I held a brief, informal event at St Martin's Community Resource Centre in Dalry on Sunday for Labour members who are eligible to take part in the Edinburgh South West selection process. It went well and I was delighted to receive so much support and encouragement.
Back to work now though and other than popping in during the holidays to clear the decks, my first task was to head for Our Dynamic Earth to hear Jim Murphy's first speech of the new year on Monday, effectively the opening contribution of the General Election campaign. It was a steady, confident start in my view and I'm looking forward to the debates ahead. One announcement that did cause a bit of a stooshie after was Jim's confirmation that one of Labour's manifesto commitments would be to use the Scottish share of the proceeds from a Mansion Tax to fund the recruitment of 1000 NHS nurses. Decent headline grabber one might think, but also seemed to provoke Boris Johnston into a lather accusing JM of "punishing" the south east of England, - by redistributing conspicuous wealth into front line public services, presumably. I thought Jim's response that the strength of the UK was all about pooling and sharing resources was sound and why Dianne Abbot decided to weigh in is not entirely clear. You can see the speeches and get more detail on the Scottish Labour website.
Then back to the City Chambers, via the Serenity Cafe, for the usual run of Monday meetings and confirmation that the long awaited draft Health and Social Care Integration Scheme will go to the next meeting of Policy and Strategy on 20th January. The clarification we were seeking from the Scottish Government has now been provided and makes for interesting reading. I'll post the report here once it goes public.
Both surgeries at Clovenstone and Currie were quiet apart from one case that I thought had been resolved. Further work required...
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