Coalition must not be allowed to re-write economic history!

The constant repitition by LibDem and Tory ministers of their mantra that the coming savage cuts are all the result of "Labour's financial mess" risks becoming accepted wisdom if we don't start to counter it soon.  Remember how the Winter of Discontentt came to represent all the reasons Thatcher got support for so long?

Excessive public spending didn't cause the credit crisis; what caused it was a massive over indulgence in credit by the private sector, led by bankers and financiers far more interested in personal wealth and power than stable banking.  Labour - like every other government in the western world - had to pump £billions of public money into the banking system to stop it collapsing.  Now ordinary people will pay a huge price in service cuts, lost jobs and a VAT hike that always hits the poorest, whilst the City gets back to "normal".

Coalition ministers tell us there is no choice but to make savage cuts in public spending, to appease the same financial markets which got us into this mess in the first place!   But there is a choice if you want to make it.

What Cameron and Clegg are proposing is about idealogy.  They want a smaller public sector and this is their great opportunity to do it.

Labour needs to get back on the front foot and stop the re-writing of economic history that is going on.

Which of our party leadership candidates will take up the challenge?

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When Fairness Equals Savage Cuts

Every LibDem candidate across the country campaigned on “fairness” during the Election.

Every letter and leaflet promised that the LibDems were the only party who would restore economic and social fairness. Locally, Danny Alexander promised fair taxes, a fairer economy – with investment in the Highlands in green energy , broadband and affordable house building - and a fair fuel deal for rural motorists.

Labour’s warning about LibDem plans for savage cuts in public spending were dismissed as scare mongering.

Two months on and the LibDems need to answer some questions.

How is it fair to raise the income tax threshold, then take it all away again for low income families by raising VAT and slashing tax credits?

Why is it now fair for public sector workers to take the pain, instead of the bankers and financiers you lambasted in all your election literature?

What’s happened to all the promises of reducing rural fuel costs? The VAT increase next January will put rural fuel prices up not down and a pilot scheme to reduce rural fuel prices seems to have been kicked into the coalition long grass. See Peter Peacock’s latest comments here.

Why is Danny Alexander leading the charge to cut not just 25% but as much as 40% from government budgets? The Barnet Formulae will bring that home to Scotland next year. If times are already tough for Highland Council he is about to make it a whole load worse.

Labour would have had to make some tough decisions about public spending, but our approach was to get the balance right between reducing spending and raising income from economic growth as we came steadily out of recession. We would have reduced the deficit by 50% by 2014 without any of the ideologically driven pain now driven by the Tories and signed up to by the LibDems.

How is all this “Standing up for the Highlands”, Danny?

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The Real Tory Agenda

When Conservative candidate Jim Ferguson stood up at the Kingussie Hustings and told the audience that the public sector “generated no value” he was regarded as a maverick speaking only for himself.

Now we know that his thinking was straight out of Conservative Central office.

Listening to David Cameron yesterday, speaking with scarcely concealed enthusiasm about the huge programme of cuts he is planning in public spending was chilling. Not because of the scale of the deficit – the numbers he quoted were all in Alastair Darling’s last budget report– but because of what it says about how the Tories view the public sector.

To listen to Cameron speak, you would think it was public sector workers who had caused the recession, soaking up wasteful government spending in well protected jobs, whilst the private sector withered away. The reality is that its only by keeping investment going into the public sector over the last two years that we have stopped a much worse recession; indeed the slow recovery we are now seeing – lower borrowing than predicted and lower unemployment – is probably a direct result of there still being public sector workers with jobs and therefore money to spend on their homes, consumer goods, holidays, services and all the other small economic activities that are the bedrock of our small business driven economy.

How many families have got through the past two years because at least one family member had a job in the NHS, their local council, school or a care provider? Investment in new schools and hospitals doesn’t just build smart new buildings, it employs people, experienced workers as well as apprentices.

Cut a 100,00 jobs out of the public sector – with the spending power that comes with that - and you risk plunging the private sector straight back into another recession.

Labour’s approach to rebuilding the public finances was about getting the balance right between growth and spending; stimulate the economy slowly and steadily and you eventually get higher revenues from income taxes and VAT, so you need to cut spending by much less.

What Cameron’s speech yesterday told us is that the real Tory agenda is still driven by their instinctive aversion to public services. They want a smaller public sector – full stop – and this is their magnificent opportunity to deliver it on the back of financial scaremongering, blaming it all on Labour (“a big boy did it and ran away”) and a corner shopkeepers’ approach to economic planning.

All helped of course, by LibDem willingness to wield the knife as the price for power.  Danny Alexander seems to have gone very quiet all of a sudden........

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A Bridge too far, Danny?

When I said to comrades in Inverness last week that the real test of the new Coalition would come when it faced its first crisis, I didn't expect it to be upon us quite so quickly.

David Law, I think, has done the right thing but the elevation of Danny Alexander to be the new Chief Secretary to the Treasury must be a concern.

I don't know Danny personally, but I got to know him a little during the election campaign.  I liked him as a person and he is obviously a capable politician, as his election result shows.  Party politics aside, he did a good job during what must have been hugely tense and complex negotiations with the Tories to agree how they would share power.  But I worry for him now.

Senior government responsibility is much like football management. Mostly, you need to put in the learning in the lower divisions in order to to be able to lead and deal with the pressure at the top.  We now have the two most senior politicians in charge of shaping the economic destiny of this country both under 40 and with next to no real business or ministerial experience.  Whilst I don't agree with their politics, David Law had years of experience in the City behind him and the Tories' Phillip Hammond a successful business career as well as shadowing the role for a long period.  Was Vince Cable even asked, or did he not want to go there?

I notice also that none of the senior and experienced LibDems in Scotland seem to have been considered as the new Scottish Secretary.  Or were they not interested?

I wonder whether the Tories are working to a very smart strategy which is to have a coalition partner in place, willing to make cuts in return for power and who can be an expendable target for the blame when the masses get difficult.

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LibDems Sellout on Nuclear Power

There were 5 Hustings during the election campaign in this constituency. At every single one Danny Alexander proudly promoted the LibDems opposition to new nuclear power stations and attacked me and the Labour Party for our stance (for the record I am "sceptical" about them, but won't rule them out).

A mere week after the election and the new Climate Change Secretary - Alexander's LibDem colleague Chris Huhne- has completely abandoned that pledge. See the Guardians report here.

Under the Coalition Agreement with the Tories the LibDems have agreed not to vote against plans for new nuclear power stations and will leave it to the market.

New politics or or just power at any price?

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After the Election

First and foremost, I’d like to thank the 10,407 voters in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey who trusted me – a first time candidate in the area - and the Labour Party with their vote. Its clear there is a very strong base of support in this constituency for Labour’s values and ambitions on which we can build for the future.

At least Labour voters knew what they were voting for.

I wonder how many LibDem voters are now questioning how their support for Danny Alexander has led directly to the return of a Tory Government and a coming programme of savage cuts which will devastate jobs and services in the Highlands. The Tories were a distant 4th in this constituency as they were across Scotland, but they are now about to dominate our lives, with the help of Mr Alexander and his LibDem colleagues.

Mr Alexander is now a leading light in a government whose coalition agreement spells out immediate and accelerated cuts to public spending, cuts to the Child Trust Fund and Child Tax Credits.

Mr Alexander also made much during his campaign of his party’s opposition to new nuclear power stations and the renewal of Trident. He attacked me on the hustings for my party’s position on these issues. Now he sits at the cabinet table with a party fiercely committed to both.

And in the Coalition Agreement published today there is no mention whatsoever of the Rural Fuel Duty Reduction which was such a key plank of Mr Alexander’s campaign.

In his last leaflet before Polling Day Mr Alexander claimed he “puts the Highlands first”.

We shall see how that claim stands up as he leads the Tory programme of savage cuts in Scotland.

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My Manifesto for the Highlands

Labour has now set out its plans and policies if it is elected to form the next government. Our national priorities are to re-build our economy, renew society and restore trust in our battered political system.

Here in the Highlands, my election campaign develops these ideas into five local priorities:

- protecting front line services – nurseries, community centres, day care – whilst we secure the recovery. Local jobs and services should not pay the price for bailing out the banks

- making the case for vital investments in the Highland economy; the Inverness City Bypass, better rail links south and east and high speed broadband

- radical action to build more affordable homes, to rent as well as buy

- being tough when we need to be on anti social behaviour to keep our communities safe

- action on fuel bills so we can all afford to keep warm in the winter, including home insulation schemes as well as a price regulator.

My campaign won’t be based on glitzy newsletters or high-tech media conferences. I’ll be out and about meeting as many local people as I can, on their doorsteps and in their communities. Old fashioned campaigning, but an effective way for people to judge and question me face to face and decide whether I am someone they can trust to represent them.

Most people I talk to worry about their jobs and their local services. Highland Council’s consultation on proposed areas for budget cuts is a big issue. I’ve already made clear my support for the Swimming Pool in Nairn and the six community centres in Inverness threatened with closure. We should not be pitching one community against another in this way. These are exactly the kind of front-line services we should be protecting. The cost-savings would be small compared to the damage to local communities. I’ll be fighting to save them.

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