ELECTION CALLED FOR 6TH OF MAY

Today Gordon Brown asked the Queen to dissolve parliament. This signals the start of the election campaign in which at it's penultimate end the country will go to the polls to decide who will next run the country. This is a short statement from Ally Hendry the candidate for the Scottish Socialist Party in Livingston.

This election presents a massive opportunity for the Scottish Socialist Party to present a viable alternative to the current mainstream parties who will once again attempt to solve the problems of capitalism at the expense of the ordinary working men and women. They will once again churn the same old ingredients of tax rises, cuts in public services, increased privatisation and anti-union polices and present it to the people as the only solution that will get the country out of recession.

This election gives the party publicity both nationally and locally to present a vision of a fairer and just society with peoples at the heart of our policies. We will be campaigning on a number of issues from the illegal wars which has placed our troops and civilians in the firing line and has resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Afghanis.

Ally Hendry and party Co-spokeperson Colin Fox

The country is currently experiencing the deepest recession in 80 years as a result of the reckless greed of high earning bankers and of neoliberal economic policies designed to benefit the rich pursued by successive Labour and Tory governments.

The response of the mainstream parties to this crisis has been to plan savage cuts in jobs, wages and essential services but the SSP vehemently opposes such action and believes that working people like nurses, postal and council workers did not cause the recession and should not have to suffer the consequences.

Instead, the SSP believes those who have accumulated great wealth as a result of neoliberal policies, including those bankers who bear great personal responsibility, should pay for the economic crisis by means of higher taxes. To cancel the new Trident missile system which has a reported cost of £100million and to collect the lost revenue of tax avoidance and evasion this costs our country a reported £100million annually.

Our vision is for a fair and just society structured to provide for the needs of the many not the greed of the few. This can only be achieved when working people unite and demand change. We would ask you to vote for the Scottish Socialist Party at this election.