I am disappointed that Ian Mc Cartney has decided to retire "on health grounds" It can ONLY be co incidental that this announcement was made in the middle of the expenses scandle in which he of course not involved in spite of paying money back he had erroneously claimed.
I wanted to stand against him on a Real Wiganer ticket who would stick up for the people of Wigan and ensure we got what we needed and deserved.
What have we got while Mc Cartney has been the Makerfield MP? Zilch.
He has been the holder of one of the safest seats and thus had no real incentive to push hard for the people of Wigan. Yes he has opened a few health centres and such like but the big schemes which could bring so much prosperity to Wigan have been shelved.
He did not stop the Bickershaw/Golborne pit complex being closed. He promised Billinge Hospital would not be closed not long before it was and sold off for housing thus a good building with land to expand was lost, against the wishes of the people.
From his point of view promotion to the cabinet has been more important than kicking up against the party line for his adopted town. He voted against disclosure of MPs expenses,for the Iraq war and toed the party line on the vast majority of issues. Just lobby fodder.
A Labour robot would have been just as effective and at the end of this illustrious career he leaves with a large pension and a cushy job advising on de commissioning Sellafield nuclear plant on £114,000 per year.
Does anybody think he knows the first thing about this task? Does anybody think he would have got the job if he had no contacts with people in government?
Does anybody think he will give up that job "for health reasons"?--not likely.
When he first became MP there was a Tory government but they would always ignore Wigan as a Labour town.
What these feather bedded MPs fail to understand is that they are supposed to be our servants and represent US and not their party. Government should be bottom up, not top down and an MP who believed that would have fought our corner harder.
What we need in Wigan (and Makerfield and Leigh) are MPs who will fight our corner even against their party and to do that the MP must not just pretend to represent the town he happens to end up in but a man who lives and breaths the place and whose loyalty to the town trancends all other considerations.
The town must be like a religion to him and he must not have his interests deflected by third world issues such as schools in India, nor cushy non jobs in industry. In other words he must be a Wiganer first and a party member second and work at it full time.
Hopefully we will get somebody of better calibre now, but unfortunately he or she will be from the same incompetent sleazy party, although with people at last seeing through them by a much reduced majority.
Perhaps then even a Labour MP will represent local people with more vigour.
