Sewel should be sacked

'The Tory Party are now like the Labour Party was in the early 80's.' Tony Blair, November 1997.

Tory candidate calls for Sewel to be sacked

By Graeme Smith in the Herald

Mr Struan Stevenson said that he was a farmer, as well as running his own PR agency in Edinburgh, and he had never seen the farming industry in such a poor state.

"In 18 months this Government has virtually brought the farming industry to its knees and Gordon Brown must accept a large measure of responsibility for this. He abdicated control over the setting of interest rates and handed it over to the Bank of England. As a result the big supermarkets are finding it is much cheaper to buy foreign produce and import it rather than buy home-grown produce."

He added: "We are watching the new Clearances. We are seeing families moving off the hill in upland areas, moving out of farming. We are seeing increasing signs of many young people saying they cannot afford to take on their parents have farmed for generations.

"A good start to confronting the problems of the farming industry would be to sack Lord Sewel who is doing an abysmal job as Farming Minister.

"The farmers think Lord Sewel is one of the worst, if not the worst, Agriculture Ministers they have ever had in the Scottish Office and it is time he was moved out and somebody with at least a basic knowledge and a basic sympathy for agriculture was moved in.

"What we are witnessing from top to bottom in the Labour Party is a complete lack of sympathy with rural Scotland or rural Britain because Tony's Townies just don't have a clue about what makes the countryside work."

Mr Stevenson said the economy as a whole, and particularly the economy of the oil industry, was also in an abysmal state. "We have seen the golden economic legacy left by the last Government squandered by Gordon Brown and his colleagues."

He highlighted the European single currency as a major issue on which they will campaign. "We are the party that has put clear blue water between ourselves and the other parties on the question of the euro. We are in the middle of an economic crisis internationally. Is that the right time to launch a new international currency? A primary school child would tell you that was high risk." - Nov 10.