Cllr Ian Hudghton, 2 nd November 1998.
| 'Just last week, Labour voted down the prospect of continued Objective One status for the Highlands and Islands, which illustrates how poorly Scotland is served by Labour in Europe.' Cllr Ian Hudghton, 2 nd November 1998. | |
Party leader Alex Salmond said that by trying to make the central issue of the campaign whether or not the SNP could maintain the majority won by the late MEP Allan Macartney, Labour was in effect conceding the result before it had even launched its own campaign.
"We are predicting victory but we are not be complacent about what will be a tough campaign, but Labour is already going into this in a very defeatist manner by spinning, as the issue, the need for the SNP to maintain our huge majority," he said.
At the General Election in May last year, Labour actually won a narrow majority of the votes across the Westminster constituencies, but Mr Salmond said: "The clear choice facing the people of the North-east in this by-election is between Scotland's Party, the SNP, and London Labour.
"That means a choice between a party which stands up for the vital interest of this area and of Scotland, and one that takes its orders from Millbank Tower in London. Eddie George let the cat out of the bag when he said that unemployment in the 'north' was a price worth paying for dealing with an inflationary problem in South-east England."
He added: "Ian Hudghton is an outstanding North-east candidate. As the leader of Angus, he runs the best council in Scotland. The SNP has already shown its confidence in Ian's abilities by voting him number one on our list of European candidates, compared to the Labour candidate's third position, and we look forward to demonstrating how only we can be trusted to stand up for the interests of the North-east in Europe."
Mr Hudghton is stressing his close links to the late MEP, for whom he acted as constituency agent. "I want to finish the job started by Allan. The SNP's flagship policy of independence in Europe offers the best future for the people of Scotland, and the strongest voice for the North-east," he said.
He claimed that the two SNP MEPs had spoken more in the European Parliament than their six Labour counterparts put together.
"Just last week, Labour voted down the prospect of continued Objective One status for the Highlands and Islands, which illustrates how poorly Scotland is served by Labour in Europe," he said.
But Labour Euro-candidate Kathleen Walker Shaw, who will formally launch her campaign in Dundee tomorrow, insisted the economy was safe with the Government.
"No matter what Mr Salmond says, the economic facts in Scotland are that interest rates have peaked and are falling, the pound is at its lowest level since the election, the economy is set to continue growing, and unemployment has fallen to its lowest level for a generation," she said.
Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate Keith Raffan launched his campaign more than a week ago. Yesterday he accused the other parties of using North-east voters as pawns in pursuit of their partisan ends.
"The choice is clear," he said. "There is one positive party, work to a North-east Scotland agenda, and others who are playing their own partisan games."
Tory candidate Struan Stevenson has been active in the constituency for some days but has not formally launched his campaign yet, while Scottish Socialist Party candidate Harvey Duke launched his campaign last week.
* THE SNP yesterday claimed Labour had scored a "spectacular own goal" in its bid to spell out the risks independence could pose for Scottish trade, companies, and jobs, writes William Tinning.
Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar warned in The Herald yesterday that Scotland would have to make unpalatable cuts in public services worth £1000m - the equivalent of losing funding for 1000 GPS, 10,000 nurses and 5000 hospital beds - to meet the Maastricht criteria to join a single currency.
He said new figures compiled by the Labour Party demonstrated that separatism could expose a series of "interlocking difficulties" for Scottish trade, companies, and jobs.
Mr Dewar insisted that it made "no sense" for Scotland to separate from the integrated market that exists in the UK, placing one in five Scottish jobs at risk.
"These figures show that Scotland will have great difficulty and great pain in meeting the Maastricht criteria as an independent state," he said.
However, SNP leader Alex Salmond yesterday hit back at Labour, whose figures - in an attempt to apply the SNP's own expectations of what Scotland's finances would look like under independence - take into account the 90% of UK oil revenues the Nationalists say would revert to Scotland automatically under independence.
Mr Salmond said Mr Dewar had indulged in an "inept attack" on the SNP over Euro entry.
"Donald has accepted the SNP's assumptions about including 90% of North Sea revenues in Scottish GDP (gross domestic product) so he has no choice but to accept the conclusions of the House of Commons Library analysis which showed that an independent Scotland, with control over our own resources, would be the seventh richest country in the developed world."
Mr Salmond went on: "It is absurd to suggest that the seventh richest country in the world is too poor to join the Euro. Scotland would be ahead of Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and most of the other countries that will join the Euro. In fact, the only country in the EU with a higher GDP per head than Scotland is Luxembourg." - Nov 3.
Return to home page