|
******************************************************************
26 August 2008
PRESS RELEASE
Berwickshire Roxburgh and
Selkirk SNP formally adopt Paul Wheelhouse as their candidate
Paul addresses members, councillors and guests, including
SNP Party President Ian Hudghton MEP and Christine Grahame
MSP |
The Scottish National Party
campaign in the Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk took a huge step
forward tonight in Jedburgh when their candidate, Paul Wheelhouse
was
formally adopted at a special general meeting in the Pheasant Inn, Jedburgh.
Paul was proposed as
the SNP Candidate for the Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Constituency by the party president, Ian Hudghton, one of the high
profile team of SNP Members of the European Parliament who have
helped to put Scotland on the political map of Europe and who drove
last year’s historic Scottish Election which put the SNP into
government for the first time in history.
Paul Wheelhouse is a young
man who comes to the job of Parliamentary candidate with a
background in consultancy in economics and public policy. He lives
in the Borders, in Ayton in Berwickshire with his wife Lorna, a web
designer and IT expert, who he married at Dryburgh Abbey in 2002.
The couple have a young son.
Councillor Kenneth Gunn, the
constituency Convenor of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Constituency association convened tonight’s meeting and he said,
“Paul Wheelhouse is a very hard worker and has proved popular with
everyone who he has met so far in the constituency. I am confident
that what we did to Labour a few weeks ago in Glasgow East can be
repeated all over Scotland and we can take seats both from Labour
and their running mates, the Lib-Dems. Here in the Borders we have a
real chance to reverse 40 years of managed decline and put an SNP
Member of Parliament into Westminster. That fight for better
representation starts tonight.”
The theme for the evening
was that, just as Labour had taken Glasgow East for granted, for
decades it has been the Liberal Democrats who have taken the
Scottish Borders for granted. Local members heard that the
result has been economic stagnation, low wages and an under-funded
infrastructure. The SNP, it will be argued have achieved much in
the first year in office, but have the ambition and resolve to move
the Scottish Borders and Scotland forward and to tackle problems
such as alcohol abuse.
In his keynote speech to
members and guests, Paul highlighted a number
of strengths and weaknesses within the local economy and society.
He picked out the loss of too many of the region’s brightest
and best to out-migration, and pockets of low educational
attainment. These are two areas that are linked to having a
low-skill and low wage economy and these need to be urgently
addressed to help retain graduates and improve the quality of life
for all who live here. In his speech, he stated:
“The Scottish Borders has
experienced output growth of just 2.9% per annum between 1995 and
2005, or 0.3% growth in real terms. The UK achieved 2.8% growth per
annum in real terms over that period, while Scotland achieved just
1.9%. Within Scotland, only East Ayrshire performed worse than the
Borders. Economic output per head actually contracted by 0.1% per
annum in real terms here and we now have the 6th lowest output per
head in Scotland. In 1995, Gross Value Added per head was 84% of
the UK average. By 2005, it was just 66% of the UK average.
“That lost decade has cost
the Borders economy, and all who work there, up to £360 million per
annum in output, or £3,300 per annum for every man woman and child
in the Borders and median gross annual earnings in this constituency
are just 79% of those in Glasgow East....Ours is the responsibility
for addressing this inheritance and addressing decades of economic
and social stagnation must be our key objective.”
Mr Wheelhouse condemned
Lib Dem MSPs for having voted with Labour to “support the annexation
by Westminster of 6,000 square miles of Scotland’s share of the
North Sea, moving the fishing boundary from Berwick to Carnoustie.”
He also condemned Lib Dem abstentions on key votes in the debate
on the Lisbon treaty to remove fisheries as an exclusive competence
of the EU and their failure to support an SNP amendment to the UK
Finance Bill that would have introduced a fuel duty regulator to
ensure stability in fuel prices; an idea that had the support of
industry, farming and the haulage sector, as well as motoring
organisations.
Mr Wheelhouse highlighted
that in eight years the Lib Dems failed to deliver a single metre of
track on the Waverley Line or even fully commit any money to the
project. He set out that only after the election of an SNP
Government has funding finally been committed and detailed design
work initiated, with completion of the route anticipated by 2013,
while contributions from Borders council tax payers have been
capped. He also set out that, similarly, after eight years of
Lib Dem involvement in a pact with Labour, only after the election
of the SNP has there been a ministerial visit to see the proposed
site for a station at Reston, to the delight of RAGES campaigners.
The SNP candidate
rejected the “crocodile tears from Tory and Labour politicians who
have undermined the post office network, leading to death by a
thousand cuts.”
He stated:
“At the next election, the voters have a choice between again buying
the politics of fear of the Unionists, and the stagnation that
follows, or continuing to take a positive step to move the Borders
and Scotland forward with the SNP. With the SNP, voters have the
opportunity to engage in our politics of aspiration and ambition for
Scotland and all her people.”
Mr Wheelhouse quoted Scotland Office electoral data for the May 2007
elections that he claimed:
“...show the SNP on the
rise, the Lib Dems on the slide and our being in touching distance
of beating both them and the Tories. These are real votes, not
fiction. In towns like Galashiels, Hawick and Eyemouth we topped
the regional list and in other towns like Jedburgh, we pushed the
Lib Dems into third place. No ward had less than 18% of the list
vote in 2007, and we achieved 26% or more in Hawick & Denholm,
Leaderdale & Melrose, Selkirkshire and Galashiels. We were given
more than 20% of the vote in all but one ward.”
Furthermore he stated: “The
Lib Dems and Tories have already started their war of attrition, by
attempting to persuade all that our standing is the same as in
2005. It is a lie and they know it. A senior Tory has already
acknowledged that, privately and he knows who he is. Thanks to a
careless Lib Dem MSP e-mail, we know the Lib Dems regard this, and
Tweeddale Ettrick and Lauderdale as being “challenging”.
“If we win this seat, it
would send a clear message that the Borders has had enough of being
second best. It would say that the Borders want an MP and a party
to represent them that will always put the Borders and Scotland
first. To paraphrase our beloved Winnie Ewing, it would say “stop
the World, the Scottish Borders wants to get on!”
“I will of course work to
remove the democratic and economic shackles of Westminster, but in
the meantime, I will work my socks off for the people of this
constituency to ensure that, when we do gain our Independence, this
constituency becomes the Jewel in the Crown of, and the gateway to,
a new, confident and successful Scotland.”
ENDS.
|
