Glasgow Southside

Labour Party members in the new Glasgow Southside seat meet tomorrow evening to select our candidate for next May's Scottish Parliament election.

I have been shortlisted with another three nominees after we were proposed by members at meetings of local Party Branches and affiliated organisations such as the Co-operative Party and trade union branches.

I will be speaking to members at the meeting about my record of election success - running and winning campaigns in marginal seats - along with my experience over seven years as a local councillor in senior roles.


TUESDAY, 20 JULY 2010

Result: I was selected as candidate tonight with 65.5% of votes cast by local members. Thank you to everyone who took part.


Scottish Labour Party press release

CURRAN SELECTED TO FIGHT GLASGOW SOUTHSIDE SEAT FOR LABOUR
SNP 'RIPPING OFF' GLASGOW - STURGEON PUTTING 'PETTY PARTY POLITICS' BEFORE LOCAL PEOPLE

Councillor Stephen Curran has tonight been selected by local Labour party members to fight the Glasgow Southside seat in the Scottish Parliament elections in May 2011.

Councillor Curran will contest the new seat in which Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon MSP is expected to stand for the SNP.

Speaking following his selection, Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate Stephen Curran said:

"The SNP are ripping off Glasgow and letting Scotland down."

"Locally the SNP have ripped off our Council with the worst grant settlement since devolution and ripped off Shawlands by refusing town centre regeneration funds."

"Voters increasingly see Nicola Sturgeon putting petty party politics first as Deputy First Minister in Holyrood."

"I am committed to always putting the Southside first in representing every community across Scotland's most diverse constituency."

"My key priorities are tackling anti-social behaviour and delivering improvements in housing because I know people locally feel particularly let down by the SNP on these issues."

"I am grateful for the tremendous encouragement and support shown across the Southside and delighted to be selected as Labour's candidate."

"I'm already working hard locally with a strong team of MPs, Councillors and party members in campaigning across the new constituency speaking to people and listening to their concerns."

"I'm not taking anything for granted and will fight for every vote."

Ideas for a fairer Scotland

Last year I was elected in a postal ballot to represent Labour Party members from Glasgow South and Glasgow South West constituencies on our Scottish Policy Forum.

The road to the 2011 manifesto is well underway. At Scottish Labour conference this October, we will agree the final year policy documents that will form the basis for next May's Scottish Parliament election manifesto. However, it isn’t too late to send in your response to our second year policy consultation.

Due to the General Election, the opportunity to take part in the consultation was extended to Friday 30 July. Constituency parties received paper copies of the consultation document and have been meeting to form their own replies.

To send in your own individual views, please download Ideas for a fairer Scotland and feed in your own response.

Lib Dem voters 'joining Labour'

The first signs of a major shift in British politics have seen Labour receive an unprecedented surge of new members eager to oppose the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

21,000 have joined the Party since the General Election in what acting Labour leader Harriet Harman described as an "emerging political movement happening amongst progressives in Britain".

Lib Dem voters see a "big difference between what they thought they voted for and what they ended up with - and they just aren't comfortable with it."

Half of the new members were Labour voters now even more determined to get us back into government, but almost one in three recruits were Lib Dem voters let down by that party's partnership in power with the Tories - making deep spending cuts and setting the wrong priorities for the country.

Since 2007, we have seen SNP councillors leave their own group in Glasgow disenchanted with their party. Perhaps Lib Dem elected representatives will now take a similar route to make a positive difference for their own communities.

Patient safety undermined

Support Scottish Labour's call to defend the jobs of doctors, nurses, midwives and other essential workers in the NHS.

"The reality of this SNP Government is 'More Nats, Fewer Nurses'. The cuts that the SNP are imposing on the NHS will undermine patient safety and we need to fight them."

"You simply cannot remove thousands of doctors, nurses and midwives without damaging standards of care. Labour believe that these cuts are unacceptable and we will campaign relentlessly to defend the NHS."

"We are also asking MSPs from all parties to back our call on ministers to immediately publish the workforce planning projections for every Scottish health board, so that we know the scale of the job losses the SNP are demanding across the country."

Jackie Baillie MSP
Scottish Labour's Shadow Health Secretary

Ripped off Glasgow

People in Glasgow share the same concerns as any other part of the country – tackling crime, creating jobs and helping families through tough times – but one persistent issue unique to the city is continuing anger at the SNP government ripping off Glasgow.

This made a huge impact when Labour's William Bain was elected Glasgow North East MP in last November’s by-election with a massive 8,111 majority and remained a key issue during the recent General Election for voters in Glasgow.

Despite receiving a record amount of money from Westminster this year from the former Labour government - over £600million more than the previous year’s Scottish budget - the SNP government gave Glasgow a raw deal and there are fears that worse is planned for coming years.

It’s not for lack of trying. While a strong Labour Council, Glasgow has never played petty politics with SNP ministers. We’ve been fair and successful in fighting our corner, securing vital investment to complete the M74 motorway - boosting jobs in Glasgow’s southside and east end - and develop the Cart flood prevention scheme, protecting homes across the south of our city.

That soured over the past year, as SNP ministers:

• Scrapped the Glasgow Airport Rail Link with the loss of 1,000 new jobs, a decision that saw the city’s Evening Times headline scream “BETRAYED” with First Minister Alex Salmond the man “who put a knife into the city”;


• Slashed £260million from housing and regeneration across Scotland, with our city the hardest hit, putting on hold plans for quality affordable housing;


• Declined to give a penny to museums in Glasgow - where Kelvingrove and the Burrell are among Britain’s busiest attractions - yet handed £40million to Scotland’s “national” museums in Edinburgh;


• Restricted funding for every mile of maintaining the busiest streets in Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, to effectively the same formula as any mile on the quietest rural road;


• Refused three Town Centre bids to support Glasgow jobs and businesses in Possil, Parkhead and Shawlands - the latter shamefully in Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s own constituency;


• Excluded Glasgow from the first phase of the SNP’s new school building programme, shunning the city as all our secondaries were rebuilt or refurbished ten years ago.
  

After the North East by-election defeat, SNP ministers hastily awarded Glasgow funding for three new primary schools despite stating only one was on offer, but it’s far from generous. Labour ministers previously funded 80% of new builds while councils found the remaining 20%, but the SNP will only match councils 50/50 for new primaries.

When the 2010/11 settlement for councils was announced by SNP ministers, Glasgow had the lowest increase at 1.47% against a Scottish average of 2.77% – leaving the city shortchanged by £20million compared to that average – despite many councils faring much better with sparse explanation.

The SNP now say Glasgow’s extra primary school funding was based on “need”. Labour councillors know what that really means, focusing resources in our communities where it’s needed most. We’ll always argue for that. Not just in Glasgow, but in every council across Scotland.