A Real Labour Budget

After listening to all the detail of the speech itself, it took a while for the real significance of Alistair Darling's budget to sink in. This is a real Labour budget, that at last puts some very red-tinged water between us and the Tories.

A Labour budget which shows we are determined to invest our way out of recession, not deepen it with cuts.

We are putting government money into the green economy, to stimulate investment in renewables, in re-cycling and the emerging high-technology industries that will create thousands of jobs. Many of these will be in the Highlands which already has a large number of such early stage businesses.

We are making sure our young people have training so that they can move into jobs when the economy picks up again. We are making sure that pensioners on lower incomes are protected from the worst effects of the recession. Small businesses, which make of the bulk of the economy, are getting real help to manage their cash flow, which in turn protects jobs.

The Tory answer to the recession - dramatic cuts in government spending - is exactly the policy which deepened and lengthened the great recession of the 1930s.

Sometimes you can tell you have got something right by the noise and clamour of your opposition. David Cameron's bluster today in response to Darling's speech, and the howls of anguish from right wing media about the 50% tax band tell me everything I need to know about whose side we are on. The ordinary people.

On the 10 o'clock news tonight, there was a piece about unemployment in a small town in South Wales. As always, its not the financiers and noisy professional classes who lose out most in this kind of recession. Its the same working people who have always lost out. That's the people whose side we are on. That's the people this budget is really for.

A real Labour budget. At last.

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Broadband in the Highlands

I was very pleased to read Peter Peacock MSP's press release today which continues to argue Highland Labour's case for comprehensive broadband service provision in the Islands and right across our region, not just in urban areas.

Local Post Office services face cut backs and privatisation. Print media circulation continues to decline and the press seem ever more interested in political scandle and tittle tale than reporting serious news. Local shops are closing in the face of overwhelming competition from superstores.

Faced with all of this, we all need assured access to high quality internet services so we can keep in touch with friends, access a wide range of news and political views and support local businesses who sell great products on line. Broadband access is a necessity in assuring strong sustainable communities across the region. The regulator needs to be firm with BT and other providers to make sure they recognise their essential role in this.

I wish Peter well in making his case with OfCom.

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Inverness West;the final push

Out campaigning again on Saturday in Kinmylies with our candidate Andrew Mackintosh and his team. A great turnout of party workers and supporters, MSPs and Councillors, despite all the bad stuff in the media about smears and expenses. Getting out and knocking on doors to show people the party still cares about ordinary people still matters. What matters most to people in the real world is jobs, schools and sorting local problems.

The LibDems and SNP are putting out the message that the election is a straight fight between them. I think that is political arrogance, from two parties who are great at making promises but don't deliver. Local voters are raising issues like the TLR, anti-social behaviour and traffic where they are fed up with words and want action.

The Labour vote is solid, and I think we might surprise a few of the pundits.

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Smeargate, McBride and the New Media

Reading the absolute political poison about “Smeargate” in the London Evening Standard tonight (I’m down here on business) I’m wondering about the timing of launching my own political blog.
Maybe all of us aspiring progressive politicians should give up on new media and get back to press releases and stump speeches?

But two things make me think. First of all, what Damian McBride and his colleagues have done is utterly appalling. Not only is it immoral in its own right, but its devastated the genuinely good news stories about Labour’s G20 achievements. I’ve no doubt the timing has been manipulated by the anti-Labour press, but what on earth made McBride & Co even consider this kind of story-lining was acceptable. They need to get out in the real world. And whilst I am frustrated by the way the Tory political PR machine has milked the opportunity, its only what Labour would have done in the reverse situation.

Secondly, I don’t subscribe to the view that Gordon Brown somehow sanctioned or encouraged this. But I do think it shows how little our current political leaders understand the power of the new media. And because they don’t understand it, they focus elsewhere and leave space for the McBrides and Drapers to operate unchecked. So instead of the building on the power that blogs and social websites have to reach out and build support for progressive politics, we end up with the self-created hatefest we are currently enduring.

So I’m not giving up. New media is great way to build new political relationships and ideas, new ways of listening, sharing and promoting ideas. Just be yourself and don’t say things on the web that you wouldn’t be prepared to say on the street!

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Inverness West Hots Up

And not just the weather!

Out door knocking with Andrew Mackintosh on Dalneigh on Friday and with Andrew and Dave Stewart MSP in Scorguie on Saturday. We are getting a very good response, with a solid set of Labour promises. And its not just the voters. We ran into an SNP campaign team who also confirmed that Labour is "doing well".

There is a good feel on the doorstep, despite all the negative stuff coming from London. Most people seem more concerned about jobs, traffic and schools. Bring on the 23rd!

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