Letter to Courier about the A9

Text below of my letter published in the Inverness Courier and Strathspey Herald last week

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Dear Sirs

The Highland press has seen much coverage in the last few weeks of the argument between Danny Alexander MP and the SNP over dualling the A9 and speed cameras.

I think its time we all stopped playing politics with the A9.

It’s a vital connector for the Highland economy.  But it also needs to be safe to drive on, for locals, for visitors and regular commuters between Inverness, Edinburgh & Glasgow.

I’m one of those commuters so I know first-hand how frustrating and dangerous a road it can be. 

You only need to look at the A90 that serves Aberdeen to see the benefits dualling the A9 will bring.  We need to deliver a dualled A9, as quickly as possible, without politics getting in the way of finding the money. 

I’m also a regular train user, just as frustrated by long journey times, “passing stops” and inconvenient timetables. The rail link south also needs investment to increase capacity and shorten journey times.  Would the option of more rail freight take some big lorries off the A9?

Meanwhile, inter-city and local buses are the forgotten services in all of this; expensive and not meeting the needs of rural and town communities alike.

A fresh approach is needed – Westminster, Holyrood and The Highland Council working together – to deliver an integrated transport system that really works for the Highlands.  An approach that combines big capital investments in the A9 and the rail links to Inverness, alongside imaginative ideas to improve local bus services.

Less playing politics, more getting it done.

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Where Next for Scottish Labour?



Team Labour in Culloden

 There are a lot of things you can say about last week’s election results in Scotland.

The SNP played a blinder and picked up support from a swathe of Scottish voters that crossed class, geography and traditional party allegiances. The LibDems were punished for joining so enthusiastically with the Tories, breaking promises on cuts, VAT and Student Fees in exchange for a share of power.

Scottish Labour mainly kept its share of the vote (we actually increased it in Inverness & Nairn), but lost seat after seat to the SNP as voters turned to Alex Salmond and his well respected team in even bigger numbers.

I’m not going to fall into the easy trap of blogging away about what Labour got wrong and why. I’ll leave that to others if they want to. I want to talk about what Labour needs to do about it.

There are four things I think Scottish Labour needs to do.

• we need to elect a leader with ideas based on modern Labour values but who can appeal to a broad range of voters. A leader who can enthuse the party faithful but who ordinary people can relate to when they perform in Holyrood, on TV or in a community meeting. A leader who can build a team around him or her whose collective ability, vision and values will generate trust and confidence in Labour again

• if we are serious about devolution, we need a Scottish Labour Party which is firmly part of the UK Labour movement but which can think, develop policy and campaign independently and in directions which reflect the specific social and political environment of Scotland. A federal approach if you like. And that applies across the country as well. What works for Glasgow or Edinburgh might need a different approach in the Highlands or North East. Scottish Labour needs to stop controlling and start devolving
• above all we need to talk a lot more about our political values in ways that appeal to wider cross-sections of supporters. When we talk about fairness, equal opportunity and social justice, we need to do it in ways which make sense to the lives of people in Craigmillar and Culloden as well as in Clydebank. When we get asked “what will you do for me” we need to be able to answer that with policies and ideas which the majority of Scots relate to and trust
• finally, we need a professional team at John Smith House(Labour HQ in Scotland for those outside the bubble) who can plan and run campaigns effectively and drive a media agenda whilst engaging with (that means listening) and enthusing party activists across the country.

None of the above will be easy. But the sooner we start looking forward and talking positively about what we need to do, the sooner we will return to being a political party that people in Scotland trust to stand up for them again.

For myself, I’m looking forward to helping make that happen.

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SNP Climbdown on Web Notices

The SNP Government at Holyrood has climbed down over its plans allow local councils to put public notices online instead of in newspapers in response to a strong Labour campaign.

Led by Pauline McNeil MSP and strongly supported by Highland MSP David Stewart, the move was overwhelmingly supported by MSPs, who backed a motion calling "on the Scottish Government to withdraw the Local Authority Public Information Notices (Electronic Publication) (Scotland) Order 2010.

Ease of access to statutory notices, job adverts etc. is a vital aspect of local democracy and ensuring public notices are carried in local newspapers are one of the most important ways of ensuring that. This is especially the case in the Highlands, with the well documented issues about poor internet services.

The internet is a great resource and we need to press the case for access to high-speed broadband for all across the highlands. But not everyone can or will use the web and you’d think the SNP would be aware of the issues with web access in the North. Just like the broken promises over the by-pass, the SNP Government don’t seem to care much about how their policies impact in the Highlands.

This also is great news for local newspapers like the Courier, Strathy and Nairnshire which are already facing significant challenges because of the recession and who stood to lose vital revenue under the SNP plans.

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Goodbye to the Right to Buy

I welcome the SNP's proposals to end the Right to Buy for new tennants in the social housing sector. Introduced by the Margaret Thatcher's Tory government the Right to Buy was a popular policy in its time but has led to major shortages of affordable social housing in recent years as all of the decent stock has been sold off.

Building sustainable communities means providing equitable access to affordable houses for families and individuals and its time that we removed the negative impact of the Right to Buy from the equation. Whilst the SNP deserve the credit for introducing the necessary legislation now, I am pretty sure its something Scottish Labour would also have done, were it still in power. Labour should back the SNP proposals.

What is also needed, however, is a decent level of funding for Local Authorities and Social Landlords to build more affordable homes. I hope the SNP will think again about the cuts they have proposed to Housing Action Grant and other programmes.

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What a parcel of rogues in our nation....

Spending St Andrew’s day launching a white paper on an independence referendum shows just how out of touch the SNP have become. Instead of working to get us out of recession, create jobs for young people and get more teachers into our schools the SNP plan to spend millions on a referendum that we already know the answer to. Scotland deserves better. The coming election will be about jobs and the economy. The SNP have no answers and seem to be pinning all their hopes on the Tories winning power.

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On Megrahi

I’ve no doubt that coming to a decision about the best way forward on the Al-Megrahi case must have been a hugely difficult decision for Kenny MacAskill. Its one of those situations where there is no clearly “right” answer and required a weighing up of conflicting legal, political and humanitarian issues.

The SNP, however, has achieved the worst of all outcomes by allowing its political ideology to play a key role in the process.

My personal view is that, on balance, it was right – in humanitarian terms - to move Megrahi into a situation where he could best spend what is left of his life closer to his family. This, however, could have been achieved by transferring Megrahi back to a prison in Libya. The UK government had spent considerable time working out the terms of just such a process. Megrahi would have continued to serve out his sentence, but this solution would have strengthened the UK’s relationship and influence with Libya and would also have earned the UK credit with many Arab states and organisations. Over time, such an outcome would have many benefits for us all, in both economic and security terms.

Crucially, since he was still serving a jail sentence, Megrahi could continue to pursue his appeal.
But agreeing to work with the UK government, in the best interest of us all, did not fit with the SNP’s political strategy, which requires conflict with London to be engineered at every opportunity, so as to build the case for independence. Salmond effectively boxed himself and MacAskill into a corner last year, when he was publicly critical of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement and how it had been negotiated.

By releasing Megrahi on compassionate grounds, MacAskill and the SNP Government have achieved the worst of all outcomes. Megrahi is welcomed home as a hero, damaging UK and US relationships with an important Arab power. Scotland’s status in the world has been diminished. And we will never get to hear the new evidence which might have shed some light on the real story behind the Lockerbie disaster.

We should remember that the next time the SNP tell us they have Scotland’s best interests at heart.

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