Local campaigning - Irvine

Campsie Comrades spent Wednesday helping the Ayrshire Scottish Socialist Party with streetwork on Fuel prices and Free Public Transport.

Full article here
Angry Irvine residents mob the SSP stall. For most of the time during the stall the Irvine comrades were swamped with people three deep, clamouring to tell their stories of fuel hardship imposed by the profiteers and to sign the petition.



Denise Morton from Irvine mans the stall.


The streetwork and stall were extremely successful - the Campsie members had a wonderful reception from the Ayrshire comrades and the Irvine people. A day to remember!


It was difficult forPhotographer, Rikki Reid to get a shot of the table as it was constantly busy from the moment it was set up, to the time we decided to call it a day! As Denise says in the press release on the SSP main site, “Irvine has definitely rejected the policies of the New Labour project.”

Red Greenock, the Beach and the Workers Wage...

SSP Women Candidates...

PAMELA ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL (AND THE SHOWS!)

Tuesday 16th
Twechar Beach invasion!
As you already know we called a public meeting on housing in the village.
200 council houses are due to be demolished by the council, despite them
refusing the tenants a vote on the issue! Only 80 houses for social rent
will replace them, as well as another 40 that will be partly privatised at
more expensive rents. This is not a housing solution for the people, this is
for private profit.

The meeting was great. 60 people attended despite Man U being on the telly!
We made it clear that, in true Freire style, that we were there to listen and
offer our assitance to their campaign. It is a credit to the SSP that we
have arranged a housing surgery and another meeting for the Saturday and
Tuesday AFTER the election. We are in this for the long haul, because we are
part of these communities not parachuted in at election times.


Thursday 19th
Bearsden Churches hustings

This was the same day that the Poverty Alliance launched their manifesto and
I made it clear that our People not Profit manifesto is the only solution to
poverty and inequality. Other parties think cutting poverty by X% is
laudable, whereas we refuse to accept poverty at all in an oil rich nation!

Linda and I turned up to what was a very well attended (about 250 people)
hustings at kessington hall. It had a kinda dynasty ring to it and I was
disappointed to find that Blake and Crystal didnae appear....

There was the constituency candidates, including my first brush with the
Christian party as well as ourselves and the greens from the list.

Linda felt that I was well received on most issues. Questions ranged from
the state of the NHS, including the junior doctors' contract fiasco, to
which I responded by saying that it is indicative of what happens when we
allow Pirate Privateers who know the cost of everything but the value of
nothing to run our services.

I also trumpeted our free public transport policy in response to a question
on climate change but was surprised to find the green candidate rubbishing
our policy. From what I can gather their alternative is to install solar
panels on their four by fours!! Less than half of carbon emissions are
caused by individuals and it is a falacy to think that capitalism can have a
caring side that will save our environment. They talk the talk but don't
walk the walk. It seems they are sacred of offending business interests.
Everyone knows Radical Action is needed. I want to live in a Scotland that
has the guts to stand against the corporate greed that is destroying the
planet and take positive action to save it, not rely on the goodwill of
giant multinationals. But hey ho that's why I'm in the SSP not the Green
party.

Least said about our Christian candidate the better suffice to say he thinks
that the crisis in the NHS is due to moral decline, abortion rates and
teachers handing out condoms willy nilly. He was given short shrift by the
audience. It takes aw sorts right enough.

One man directly asked the New Labour candidate about the illegal war in Iraq.
To which he waffled that it wasn't illegal but said he knew it was 'a bit of
a mess'. I asked to be able to respond and got great applause when I said
that the 600,000 dead Iraqis and the over 100 British soldiers wouldn't
think it was a bit of a mess! And that it was sheer hypocrisy to have a
pre-emptive strike on a country under the guise of them having weapons of
mass destruction when our very own weapons of mass destruction are lurking
on the Clyde.

The night didn't finish till well after ten and I was feeling a bit jiggered
with working this week but managed to rouse myself to make a few points in
my closing remarks. Namely that I was delighted to see the other parties
falling over themselves during the election to support the SSP's demand for
the scrapping of the hated council tax but wondered why when they had the
opportunity to get rid of it in the Parley they refused. It's just another
example of how the SSP have been the conscience of the parliament, shaping
the agenda on free prescriptions, free nutritious school meals and asylum to
mention a few issues that we have campaigned for week in week out. Not just
in the few weeks in the run up to an election.

I ended by saying that if elected I wouldn't disappear into the cosy parley
atmosphere. I would follow Frances before me on the streets, picket lines,
taking direct action at Faslane and wherever else, fighting injustice,
shoulder to shoulder with working class people in our communities. Refusing
to take the 53,000 salary that Msps and 5% of the population earn.

Vote Pamela Page on a worker's wage!

At the end of the hustings a young man came up to the platform to shake my
hand and say hello. I got a tremendous boost when he said that he was
thinking of voting for Sheridan but had changed his mind during the hustings
and was voting for us! Integrity Indeed.


Saturday 28th

Greenock

Pam, Davy and I campaigned in Greenock today, which has become the Petrograd
of the West in recent weeks. We did a stall on the council tax and were well
received. I was delighted that three people asked about joining. One woman
asked who we were and said " Brilliant I was asked earlier on by another
'socialist' party and said No I want to join the SSP!' Welcome comrade!

We made a wee trip to the shows by the shore... long story photeez to
follow... but needless to say our national secretary is certainly a risk
taker. Don't know if Al Green would have went on some of those rides. I
stuck to the tame waltser type extravaganza but think i'm a land lubber to
be honest.

Greenock is the business though, my nana is from there and Davy Landels is
no bad either! the Mighty Morton have won the league too so lots to
celebrate!

Our Campsie comrades were out campaigning locally. Busy week ahead but i've
taken a weeks unpaid leave so dying to get stuck in!

NEW SSP FILM!

PAMELA'S DIARY - With a week to go, the hardest working candidate in the West of Scotland is still going strong! Is their no end to her energy?

Wednesday 18th
Kirkintilloch Rotary hustings.
I invited myself along to this event and was the only list candidate on the
platform. It was well attended with about 50-60 people there. The majority
of questions were from small business people in the audience who were
complaining about the threat to local shops in the area due to transport
issues and the fact that the two big supermarkets in the area have sucked
the lifeblood out of the town.

As the only person on the platform to live in the main street I was only too
well aware of how many boarded up shops we have in Kirky and our policies
against big out of town developments went down surprisingly well as did our
free public transport policy. The Tory candidate did say at one point that
everyone on the panel would agree that we had to cut corporation tax though
- to which I had to put her right!

People Not profit! Community shops and farmers markets with good transport
links was the order of the day. They did lay on good cakes right enough!

Thursday 19th
Chamber of Commerce hustings in Dumbarton.
Pam kindly drove me to this event as it would have been impossible to get
there for 6 after work otherwise. Roll on a fully integrated Free Public
Transport system!

It wasn't as well attended as the previous night (about 25
folk) with a couple of other list candidates also invited onto the platform.
Again I put forward our People Not Profit agenda. Questions of note were again transport links, Dumbarton high street losing shops. There was a question about the Vale of Leven hospital and I was able to counter Jackie Ballie's argument that new labour have pumped millions into the NHS with the fact this money has been siphoned off by PFI extortionists, which went down well. I was also well received when I was able to be critical of West Dumbarton council and the whole issue of quangos and lack of transparency/ unaccountability in local decision making.

Pamela and I had an apparation the other night - a strange statue, almost religious in look, appeared to us just outside Faifley, on the back road to Bearsden! We went past last night and she is still there, guiding weary motorists. She isn't as good as sat nav though, she took us to Milngavie which was the wrong way altogether. Though she did seem to be saying something...



We also saw a statue which appears to be Gengis Khan's head on a plinth, at the other end of Clydebank near McGonagle's prize winning floating chippy (floating chippy of the year 1994).

It's just typical that all of these photo opportunities occur when you leave the camera at home. We will be back, although I'm not sure Genghis sends out the right message.

We then went to Neil's to drop off placards in Bearsden.

Saturday 21st
Campsie Branch party
The comrades had been out placarding which really put a spring in my step
before the party. It was great to see so many friends and comrades and we
had a great night. Thanks to everyone who made the effort to give us a wee
boost before the election and a chance to relax from all the hard work we've
been putting in.

SEE THE PHOTOS OF THE DO BELOW!

Click on "March" on the right hand side of your screen to read about the council candidates in East Dunbartonshire - scroll down to read about Pamela Page, your SSP list candidate for the West of Scotland!