THE Labour candidate in the Glasgow East by-election last night came under pressure over her defence of the UK government's call for below-inflation pay rises despite soaring food and fuel bills.
Margaret Curran also crossed swords with SNP rival John Mason when he questioned her claim that she had lived in the East End "all my life", despite living in Glasgow's more affluent southside for about 20 years.
But Ms Curran, in a defiant perfor
mance at the first hustings of the campaign, faced down her critics in the audience and said that unlike Mr Mason she would not "pass the buck" but had the "courage to take the rap".
Ms Curran was isolated in backing the argument of Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, that public sector pay rises were a contributory factor in inflation. Her comments came as about half a million teachers, council workers and other local authority employees began a 48-hour strike in England, Wales and Northern Ireland over a 2.45 per cent offer, at a time inflation reached an 11-year high of 3.8 per cent.
Ms Curran said: "I know it's hard for people. I would want to be able to say to people, we can raise rates of pay for people who are pressurised. I just don't think it's as straightforward as that."
After being greeted with several jeers, Ms Curran added: "If the buck stops with me, I will take the rap."
Responding to a question about capping public sector rises around 2 per cent, she said: "I think you negotiate between government and trade unions. You have to make sure you don't lead to spiralling inflation."
Earlier, in her opening remarks, Ms Curran said she always tried to be honest with people, only for Mr Mason to interject: "Except (about] where you live."
She quickly fired back: "That is not fair. Behave yourself, John."
Last week Ms Curran said: "I have lived in the East End all my life." However it later emerged that, although she was born and brought up in the area and had worked there, she had lived in Newlands, Shawlands and Pollokshields – all in south Glasgow – for about the last 20 years.
Yesterday's campaigning also saw Alex Salmond, the First Minister, tell The Scotsman that the SNP was "neck and neck" with Labour and ready to defy predictions with a shock victory next week.
He said the tide was turning against Labour, despite a weekend ICM opinion poll in the constituency putting the SNP on 33 per cent to Labour's 47 per cent, and the decision of bookmakers last night to retain Ms Curran as the favourite. Ladbrokes has her as odds-on favourite at 4/9, with Mr Mason at 13/8.
Mr Salmond said: "Right now it's neck and neck. I think we are closing and we are going to be ahead on polling day."
First Minister 'avoiding embarrassing questions over travel'ALEX Salmond has been accused of refusing to answer potentially embarrassing parliamentary questions to avoid damaging his party's chances in Glasgow East.
The claim, by the Labour MSP Lord George Foulkes, comes after the Scottish Government appeared to ignore five questions on how Mr Salmond conducts his business.
The questions centred on how many times Mr Salmond travelled by air and what his departure and destination points were.
Lord Foulkes also asked about who he took with him and how much the air travel cost.
He also wanted to know how many trips between Holyrood and Bute House, the First Minister's official residence, Mr Salmond made by car, as well as use of the car for official business in London.
Lord Foulkes claimed he was trying to get enough information together to calculate the First Minister's carbon footprint.
One of the questions was due for an answer on 26 June, the other three should have been answered on 17 June. Ministers have 20 working days to provide an answer to a question or provide a holding answer, but Lord Foulkes did not even receive a holding answer.
He said: "This strikes me as a cynical ploy to avoid a bad-news day before the by-election."
However, a spokesman for Mr Salmond said the issue was the latest example of "a long line of vexatious and irrelevant questions" from Lord Foulkes.
He added that the cost of ministerial air travel dropped in 2007-8 by £6,313.73, compared to the figures published for 2006-7 under the previous Labour/Liberal Democrat Scottish Executive.
Top Tory reveals party 'realistic' about resultA SHADOW cabinet member yesterday announced in the Commons that the Conservative Party does not expect to win the Glasgow East by-election.
Philip Hammond, the party's Treasury spokesman, told MPs the Tories were "realistic".
During a debate on fuel duty, Mr Hammond said the government had only scrapped a planned 2p rise because of next week's by-election.
Stephen Ladyman, a former Labour minister, intervened to ask: "Can you honestly tell the House that you didn't think of the by-election when you put down the resolution?"
Mr Hammond replied: "I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, but Glasgow East is not actually top of the Conservative Party's hit-list."
