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Scottish Tories in election vow

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Published Date: 14 May 2009
The Scottish Tories were today set on an election footing as they gathered for their spring conference.
The party is "ready to step up to the mark" and form the next UK Government, shadow Scottish secretary David Mundell told delegates in Perth.

Mr Mundell, the party's only Scottish MP, also insisted the Tories can increase their share of UK parliam
entarians north of the border at the next General Election, due within a year.

"We are on an election footing," he said today.

"Our efforts in the months immediately ahead must be focussed on one thing – increasing the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster."

He added: "If people want to change, if they want a change of Government at Westminster, then the only way to achieve that is to vote Conservative."

A future Tory administration will be a "Government of thrift", he insisted.

Tory UK leader David Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne were praised for speaking out against the recent VAT cut and the notion that the country can continue "spending money it does not have".

Mr Mundell added: "We have a high quality team of people who can run our country at a difficult time and are ready to step up to the mark."

The Dumfries-shire, Clydesdale and Tweed-dale MP told delegates he is often introduced at London events as the party's only Scottish MP at Westminster.

But he added: "I am confident, no extremely confident, that that will not still be the case after 2010.

"We have committed candidates right across the country and several winnable seats."

The SNP's inability to deliver on key pledges like lower class sizes, student debt abolition and local income tax in Government at Holyrood also came under fire by Mr Mundell.

"It wasn't just the Arc of Prosperity that died in the last year, it was the SNP's credibility to deliver on domestic policy," he added.




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1

The west awake,

Argyll 14/05/2009 12:52:56
Blow it out the other end Tories, there is no place for you in the new Scotland.
2

Brodric,

14/05/2009 13:24:48
'A future Tory administration will be a "Government of thrift", he insisted".

We have just experienced a government of thrift - thrift for us and gluttony for them. If anything the Tories are worse.

I doubt they will make gains in Scotland. But if they became a majority party - I would not live here.

3

Alan B,

14/05/2009 16:17:43
Poor speech by Goldie. No real vision. Too much looking at other parties and not about their own approach.

4

Alan B,

14/05/2009 16:20:43
"It wasn't just the Arc of Prosperity that died in the last year"

That need to be put into context.

Ireland is expected to have its national debt to GDP jump to 50%. But the UK debt is expected to be something dreadful like 80% of gdp. And even that is only if you not include browns unfunded public sector pensions and pfi. Taken together even before the crisis the uk had a debt to gdp ratio of over 100%.

5

AM2,

Scotland,UK 14/05/2009 16:31:45
#1 West Awake

"...there is no place for you in the new Scotland..."

It's intolerant comments like that which turn most people off nationalism.

#4 Alan B

Irish personal debt runs to almost 200% of GDP. Chalk and cheese.
6

redcliffe62,

14/05/2009 16:53:13
tories have a chance, best chance in last 20 years, but they must apologise for thatcherism, in scotland and throughout the u.k. as toryism was to scotland what tianamin square was to chinese democracy.
an attempt to halt freedoms and break the back of a people who wished for democratic change, frankly anything other than her and her group of old etonians and harrovians. was it 10 or 12 in her cabinet?, can somebody remember or find out. certainly the old boy's club network, the inbreeding through a gene pool of limited aptitude but immense personal wealth was working well, so little chance of a change from scottish voices of reason.
only brave scottish unionists could risk speaking out and saying closing scottish industry and using scotland as a poll tax test case was unreasonable.
they must realise thatcher was hated and that will never change, it is engrained in the scottish psyche.
until cameron apologises, his chance to break the 18% threeshold is negligible. if he does i see 23% and up to 5 or 6 seats. most of these 5% undecideds will vote snp if they do not have a reason to pushed over the edge to vote tory, but a cathartic moment, a catalyst for tory renewal, will not happen under the old guard who still have a love in with thatcher as the recent glasgow talkfest showed clearly.
with england voting for the tories there is no reason to vote for them rather than the snp for many people.
and the red rosetters will say vote labour and we have a chance of pulling off a miracle in the shires of england, but that horse has bolted and the only question is when the next generation of public schoolboys masquerading as tories are at wastemonster, who will best look after scotland's interests.
i fear labour will get a stuffing on that as the argument has little validity. the euro elections will prove a watershed.
7

Alan B,

14/05/2009 16:55:36
#AM2

My post was regarding public sector debt not private debt. As such not chalk and cheese. But a comparision between the public sector debt of ireland and the uk.

I was just pointing out the silliness of the comment about the dying of the arc of prosperity. All countries are suffering during this economic crisis big and small.

It is just like silly comment like arc of insolvency when the uk is a leading member.

Both ireland and the uk are poorly placed to deal with this crisis due to having uncontrolled property inflation and the personal debt levels associated with it.

But ireland does come out better as it cut it debt to something like 25% of gdp in the good times while brown official had a reasonable debt level of about 40% but that was due to not accounting for unfunded public sector pensions and pfi. Seemingly international accounting rules will force the practice of taking pfi off balance to be addressed.




8

Alan B,

14/05/2009 17:03:00
#AM2

The tories need to seriously come up with a vision and policies they can sell to scotland to address our poor economic performance.

Getting involved with labours daft attack on the small countries that have out performed scotland and the uk too over the past decades is short termist and avoids the issues.

The best way to save the union if that is what the tories want if for scotland to perform well within it. No using labours dump scare tactics.

Problem is neither labour nor the tories really believe that if they were in power they could or would even try to address scotlands performance.
9

Raymond Thomas Brooke,

Leven England 14/05/2009 18:55:18
Just what did the Tories do to Scotland that Labour has not done over successive Parliaments and why was it so different for Scotland than it was for England and Wales
10

Walter Ego,

Durness 14/05/2009 19:43:54
And the SNP celebrates ... .
11

Walter Ego,

Durness 14/05/2009 19:45:18
5

Good to hear from you AM2. Some sense at last.

PS What about the Council Tax freeze?
12

GOODBYE LONDON LABOUR,

Aberdeen 14/05/2009 21:13:31
With Goldie so obsessed with the rotting corpse of the Union, why doesn't she just shove off to London and the Westminster cesspit?
13

,

14/05/2009 21:15:38
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
14

Brianwci,

15/05/2009 01:01:54
Goldie was taken apart by Bernard Ponsonby on the Politics Show tonight (Thursday). She was rabbiting on about her new flagship 2 year knife prison sentence policy when Ponsonby produced figures which showed that last year over 8000 people were found carrying knives.

That's the current prison population. Where are you going to put these people and how much will it cost asked Ponsonby.

Madam looked as if she had swallied a bag o' soor plumes.

Now if our Bernard gave the London Labour guys as hard a time as he gave Goldie that show would be worth watching.

One excellent piece of news though which many of us had probably forgotten. Our erstwhile Scottish Secretary, Whispering 'Bob' Murphy was a surprise victor of TORY Eastwood back in 1997 when London Labour was on the up.

If the Tories win any seats in Scotland Eastwood (in its new incarnation) will be one of them. That should be an interesting result to look out for.

I'm no politician but I don't think London Labour is as popular now as it was in 1997.

Aye, there's no' much gets past me.


 

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