Scotland's Nuclear Ambition Will Send Alex Ballistic!

If ever you want proof that the public know what's best for them while politicians prefer to listen to pressure groups within their own party, look no further that the debate on nuclear energy.

With the vast majority of Scots in favour of building more nuclear power stations in Scotland, to ensure we have energy security for generations to come, it is clear Alex Salmond and his SNP Scottish Executive remain completely out of touch with public opinion by continuing to exercise their veto over new planning applications for nuclear stations in Scotland.

In uncertain economic times only nuclear offers Scotland the energy security our economy needs. Russia switches the gas supply on and off as they see fit and oil remains both volatile in price and damaging to our environment. How else are we to ensure the lights don't go out when the wind doesn't blow?

Surely Alex Salmond and his band of increasingly unmerry men must now abandon their opposition to new nuclear power stations in Scotland in the national interest? If they do so and masquerade it in the press as doing what is right during this recession though through gritted teeth, I for one will cheer!

The SNP should call it Quits on LIT

News that HM Revenue & Customs are to write to John Swinney to inform him they do not have the power to collect Local Income Tax on behalf of the Scottish Executive should surely consign LIT to the political dustbin!

The Scotland Act allows the Scottish Parliament to vary the level of income tax set by Westminster by 3%, up or down, but it does not make any provision for HMR&C to collect any other form of taxation on behalf of the Scottish Parliament.

I am, in principle, opposed to a Local Income Tax replacing Council Tax for a very great number of reasons. Not least of these is that it will be yet another disincentive to work, alongside many of the current UK governments schemes.

What Scotland, and indeed the UK, needs is government that makes people pay for the services they receive and leaves the public with as much of their own money as is possible. Ordinary people can then decide whether they want to save their money or to spend it on their own personal priorities.

It has been the policies of politicians and the personal greed of individuals that has got us into this recession and it will be the actions of individuals that will get us out of it. For me politicians must now facilitate the role of the individual and not make matters worse for generations to come by consigning them to never ending debt in the form of permanent tax increases to pay for the folly of endless state spending in the good times while keeping nothing back for bad times!

When Is A Local Authority Not Local?

News that the Scottish Government are to review the number of Council's in Scotland and that Labour MSP Tom McCabe is proposing to significantly reduce the number of local authorities delivering vital local services is deeply concerning.

Those old enough to remember Strathclyde Regional Council will shudder at the thought of a new monster authority combining East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and East Ayrshire -as shown on the map of potential Council groupings published by The Herald.

If we need to fight, and win, a "Keep East Ren" campaign I and every local Conservative are ready to do so. Our economy is in crisis and leading politicians want to put us through the unnecessary expense of amalgamation and rebranding - not to mention making local government as remote as Holyrood, Westminster and Brussels. So bring it on SNP, Labour and any other group who want to make politics about bureaucracy and not about local people. I don't believe in large government and neither do ordinary people across the length and breadth of Scotland.

Salmond's SNP Folly!

It is not completely unheard of for a politician or a political party to make one mistake, but it is pretty rare to have one party make two big mistakes in one day!

Alex Salmond's claim that Scotland should adopt the Euro because Sterling is "sinking like a stone" completely misses the point. Scotland is in trouble not because our currency is weak or strong. We are in trouble because Labour's economic policy have led us to disaster and diverting public attention from this is simply letting Labour off the hook. Indeed, the only reason Sterling has devalued so massively against other currencies is our Labour Governments decision to print so much extra cash to pump into the banking system and as other countries follow suit Sterling has recovered slightly in recent days to more than £1 - €1.10 tonight from near parity a few days ago.

The second display of stupidity from the SNP today was the rejection of the Conservatives offer of talks on how to fund the new Forth road crossing. For a party who claims to want the best for Scotland to act is such a narrow minded way on an infrastructure project of such importance to the economy of Scotland is simply staggering.

If Alex Salmond wants the SNP to work for the people of Scotland he must stop the politics of gripe and division and work with everyone who has Scotland's best interests at heart. That is what difficult economic times demand of us all.

Whose To Blame For The Condition Of Scottish Prisons?

Would you believe it!

Having suffered 11 years of Labour blaming their predecessor Conservative administration for absolutely everything that is wrong in Scotland, and across the UK, would you believe it, now the SNP are lining up to do the same.

Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill, reckons it is down to the last Conservative government that our jails are in "a dire state". Apparently the Labour government that filled in the gap between Conservative and SNP governance of Scotland are not to blame for failing to invest into prisons during their time in office, or indeed for having stopped Conservative investment plans on coming to power in 1997.

Give us a break Kenny and stop looking for an excuse to point fingers at the Conservatives for spurious reasons. If you're not up to the job of sorting our Scotland's jails let us know and we'll happily take over and show you how its done!

Back To The Future with the Scottish Futures Trust

Yesterdays announcement by John Swinney that he intends to fund all future public infrastructure projects with a new Scottish Futures Trust, to replace PFI and PPP, is at first glance to be welcomed. The trouble is that on deeper analysis it is clear there is no detail to his proposal and that the sole purpose of changing the method of funding is to prevent private companies from making profit.

The reality is that the public sector does not have construction divisions capable of building anything of significance and as a result if we want schools, hospitals and roads built we need to engage the private sector to deliver for Scotland.

Private sector companies will not, of course, work for no profit and will have to do one of two things if they are to satisfy Mr Swinney's criteria of "not for profit" build.

Either they will price jobs to show no profit by wildly inflating the cost of every item in a tender or they will all seek to act as subcontractors to a main contractor who makes no profit, while they make profits in the usual way. In other words the main contractor charges what they are charged by their subcontractors, not a penny more and not a penny less, but the subcontractors charge in the traditional way that has enabled them to make profits under PFI and PPP.

The uncertainty we face in the short term is very unhelpful, particularly when we desperately need new Barrhead and Eastwood High Schools. Yesterdays announcement is, therefore, a matter of regret and the message from East Renfrewshire must be "give us some certainty Mr Swinney and we will get on with making life better for the people who live here"!

Local Income Tax - A Disincentive To Work Hard And Do Well!

The SNP's proposed abolition of Council Tax to be replaced by a Local Income Tax is quite simply another disincentive to work hard and do well.

No one likes paying tax, unless they have to, but today's proposal by the Scottish Executive to pay for local services based on a supposed ability to pay means that, for the same Council services, two households beside one another might be faced with one paying nothing for their bins to be picked up, their streets to be lit and their libraries to be open while their next door neighbours pay £3,000 a year to receive the exact same services, based on a combined household income of £100,000.

And this of course assumes that the 3 pence in the every pound level mooted by the SNP is actually sustainable. Glasgow City Council calculates that at 3% a Local Income Tax would leave them with a shortfall of £133 million on current budgets - in other words to maintain current expenditure Local Income Tax would have to increase by 50% to 4.5%. Here, in East Renfrewshire, I believe that with our extremely high percentage of population that is either old or young our expenditure, in what is a relatively small local authority, is pretty big per head of population and we too would have to seek to raise the level of Local Income Tax just to be able to maintain the standard of our schools and other services.

And whenever you raise a tax on a regional basis you also find a large number of people who seek to avoid paying that tax. For example, with Corporation Tax in the UK higher than that in the Republic of Ireland a number of large companies have moved their head offices from London to Dublin to take advantage of the tax break this provides. In the case of Local Income Tax, I wonder how many people will register for tax purposes in England, Wales or Northern Ireland to avoid paying a Scottish Local Income Tax were it to be introduced.

In summary, the SNP's Local Income Tax proposal is poorly thought through, will lead to inequities in payment for local services in local communities and will undoubtedly not be paid by those who can afford to find ways of avoiding it. All this would be damaging to the social cohesion of Scotland and potential ruinous to our economy. That is why we must all oppose its introduction and leave no stone unturned until it is consigned to the political scrapheap.

Are Unions Set To Wreck Scotland?

With Unison having brought much of Scotland's local authority public sector to its knees yesterday, with a one day strike over the pay settlement offered by COSLA, it appears to me that Scotland's Unions are attempting to unsettle the governance of Scotland in a cynical attempt to bolster the Labour Party they are inextricably linked to.

Both Cathy Jamieson and Iain Gray, who are fighting for leadership of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament, turned out on picket lines to profess their support for those on strike. Unison, in turn, promised more misery for us all with a "rolling programme" of industrial action unless their inflation busting pay demands are met.

While I am no supporter or apologist for the SNP Scottish Executive I do think that the current public sector strike action is a Labour Party motivated plot designed to unsettle the governance of Scotland now that this isn't the sole preserve of Scottish Labour. It suits the Labour Party to have strike action that takes the political spotlight off the internal machinations and which provokes a thought process that a large section of Scotland's workforce are unsettled under a different administration.

So the message to Unison and Scottish Labour is we are on to your scam and are resolved to take Scotland forward in a positive fashion, not look to you for divine intervention. Scotland is a nation with hope for the future and you did nothing during your dominance of Scotland's political establishment to provide us with anything other than despair.

How Not To Help People With Chaotic Lifestyles!

East Renfrewshire Council's decision to open a hostel for "young people with chaotic lifestyles" in Council owned housing on Anderson Drive, Mearns Village, is now surely doomed to failure following its 100% rejection by local residents.

At a 'Public Meeting' held tonight in the Fairweather Hall around 140 people from the Mearns Village area turned out to voice their complete opposition to Council proposals to refurbish two blocks of housing on Anderson Drive, to install CCTV outside the complex and to put a 24 hour warden service into the buildings because the Council simply have not done anything to reassure local people that the people these blocks will house will not create even greater public disorder than they currently experience.

Councillor Jim Swift, Conservative Group Leader, rightly pointed out to local residents that he proposed extra policing for 'Hot Spots' in the evenings, 7 days a week - 52 weeks of the year, in his Council budget amendment and that this would have been a first step to addressing local concerns on crime, anti-social behaviour and youth disorder. The other three Councillors present tonight who voted against this amendment, without proposing any alternative to crime management, should hold their heads in shame for asking local people to give them suggestions as to what to do about anti-social behaviour emanating from Anderson Drive when they had the power to do something about it only weeks ago by voting for Jim's amendment.

Tonight we saw a exercise in local democracy that proves the people of East Renfrewshire still care about their local area. Well done to the people of Mearns Village - they can be assured of the support of their local Conservatives as they fight a bad plan for the wrong location!

Thank You Britain For Our Aircraft Carrier Contract

Alex Salmond would have us all believe there would be no material difference to the Scottish way of life if Scotland were to achieve independence. What tosh!

The SNP are of course correct to suggest we Scottish are perfectly capable of governing ourselves if we wanted to and indeed to suggest we would make a good fist of it. But what they are not honest enough to admit is that the breakup of Britain would come at a heavy cost to Scottish industry, to Scottish jobs and to whole sections of Scottish society.

As just one example, there is the terrific news for Clyde shipbuilding that the United Kingdom government has formally signed contracts to buy two new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. Because this involves procurement of strategic national importance to the UK government they are able to place orders with our own domestic shipbuilders without including foreign yards in full scale competitive tendering. In this instance that means job security for yards on the Clyde, Rosyth, Barrow and Portsmouth.

The two new aircraft carriers that are to be built will be the biggest ships ever to enter service with the Royal Navy at more than 65,000 tonnes each. The contract, signed on 3rd July 2008, guarantees more than 7,000 jobs across the UK and means we retain vital skills in our country for the foreseeable future.

Had Scotland not been part of the United Kingdom, with our proud tradition of supporting our Navy, there would not have been any likelihood of an independent English government placing an order of strategic importance to it with a Scottish yard. Indeed, were we not part of the United Kingdom I am in no doubt Scotland would not have a commercial shipbuilding industry of the type and scale we see today. Without Royal Navy contracts the Clyde's shipbuilders would have shut up shop long ago and in the event of independence, but for a few fishery protection vessels, I do not believe there would be frigate, submarine or aircraft carrier orders from a Scottish government to sustain a significant shipbuilding industry in the future.

Independence would dramatically reduce the size and capability of our armed services. Scotland would not procure massive aircraft carriers, would not need the jet fighters that go with them and our army would be a shadow of its current size given our relative irrelevance on the international stage. And yet, today, our armed services support the economies of whole areas of Scotland and play vital roles in the moral fabric of society as we know it. All this would be put at risk by independence and no one should be in any doubt that cuts to Scotland's armed services capability would occur within weeks of any divorce from England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

So, unless I have missed something, the independent Scotland offered by Alex Salmond and the SNP would be detrimental to our armed services. We are a country of 5 million people talented and resourceful people but we would not need, and could not sustain, the number of army, airforce and navy personnel we currently support as nationals of a country with a combined population of 55 million+, even on a pro rata basis.


I am sure HMS Queen Elizabeth II and HMS Prince of Wales will be shining examples of all that makes our country GREAT!


Our two new aircraft carriers, built on the Clyde, will be glorious symbols of why we should be proud to be British and they should serve to remind us all of the benefits Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland gain from being part of a Union that delivers social, economic and strategic advantages - benefits we would not enjoy if we are force apart.

So thank you, my fellow British citizens, for our aircraft carrier contract. Together we will proudly defend our nation, while apart we would surely be shadows of our current selves, both at home and abroad!

Knife Crime - Get It Off Our Streets!

Knife crime is very much in the news these days. Too many of our young people are being injured, or are dieing, as a result of stabbings and that is because too many of our young people carry knives in the first place!

It appears to have become socially acceptable to teenagers to carry weapons and to wield them with bravado, and yet they join the rest of society in our revulsion whenever one of their friends or family are the victim of knife crime.

Scottish and British society sit today at a crossroads. We either take action to tackle issues like knife crime or we accept them as part of modern day society and allow our way of life to continue to corrode.

I believe this is yet another issue where the answer lies in our approach to policing of our communities. Police Officers serve two purposes - firstly they are there to detect crime and secondly, and possibly most importantly, they are there to deter crime!

It is time to support a national campaign to rid knife crime from our streets! Police Forces across the UK must participate in a national 'stop and search' campaign designed to demonstrate our determination to get knives off our streets and to ensure our young people feel safe in our communities without the need to carry weapons. Once young people know that if they carry a knife there is a definite chance they will be caught in possession of it we have deterrence, and once we have police on our streets for this purpose we will start to catch those carrying and using knives providing us with detection.

In addition to this measure I would give our courts new powers that ensure those committing knife crime are automatically jailed, and for longer terms than at present. Those in possession of knives should also face custodial sentences where there is no good reason to be in possession of an an item that can be used with potentially lethal consequences.

It is time to take action to protect, to detect and to deter. The safety of everyone in our society is an essential element of ensuring better communities and our Police and Courts both have major parts to play in restoring our faith in society!

Why Are We Waiting For The Lights To Go Out?

It's now only a matter of time until lights start going out across Scotland because of electricity shortages.

With many of our ageing fossil fuel and nuclear power stations nearing the end of their working lives and scheduled for decommission our government continues to procrastinate over how to replace their output. For me, it is governments job to ensure Scotland and the UK are energy self-sufficient in the unpredictable world we live in today.

So what, you may ask, is our Labour government and SNP Scottish Executive's solution? Renewables, renewables, renewables is the mantra from Westminster and Holyrood, even though everyone knows this simply will not fulfil our energy requirements given the unpredictability of output from the wind turbines that are being thrown up all over our countryside.

You only need to ask the residents of Eaglesham about the effectiveness of wind turbines to know that when the wind is not blowing hard enough they don't turn, when it blows too hard they don't turn, when the wind blows from the wrong direction they don't turn and often for no apparent reason they simply don't turn.

With the UK needing to import gas, coal and oil to fuel many of our existing power stations and given our international obligations to reduce CO2 emissions the only solution to bridging our electricity energy gap while meeting these targets is nuclear. Business knows it, science knows it and ordinary people who study the issue know it.

Over the past week Business Insider have been running an online poll posing the question, "Will Scotland face an energy crisis if it doesn't build new nuclear power stations?". As I write this blog, 95% of respondents have to date replied 'YES', clearly demonstrating the concern of Scotland's business community that our failure to go nuclear before now almost certainly means an energy crisis looms for Scotland in the relatively near future.

It simply is not good enough for government to delay any further. British Energy, BNFL and any other interested electricity generator must be allowed to get on with providing Scotland and the rest of the UK with new modern nuclear power stations capable of providing us with energy security well into the 21st Century!

When the lights start going out it will be too late to start planning a sustainable energy policy. The nuclear option is the only sensible option for Scotland and the UK.

I am a great believer that if something is foreseeable it is avoidable. That is why I say let's get on with the inevitable and start building nuclear power stations! We must act now in the interest of our long-term economic prosperity and in doing so will ensure future generations don't accuse us of lacking foresight!

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