LibLink: Christine Jardine – From the fourth estate to Westminster

Christine Jardine, who was recently selected as PPC for Gordon, has been interviewed by the Deeside Piper – the newspaper she used to edit – about her selection and her journey from journalist to politician.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

DEESIDE PIPER: What do you hope to achieve if voted for by the people of Gordon?

CHRISTINE JARDINE: Over the last 30 years, Malcolm has been a strong voice for the people of Gordon and that is what I would want to be as well. For both the urban and rural communities. I believe rural communities need a strong voice particularly at the moment. The most important thing is listening to what is important to the people of Gordon and, if you like, what I aim to achieve if I am elected after 2015 will be dictated by what they want me to achieve

If I was the MP at the end of five years, I would hope that I’d continue Malcolm’s work and had worked hard for the oil industry-won investment for the North-east, particularly in infrastructure and being a strong voice in getting our road and transport network improved. What would be important to me as an MP would be making sure that I work for the people and what they want to happen. I would hate to think after however many years that people felt “We voted for her but what has she done for us.”

DP: How do you think the Liberal democrats have done in the Coalition?

Well, if you just look at the Coalition’s record lower taxes, that was one of our four main manifesto pledges. We have delivered on that and also raising pensions, again a manifesto pledge. The green investment plan, which has already begun to invest in projects in Scotland, that was a main plank of our manifesto and we have delivered on that. The AV referendum, we delivered on that, Lords reform, we tried to deliver on but the Tories blocked it. There were policies the Tories wanted, which they have not been able to deliver because, as part of the Coalition agreement, they were blocked. You don’t have to take my word for it David Cameron has been talking about his little black book, containing a list of things they weren’t allowed to do. One of them, I know for a fact, was another swathe of welfare cuts, which didn’t happen.

I also think it is interesting that now the Tories are trying to claim credit for things that they said wasn’t possible. David Cameron said you could never raise the income tax threshold- well its been done.

We are a party of government now and we have proved that we can deliver on policies. Policies we have been delivering at a local level for a long time and for the last four years have been doing so nationally as well.

You can read the full interview here.

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