With the writ moved on Friday, all four main parties in Scotland are getting on with the campaign and their campaign launches. On Wednesday, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP both launched their campaigns, Thursday it was the turn of the Tories, and then on Monday it will be Labour’s turn.
The good people of Glasgow North East have now been 117 days without Westminster representation, and – as our candidate Eileen Baxendale said at the launch with Scottish Leader Tavish Scott – this is simply unacceptable, and Labour should be ashamed of themselves they have left it that long.
Tavish Scott, Eileen Baxendale and Robert Brown MSP launched the Liberal Democrats campaign at the Red Road flats in Sprinburn and joined a family there to listen to how they have been badly let down by both Labour and SNP Governments.
Eileen and the team have been out knocking on thousands of doors for weeks now and local residents have been genuinely pleased to see the face of someone who cares, someone who has spent nearly 20 years on and off working in the heart of their community and understanding them, not patronising them like some of the career politicians.
If you have never been to Glasgow, the area may have not had the funding it so richly deserves, but the people and the communities are so united and their determination is amazing. That is why Eileen is on their side and determined to fight for funding on their behalf.
With Labour closing schools across Glasgow and their dismal record in Westminster, it is the Liberal Democrats who must provide a voice for change.
The SNP have yet to build any schools since coming into power and it is the children of Glasgow and Scotland who will surely suffer – if not now, certainly in the future. The Liberal Democrats want the school building to commence again as was happening when the Liberal Democrats were in Government. The money is there for the SNP to do it and to continue our record of building new schools – they have just announced in the last two weeks a new wave of school-building but why did they stop the programme? Why was nothing been built in the last two years?
The SNP are so all over the place, they are on their third candidate already, so before nominations close it may very well all change again: who knows?
This election should not end up with another career politician being elected in Glasgow North East because that isn’t what the people want or need. They need someone who will stand up for them after decades of Labour neglect and now SNP U-turns, and inaction on the things that really matter in their communities across the area. Change is certainly needed. A vote for the Liberal Democrats will certainly bring about that change.
Eileen Baxendale has been a social worker for over twenty years, with much of her time being spent in Glasgow North East, and she has always wanted to represent those same people she has helped. Now Eileen has her chance. If you want to help Eileen with telephone canvassing or come to Glasgow for a weekend please contact Eileen at [email protected], and if you wish to send a donation please make your cheque payable to “Scottish Liberal Democrats” and send to Andrew Reeves, Scottish Liberal Democrats, 4 Clifton Terrace, Edinburgh, EH12 5DR.
* Andrew Reeves is Deputy Director of Campaigns for the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
One Comment
I predict that there are excellent reasons for why voters in Glasgow Est should support Eileen Baxendale as their next Liberal Democrat M.P on Nov. 12th.- now that the writ has been moved.
1.The discredited predecessor in Glasgow NE succeeded in becoming the first Speaker to be voted out in 300 years due to his inability to `seize the day’ on the `Expenses Scandal’.
2. The recent announcement that 200 elderly have died in Scotland, over last `cold snap’ winter,with many lost, as a result of the 40% increase in heating costs.
3.Where was the Labour Party in support of David Heath`s Fuel Poverty Bill that only required 11 more votes to pass its second reading 21/2/09.? This L/D led Fuel Bill would have contained imprtant practical measures for home insulation and would have cut child poverty, by half by 2016.
3.Eileen Baxendale ,a professional social worker,has led on the campaign for `Fair Pay for Armed Services’ and says `We cannot continue to pay lions with peanuts’.
Good luck to Eileen Baxendale in Glasgow East a constituency that desperately requires a new M.P. who has lived and shared her life with the local people and campaigned for improved children’s services and rights for refugees and the supported warmer elderly care provision.
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