Hello and welcome to my new blog site. I have chosen to set up this website to allow me to share my views on the latest developments in Scottish politics and society, and as a method of communicating with people in the Hamilton North and Bellshill seat which I will contest on behalf of the SNP in just fifty days time at the third Scottish Parliament election. Please feel free to leave comments at this site. It is important to me that the process of communication here is a two way street.
I hope you enjoy my musings between now and the election which I shall endeavour to post up here as regularly as I can.
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The blog site of Alex Neil MSP, member of the Scottish Parliament for Central Scotland and SNP candidate for Hamilton North and Bellshill at the 2007 Scottish Parliament election.
About Me
- Alex Neil
- Member of the Scottish Parliament for Central Scotland since 1999, Alex Neil is the SNP candidate for Hamilton North and Bellshill constituency in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary elections.
6 comments:
Alex,
It would be quite nice to see your "views on the latest developments in Scottish politics and society" rather than excerpts from your election literature.
Can I please give you a starter for 10, as Jeremy would say, even though it is currently only affecting the heathen south, not us?
What are your views on Alan Johnson's proposal for compulsory education until 18? See this blog and feel free to comment there or here.
S-E
Alex you might want to point out to the good people of Hamilton North and Bellshill the following...
On a very quiet day in the house of commons when there were only a few MPs in the house of commons a bill was passed in amongst some other bills it was a bill that broke a promise given by a Labour government back in the 1970s...
SERPS (the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme) was also known as the additional State Pension. It ran from 6 April 1978 to 5 April 2002 when it was reformed by the State Second Pension. A person who was in employment may have paid into SERPS.
New Labour have now said that...
The maximum amount of State Second Pension a person may pass on to a surviving wife, husband or civil partner is 50%.
It used to be 100% a lot of people are unaware of what has happened and think their wife or husband or partner will be looked after if they die. The surviving spouse is in for a shock.
It is also something you/we should point out to people at this election Alex.
This is something else you cannot protect some of the good people of Hamilton North and Bellshill from...
Report backs end to secure council tenancies
Matt Weaver
Tuesday February 20, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Council tenants could be forced to prove they still need their homes in regular means-tested reviews, it emerged today.
The proposal, part of a radical shake-up of housing outlined in a government-commissioned report, would end the right to a home for life by giving people fixed-term tenancies of between one and five years.
Under the plan - which the document admits could "sound outlandish", tenants would be forced to pay more for their home be asked to buy a stake in the value of the property if their circumstances improved.
If children left home, their parents would be forced to move to smaller properties.
The report, written for the government by Professor John Hills, of the London School of Economics, says such system would help free up homes to those who most need them.
"The ability to move 'empty nest' couples or single people might be a way of reducing overcrowding," it says.
It concedes that the possible loss of a secure tenancy would be "controversial", but adds that such a move could be needed in order to "make better use of very scarce and pressured resources".
The communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, who commissioned the report, wrote in a foreword that it was "not the last word" on issues but would open up debate.
"We have got no plans to change existing tenancy rights," a spokeswoman for her department added.
The document also examines ways of breaking up large sink estates, which it says have become concentrations of poverty.
In recommendations likely to be more acceptable to ministers, it suggests that council and housing association homes should be sold off to higher income groups or let out at market rents as they become vacant in order to create more economically mixed areas.
Cash raised from the scheme would be used to build replacement affordable homes elsewhere, it said.
Ms Kelly has in the past backed the idea of more "mixed communities".
The report recommends that the various right to buy schemes should be simplified into a single system that applies to both council and housing association tenants.
It says such a move would be likely to involve less generous discounts than those currently available to council tenants, but would give all social tenants a right to buy at least a share in the value of their homes.
The group Defend Council Housing, which campaigns for direct investment in council-run housing, reacted to the report with alarm.
"The government cannot create sustainable communities if they force tenants to move on and out against their will by imposing a time limit or introducing a means test on their tenancy," it said.
"It would turn our estates into massive hostels with a transient, not sustainable, community."
The Liberal Democrat housing spokesman, Dan Rogerson, said: "Forcing people out of their homes won't solve the crisis in social housing, but it will divide neighbourhoods. Our housing estates need a mix of backgrounds and incomes if we're to build and preserve genuine communities."
Mr Rogerson criticised Labour for its "failure to build enough social houses", which he said had "left a legacy of long waiting lists which are at the root of this problem".
Sarah Webb, the deputy chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, said sink estates were the "concentrated areas of deprivation that we really need to tackle".
The New Labour/Tories/Lib Dems/SNPs manifestos have proven this man correct...
"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821)
Here we go, as predicted, the first of many more that are to come (sell out`s that is).
Taken from the SSP web site...
"The revelation that the SNP have dropped key plans for the re-regulation of Scotland’s bus services because they would hit millionaire backer Brian Souter’s wallet showed them “bought and sold for Brian’s gold” charged Rosie Kane. Prior to the calling of the May 3rd election Rosie laid a Bill proposal in the Scottish Parliament for bus re-regulation as the first phase of the SSP’s free public transport policy"
Copy and paste into address bar.
http://tinyurl.com/2afmrw
This is the kind of people New Labour work with. Saw it on the Compass web site...
New Labour and the end of welfare by Jonathan Rutherford
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
In the US, UnumProvident’s claims management had been coming under increasing scrutiny. In 2003, the Insurance Commissioner of the State of California announced that the three big insurance companies had been conducting their business fraudulently. As a matter of ordinary practice and custom they had compelled claimants to either accept less than the amount due under the terms of the policies or resort to litigation. The following year a multistate review forced UnumProvident to reopen hundreds of thousands of rejected insurance claims. Commissioner John Garamendi described UnumProvident as, ‘an outlaw company. It is a company that for years has operated in an illegal fashion.
In 2003 the DWP launched its Pathways to Work pilot projects. They would be the forerunners of the kind of ‘active welfare’ system promoted by UnumProvident and the Woodstock academics. At the Labour Party conference that year UnumProvident organised a fringe meeting with employment minister Andrew Smith and health minister Rosie Winterton. In her speech, Joanne Hindle, corporate services director for UnumProvident, spelt out the future direction of Pathways.
The company rebranded itself as Unum Group. In January 2007 a performance rating from Credit Suisse was low but with an upside driven by higher than expected UK earnings and a lower than expected tax rate. UnumProvidentUK with 2.3million individuals covered by its insurance schemes and pre-tax profits of £109.8m provides up to 25 per cent of the post tax, operating income of the UnumProvident group of companies.
In a memorandum submitted to the House of Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions, UnumProvident define their method of working : ‘Our extended experience...has shown us that the correct model to apply when helping people to return to work is a bio-psychosocial one’. Waddell and Aylward adopt the same argument in their monograph. Disease is the only objective, medically diagnosable pathology. Sickness is a temporary phenomenon. Illness is a behaviour - ‘all the things people say and do that express and communicate their feelings of being unwell. IB trends are a social and cultural phenomenon rather than a health problem. The solution is not to cure the sick, but a ‘fundamental transformation in the way society deals with sickness and disabilities. The goal and outcome of treatment is work.
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http://tinyurl.com/2puaub
http://tinyurl.com/2qelkp
http://tinyurl.com/2jjha9
http://tinyurl.com/2vwxkn
This is how New Labour work, deceit is their middle name...
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http://tinyurl.com/2dnqhr
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