In which Yousuf has a hissy fit

And I don't ever want to hear people like Will or others complain that Labour are negative when their campaign strategy has no positive reason to vote SNP at all.

Thus spake Yousuf Hamid, Labour activist, general good egg, and usually quite smart. Smarter than this, anyway.

Because here's the thing, as his party colleague Kez Dugdale said this week:

In fact, most of the leaflet is spent defending the SNP Government - talking about their justice and policing policies.

So in his rush for the high horse, Yousuf clearly hasn't been paying attention to what's actually going on around him. And the mad part is this: the SNP have been in Government for two and a half years - a full decade less than Labour - and yet has a record it feels confident that it can stand on. Indeed, the press release unveiling David Kerr is pretty positive in tone. So if Yousuf wants a positive reason to vote SNP, here's one of many: SNP MPs will do whatever they can to prevent any Government of any hue cutting the Scottish Budget and putting those benefits and that progress at risk. Labour - and Tory - MPs will spend this Parliament and the next one attempting to explain why their ham-fisted economic policies and scramble to defend bankers should jeopardise measures designed to ease the lives of ordinary, hard-pressed men, women and children.

But Labour are reduced to defending the indefensible and waving the Tory stick about. My, how Yousuf has grasped it!

Of course, if Labour's record were that good, we'd be hearing all about it, I'm sure. If what Yousuf says about the SNP not offering positive reasons to vote were right, there wouldn't be people in Glasgow North East - like the first voter David Kerr spoke to on the campaign trail - who have decided to vote for the SNP for the first time next month.

Instead, we have that old chestnut: "Vote SNP, Get Tory". It's nothing less than a lie: this is a By-Election and the loss of Glasgow North East will not even cost Gordon Brown his majority, let alone put David Cameron into Downing Street. The only David that could gain from an SNP vote is David Kerr. I assume that Yousuf knows this, but has chosen to peddle the fib anyway.

And of course, this leaflet comes in the week when the SNP announce a plan to reverse one of the Tories' most devastating policies - which Labour did nothing to counter-act - in Right to Buy: a savage embodiment of the "Me first!" culture that Thatcher promoted, in which people who benefited from affordable, social housing have been permitted to snatch that right away from others who might need it, increasing the snobbish stigma around rented properties, making affordable housing for others harder to get, and forcing them to take their chances in the private sector. Getting rid of that disgusting pillar of the Society of the Self is the single most progressive thing to happen in any part of the UK since the creation of the National Health Service. And it's been done by an SNP Government.

So when Yousuf whines that protecting affordable social housing isn't progressive - he's wrong.

When he says that a vote for David Kerr is a vote for David Cameron - he's wrong.

When he says that the SNP offer no positive reason to vote for them - he's wrong.

When he says that it's perfectly all right for Labour (and himself) to mislead people in their campaign of spite and negativity, as opposed to offering a defence of their twelve years in office, or some sort of hope for the future - he's wrong.

And if he thinks that Labour losing votes, losing seats and losing power is the fault of anyone other than the Labour Party, for taking so many people for granted and letting so many people down, people that Labour was founded to look out for - then he is very much wrong!

And with all that misinformation, this high horse that he's found? Well, it turns out it's an ass.