Jobs, not protests

The campaign in Scotland has picked up a little speed over this last week in the media. The pace of visits, hustings and campaigning has also been higher. So I was disappointed to hear on the radio – and on the doorsteps – towards the end of the week some voters say that they still don’t know what the elections are all about.

“Tell me in 10 words why I should vote Labour”, I was challenged on the street in Stockbridge yesterday afternoon. “It is time to vote for jobs, not protest votes” I replied.

Unlike the SNP and the Tories, I believe that government should not just sit on its hands. Active government intervention and spending in the face of the downturn can stimulate the economy and protect jobs.

UK-wide, the Labour government has announced £1 billion of new money to create 150,000 jobs for 18-24 years olds in long-term unemployment. Around £95 million will be available in Scotland to provide 15,000 jobs and training. On a visit to Dundee this week with Iain Gray, David Martin and Catherine Stihler, we met staff and clients at one of the key organisations trying to get people back into work on Tayside.

But the SNP government in Edinburgh is making the situation worse. Industry tells us that the failure of the SNP’s Scottish Futures Trust has cost up to 20,000 construction jobs in Scotland. That is the cost of Salmond’s broken promise to match the Labour school and hospital building programme “brick for brick”. And another 15,000 are at risk.

While the SNP cut back on adult apprenticeships by 80%, Labour in the Scottish Parliament forced the Scottish Government to find the resources for 7,800 new apprenticeships next year.

So where will the new jobs come from? The Party of European Socialists has put a European strategy for smart green growth and jobs at the heart of the European election campaign. Our pledge is to help create 10 million new jobs by 2020, with 2 million in the renewables sector alone. A strong Labour presence in the European Parliament will allow us to work together with socialists and social democrats across Europe to deliver this pledge.

While the nationalists and greens talk a good game on the Green New Deal, they will never be more than a small voice on the wings of the European Parliament.

Meanwhile, Labour is taking real action to create 400,000 new jobs across the UK as part of the transition to a low-carbon economy. Around 40,000 of these will be in Scotland … but this could be more given our natural environment and resources.

The UK Environment Transitional Fund and a Low Carbon Investment Fund, coupled with new investment in electric cars and new low-carbon energy, carbon capture and storage, and on-shore and off-shore wind will all contribute to this total over the next 10 years.

And there is a further benefit. Unlike the 700 job losses which were announced by Hewlett-Packard in Erskine this week, jobs in the green economy are more naturally rooted in the local economy and are less likely to be “delocalised”.

Forget protest voting on 4th June . Vote for positive action and hope instead.

Nil By Mouth

As campaigning today led us to Falkirk and Tullibody, international headlines were dominated by North Korea’s outrageous nuclear test. British headlines featured the death in Coleraine of a 49-year-old father-of-four, Kevin McDaid, who was beaten to death by a sectarian mob after yesterday’s culmination of the Scottish football season.

When he was Scottish First Minister, Jack McConnell described sectarianism as Scotland's "secret shame". He made tackling sectarianism a key priority. The SNP’s heel-dragging on a national strategy to combat sectarianism and their scandalous dithering over funding for the leading anti-sectarian charity Nil By Mouth have taken the steam out of Labour’s drive.

In Northern Ireland, sectarianism remains a very public shame as the tragic events in Coleraine confirm. But police in Glasgow have yet to exclude that the three murders around Glasgow yesterday were related to the end of the football season. Then there was the stabbing outside Celtic Park yesterday afternoon ...

It need not be like this. My Swedish family and friends simply fail to comprehend what religious sectarianism is. They just don’t get it. It is an alien concept. The same applies to most of my colleagues who are EU employees from outside Britain and Ireland.

But travelling around Scotland during this campaign has also revealed some positive work. The Raploch in Stirling used to be notorious. It was one of the most deprived and excluded areas in Scotland, until a Labour-led initiative started to run around the area through a £120 million investment. 900 new homes and a range of community enterprises are revitalising the area through a process undertaken with the local community, not for them. European funding has again played a key role.

For the professionals of the Raploch Urban Regeneration Company, the Education Campus is the “jewel in the crown”. On one fantastic new site in the heart of the community, the campus gathers together a nursery, special needs provision, out-of-school care, Forth Valley College course provision and outreach for employability facilities.

Above all, the two local primary schools – Roman Catholic and non-denominational – also share the same school grounds on the Education Campus. The teachers from the two schools even share the same staffroom. What a beautifully simple but great idea.

As for the football teams, Rangers and Celtic football clubs have both launched projects to tackle sectarian attitudes and behaviour amongst their supporters, educate young people about the problems of prejudice and encourage fans to support their team without indulging in sectarian behaviour.

It really does not need to be like what we endured this weekend.

Find out more about the Raploch regeneration initiative here http://www.raploch.com/ and about Nil By Mouth here http://nilbymouth.org/

Another day, another few hundred doorsteps

Door-knocking in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Fife, Stirling, Dundee all in the last few days ... with Falkirk, Grangemouth, Alloa, Dundee (again), Perth and Aberdeen to come in the next few days. Campaiging is both tiring and motivating. The Labour activists around the country are a vital resource. This EU campaign is really bringing home just how much they are the lifeblood of the party.

David Martin said at the Labour manfiesto launch last Monday that the "stay-at-home party" would be a threat to Labour on 4th June. Apathy is always a threat. And our voters - because of the standards they expect from their politicians - are indeed the angriest of all at the Westminster expenses scandal.

There is no doubt that the last few weeks have been extremely difficult for politics as a whole, but with 12 days to go until the poll, the reaction we get on the doorsteps is not the rage that is reported by political commentators on studio sofas. People on their doorsteps do not behave like a Question Time audience. Voters understand that there is still a choice to make on 4th June.

For example, I have never been able to understand how Salmond can compare the SNP to a Scandinavian Social Democratic party. To take just one example, trade union and employee engagement is a cornerstone of social democracy in those countries. Scottish Labour - unlike any of our oppponents - has always supported and worked for better rights at work. The SNP failed to vote for the National Minimum Wage and their commitment to workers has never been strong. There are no trade union or employee respresentatives on their new council of economic advisors.

Labour will continue to fight fight for fair rights. And that is why we are motivated to keep pounding the streets - and using the phonebanks - over the next 12 days.

On the stump

I clearly need more training in walking purposefully towards a camera ... the picture above shows me learning this skill from David Martin, Jim Murphy, Secretary of State for Scotland, and Anne McGuire MP for Stirling.

Following a day campaigning in Glasgow Drumchapel on Wednesday - where there is a Glasgow City Council by-election on the same day as the European poll - I took part in the Scottish Environment Link hustings in Edinburgh. The Conservatives, SNP, Liberal Democrats and Greens joined me on the panel. While the organisers had refused a slot on the panel to the UK Independence Party - choosing only to invite those parties currently represented in the Scottish Parliament - UKIP sat in the audience to make their slightly mad - and surprisingly angry - points known.

There was a general question from the audience about what the parties are doing to engage voters in the European elections. Panelists all made similar points about how hard the parties and candidates are working right across Scotland. I allowed myself to talk about the role of education and the decline of civic engagement more generally.

And then there is the media. Is there a politician who has never complained about the media and the fact that they don't write or broadcast the stories we want them to?

At Monday's launch of Scottish Labour's European manifesto, Jim Murphy (above) put Labour's case for jobs and the economy and also warned of the dangers of the British National Party. He then left the launch to play a charity football match at the home of Glasgow Rangers and wore a Rangers strip for the occasion. This was of course very photogenic as Jim is open about the fact that he is a lifelong Glasgow Celtic fan.

One of these two stories involving Jim on Monday got 7 times more coverage in the Scottish press than the other.

As the Americans say, "go figure".

What politics can do

I write this blog entry while the Westminster expenses scandal rumbles on ... indiscriminately discrediting politics and politicians in the minds of many. So let me share with you a really positive example of achievement ... of what can be done when politics combine with committed local people to regenerate communities through skills and learning.

The other day I visited West Fife Enterprise (WEF) with Catherine Stihler MEP and John Park, MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife who is leading from the front in the Scottish Parliament on the skills and apprenticeship agenda.

I had a particular interest in this project for a number of reasons. Not only has WEF received many best practice awards, but it took me back to my professional roots working with the European Social Fund (my first job in Brussels in 1995). It also took me home to my roots in Scotland's coalmining communities.

Under the leadership of the impressive and highly motivated Chief Executive Alan Boyle, WEF is a non-government organisation working hard - and with great success - in the former coalmining villages of West Fife to give the most vulnerable in the labour market new opportunities. They work with the hardest to reach groups of the unemployed, economically inactive and young people not in work or education, who all face many barriers to sustainable employment.

The beneficiaries are given training in basic skills, employability skills and jobsearch support. They earn a training wage. We met young trainees in the metalwork and woodwork shops, in the computer suite and in the jobsearch space. The commitment of the staff and trainees shone through. And WEF works ... over 80% of the trainees end up in full-time employment or training.

As well as working hand-in-hand with local employers and colleges, WEF is very much based in the local community. It was striking how many of the 150 or so trainees who came through the door yearly learned of WEF through word of mouth. Networking is not just for middle class professionals.

European policy and funding - and therefore politicians - underpin this work. European Social Funding of around £300,000 per year comes in to the West Fife coalfield communities through WEF. Who says Europe is not real for local voters?

When we met Chris - the confident young guy in the photo above with Catherine, John and me - he was was developing his joinery skills by making bird boxes for sale. The tools in his workshop are all emblazoned with the EU flag.

European politics - like national politics - is fundamentally about the life chances of real people. Labour stands for extra investment in the skills of people like Chris. That is just one reason why I view it as a privelege to be standing as a Labour candidate.

http://www.wfe.org.uk/

Team Labour

Scottish Labour today launched our manifesto for the elections on 4th June with a strong focus on the economy and jobs. We will continue to give real support to the many, not just a privileged few, to get through the economic downturn.

The SNP have no influence in Europe and the Tories are choosing to isolate themselves from mainstream centre-right parties. After 15 years as a policy-maker in the European Commission, I cannot think of any policy area in which the separatists can claim to have made a difference. Tory isolationism has also been criticised by centre right Prime Ministers in Germany and Sweden ... and by the leading Scottish Conservative MEP himself.

By contrast, Labour is part of one of the largest groupings in the European Parliament, the Party of European Socialists. As part of this family of sister parties, Labour has delivered real improvements in recent years. A handy list of 100 Labour achievements in Europe is available here http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/100things

Team Labour was also very much in evidence during and after our launch today when candidates and party members spread out across Scotland to take our message to voters.

In Fallin David Martin and I were accompanied by Jim Murphy, Secretary of State for Scotland, Anne McGuire MP and Richard Simpson MSP ... evidence of Team Labour working together across Europe, Westminister and Holyrood.

As Iain Gray, Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament, said at the launch today, there is no division of responsibility for getting out of recession, because there are no Scotland-only solutions. We have to work together across the UK and across Europe. At times like this, we should be working together, not pulling apart. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8054532.stm.

Click here to download a copy of the manifesto, or log on to http://www.scottishlabour.org.uk/euro2009 for information about the campaign.

When innocence is no excuse

What an atmosphere in which to stand for election for the first time. The relentless drip-feeding by The Daily Telegraph of information about Westminster MPs’ expenses claims is undermining the public’s faith in mainstream politicians.

What is the end-point The Telegraph is trying to reach though? Is the aim to drive voters to UKIP … or even the BNP? The BNP’s leader has used the scandal to proclaim that his party is like a “liberating army” moving through the British political landscape.

Make no mistake, this is fundamentally an anti-politics agenda.

Do not get me wrong. I am angry and sickened by the actions of MPs who have brought the whole business of politics into disrepute. And like other Labour party members, I expected much more of Labour’s representatives at Westminster than I did of the other parties.

But there is a witch-hunt element to this spectacle now. Even those honest MPs who acted well within the rules are damned by association simply for being politicians. It seems that innocence is no longer an excuse.

The campaign for the European elections goes on though. And to the handful on the streets or doorsteps who have suggested the contrary, I am not ashamed to be standing as a candidate. I am proud to have been given the opportunity to put the Labour record and case to voters.

The campaign this weekend took us to Fife, Hamilton and Dumbarton. There remains a very real choice to be made on June 4th.