him elected him on numerous occasions to be a member of the Shadow Cabinet, when there was stiff competition among the great and the good.
He was several times voted disability champion of the year, and was one of the few MPs ever to get through not just one but two Acts of Parliament – one on disability rights and the other on third world poverty.
I found all this and much more on Google, and Ms Colgan is free to do the same.
Everyone I know shares my opinion that Mr Clarke remained thoroughly approachable and concerned about the people he represented, never forgetting his roots.
Even Ms Colgan must know that it was not for nothing that, following the 2015 election, North Lanarkshire Council unanimously made him a Freeman of the area, and Pope Francis, no less, appointed him a Papal Knight.
Frankly it must take a somewhat blinkered individual to dismiss such a lifetime’s work. As for Mr Boswell, the least said the better. Last week the people of Coatbridge Chryston & Bellshill said it all.