THE Monklands East campaign rumbled on yesterday, with the main
parties accusing each other of having an identity problem.
The Labour Party, according to the SNP, were really Tories with their
socialist policies watered down to win voters in the south of England.
Labour countered by accusing the SNP of being ''alternative
Conservatives'' and blamed them for felling the 1979 Labour government.
Conservative Susan Bell claimed that many Tory voters were actually
previously Labour supporters who had backed John Smith.
The issues of health, youth benefit entitlements, the quality of life,
and Monklandsgate were again on the agenda.
Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind yesterday joined the hustings and
attacked Labour leadership contender Tony Blair for failing to condemn
Wednesday's rail strike.
He dubbed Mr Blair as ''the strikers' friend'' and argued that the
public were entitled to a ''clear and unambiguous'' response from the
Labour hopeful.
Earlier, Labour came under fire from the SNP candidate, Mrs Kay
Ullrich, over its failure to make a commitment to restore benefits for
16 and 17-year-olds.
Mrs Ullrich said: ''They criticise Major for his appalling immoral
crusade against those worst off in society but, when it comes to the
bit, they will do nothing to help young people off the streets.''
In answer, Labour's Mrs Helen Liddell said the matter was with the
Commission for Social Justice. Until a decision was taken, she added:
''I am simply not going to do a Santa Claus act.''
Mrs Liddell criticised the application for trust status by the
Scottish Ambulance Service. She argued that it would be ''yet another
example of the Tories bargain- basement approach to health care.''
She said the opting out ambulance services had been a failure in
England and Wales and warned that the people of Monklands were already
feeling the effects of the Tories break-up the National Health Service.
Mrs Bell dismissed this claim, stating that Monklands General Hospital
had improved its service since trust status. However she was unable to
give exact figures to support her case.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat candidate Stephen Gallagher called for ''A
Freedom of Information Act'' to help dispel the cloud presently
surrounding the local district council.
Bookmaker William Hill has made the SNP surprise favourite to take the
seat despite Labour's majority of nearly 16,000. The SNP is 8-11, with
Labour evens and the Tories and Liberal Democrats 100-1 outsiders.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article