Labour: Scotland's best bet

The controversy about the appearance of Nick Griffin on the BBC has sparked a discussion across the country about how best to counter the vile and repugnant opinions of the BNP. There are no grounds for complacency in Scotland. Although the BNP vote was low, even at the last European elections, a higher proportion of voters supported them than the proportion of minority ethnic voters in Scotland’s population. We need concerted actions across the mainstream political parties, and involving all faith groups to ensure that neo-fascist views do not get a foothold in Scotland. Ultimately, if people don't vote, the only ones who will benefit are extremists.

But elections are about much more than that and you will have your choice in how the country is run in a few months at the general election. This will be a choice of two futures. Tackling unemployment and investing in the green industries of the future with Labour, or risking the recovery under the Tories.

Since the beginning of the global downturn last year the government has acted to protect jobs and savings. HBOS and RBS were saved with an injection of £50bn of capital—the equivalent of £10,000 for every person in Scotland. And the toxic assets of the banks are being underwritten by up to £600bn— nearly six times the annual value of the Scottish economy. Tax cuts of £20bn across the UK have injected £2bn into households in Scotland. To help those who have become unemployed an extra £5bn is being spent across the country - £500m of it in Scotland. We will not abandon a generation of young people to the scrapheap—a mistake the Tories made in the 80s.

But the Tories seem intent on remaking the mistakes of the past. They have voted against every penny that we are spending on getting people back to work. They would cut £5bn of public spending if they were in power today—one of the only major political parties in the world that want to cut public spending in a recession. Experts are shocked. Professor David Blanchflower, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, views Mr Cameron's agenda as "the most bizarre set of economic policies I have ever heard", which display an absence of understanding that could push the economy into depression. He believes that George Osborne’s proposals are "a strategy to increase unemployment", and estimates that under the Tories, unemployment could rise to 5 million, with unemployment in Scotland reaching nearly 500,000.

But this is only the latest in a series of economic misjudgments by the opposition leader. At the outset of the credit crisis, the Conservatives were still calling for the deregulation of all mortgages. Last year the Conservatives voted against the Banking Bill—which gave the British government the powers to manage the financial crisis and save Bradford & Bingley.

When the financial crisis led to recession they got it wrong again. Uniquely, they opposed fiscal stimulus—the unprecedented support across the G20 countries which stopped recession becoming depression and is laying the foundations for growth; Paul Krugman, the Economic Nobel Laureate, stated that the recession would be worse for Britain if Cameron was in charge.

At their party conference in Manchester, the Tories made clear that their priority remains giving a tax cut of £200,000 to the richest 3,000 families in Britain. No sign there of the so-called "progressive conservative". It’s no surprise that the Tories are even more unpopular in Scotland today than they were in the days of Margaret Thatcher. They still don’t get Scotland.

Only two men can be prime minister after the next election—Gordon Brown or David Cameron. A vote for the SNP is a wasted vote. The SNP's sole ambition is to separate Scotland entirely from the United Kingdom. In a world where the greatest threats are recovering from a global downturn, tackling climate change and ending poverty in developing countries, separatism is no answer. I love Scotland, and it’s because I love Scotland that I want us to continue to play our part as the most influential small country in the world—a key part of the UK. I know that all nationalists are patriots, but not all patriots are nationalists. Scotland makes Britain a bigger and better country, and I want to keep it that way.

There are two ways for Scotland to end up with a Tory government—by voting for them directly, or by voting for the SNP who have made clear they will help the Tories to power. Mr Cameron’s Conservatives would be a disaster for Scotland. They have got every judgment about the global financial crisis wrong. It was their neo-liberal ideology of deregulation that led to the banking vandalism that has cost so many jobs. Their policies would deepen the recession and abandon another generation to the scrapheap as they did in the 80s and 90s.

Labour believes in a fairer world. We want to see an end to the grinding poverty of the poorest nations and thwarted opportunities here at home. We want real action to stop the richest nations polluting our environment. We believe in a society free from discrimination against anyone because of their gender, age, sexuality, race or faith. We believe that all of us deserve a fair chance in life. As we come out of the recession we believe that no-one, particularly the poorest, should be left behind.