Window on Westminster June 2010
Window on Westminster June 2010
Thanks for re-electing me
I would like to thank the voters of Carrick for playing their part in re-electing me as MP. This was my fourth election victory and my vote actually went up from last time giving me a majority of almost 10,000. It was a great result for Labour locally and in Scotland. However, although we did much better across the UK than predicted, it was desperately disappointing to lose control of Government, not just from Labour's point of view, but because of what that will mean for ordinary people's lives
Coalition comment
Well who would have thought it! Lib Dems and Conservatives sitting side by side on the Government benches in a coalition government. Some of the Lib Dems (and some Tory backbenchers) look extremely uncomfortable but most are relishing the chance to be more Tory than the Tories. Anyone who attended the hustings in this constituency and listened to the nice young idealistic Liberal candidate on the one hand, and the reactionary old fashioned Tory on the other, must be scratching their head in utter bemusement at how we ended up with this arrangement. It would be funny if it wasn't that people are going to suffer from the Tories disastrous policies voted through with gusto by the Lib Dems.
Future Jobs Fund
I have written about the Future Jobs Fund in this column before. It is an excellent programme giving young unemployed 18-25 year olds six months work. It has really taken off in Ayrshire now and hundreds of young people are benefitting. They will be the last since the Government has already announced that it is being scrapped next March. They are now trying to tell us the DWP say it isn't working. I tackled the then new, but now ex, Chief Secretary to the Treasury on this in Parliament last week. I asked him to provide the evidence that he is receiving from the DWP, which is contrary to what we have been told, and what would he suggest I tell my constituents, still suffering from the ravages of the last Tory Government, about the future jobs fund.
Queen's speech
I was called to speak in the Queen's Speech Debate last week covering Foreign Policy and Defence, and directed my remarks mainly to the situation in Afghanistan. No one in their right mind would want anything other than the withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan as soon as possible. It is not a question of the UK being the world's policeman. We have undertaken action as members of the UN and NATO-memberships that carry obligations. Government and Opposition both agreed to join the war and, as I recall, often made much of the development of democracy and women's rights, especially education for girls.
I had the great privilege of visiting one of those girls' schools last time I was in Afghanistan. Many of those girls now aspire to higher education. It is not a question of the UK formulating education policy for Afghanistan, but of securing the human right to an education. Human rights are universal, and we have an obligation to ensure them, given that, alongside others, we went to war with Afghanistan knowing its history and the oppressive regime that the Taliban had inflicted on its own people, especially women. Achieving security is the only way that any social advantages that have been won can be maintained, and it would be a tragedy if, their expectations having been raised, the women of Afghanistan were once again left to the mercy of the Taliban.
Justice for Colombia
As a supporter of the Justice for Colombia group I also raised in Parliament last week the issue of human rights in that country and the proposed free trade agreement with Europe. Given the human rights travesties and abuses in Colombia, such an agreement would be disgraceful, and I expressed my sincere hope that the UK will not support it.
