PARLIAMENTARY EARLY DAY MOTION
CONDUCT OF THE LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION (16 November 1992)

That this House is concerned at reports in The Sunday Times on 8th and 15th November which disclose that Monklands District Council is ruled by an elite of 17 Labour councillors, including the Leader of the Opposition's election agent, which has employed 22 wives, sons and daughters of councillors, and that preferential employment practices have resulted in employment for the provost's 'son in the council's work study section, a daughter in the housing department and a son-in-law in the parks department' as well as the Labour Council leader's 'eldest son ... promoted to assistant safety officer ,... other son works in the council's economic employment section; daughter ... a post in the planning department'; notes that a green form system was used to distinguish the job applications from members of the ruling families from the pink ones from the general public; is disturbed that the articles suggest that the Leader of the Opposition has failed to convince his own Labour councillors of the importance of manufacturing industry; fears that the Leader of the Opposition is allowing himself to be dragged into a quagmire of mafioso-like intrigue, nepotism and corruption; and questions the judgement of the Leader of the Opposition in sending a message of support in a mafia-like operation to destroy the free enterprise Coatbridge and Airdrie Advertiser and thereby enable the ruling Labour councillors to wipe out the only opposition; and believes that these actions are not in the public interest.

Sponsored by:
Mr David Shaw (Conservative)