Saturday 6 May 2017

Reconnecting people with their values and their democracy

This is my speech for today's May Day March and Rally in Aberdeen. Written in the wake of yesterday's council election results it looks at the challenges facing our movement in our fight to have a better society for all, as the General Election approaches.



"We live in strange times.


We’ve had 7 years of a Tory government who have hammered ordinary folk


Poverty pay


Rises in insecure labour and zero hours contracts


Wages cap and vastly increasing inequality between the rich and the rest of us


Hideous caps on benefits and a benefits system described by Ken Loach at the STUC as “conscious cruelty” - “a campaign of systematic punishment” which leaves more and more of our children, disabled people and elderly in poverty and distress


Our young people hit particularly hard 


Cuts to the NHS and public services and a massive selling off of the NHS – our NHS (especially in England and Wales)  – to private companies running for profit not patient care.