Happy New Year !

Happy New Year to one and all. We ventured up town last night to experience the Edinburgh New Year Street Party. Great atmosphere, cosmopolitan and good natured. The music stage at the top of the Mound was particularly popular and resembled an outdoor club night. As is our tradition, we left way before the bells to head home and watch the remainder of the celebrations from the safety of the armchair !

Man in a kilt !

Thirty minutes on the treadmill this morning (I promise !!) and now looking forward to the challenges of 2015. I sent out the message below to Labour members in Edinburgh South West as part of my campaign to be selected as the candidate for the general election. Work on that will continue apace for the next few weeks.
The Apple Beggars are playing later at Tanners so we're going wander up there for some new year Beatles style covers.

The New Year is the perfect time for reflecting on the year just past and looking forward to the year ahead. For me, it is always a positive time and I feel a real sense of renewal. It’s a good time for planning ahead but this year more than most, there are real grounds for looking forward to the future and very good reasons for putting plans in place. Eighteen weeks from today – May 7th 2015 – the General Election takes place. And Labour has to win, particularly in Scotland.

It would be a huge mistake to think that Edinburgh South West is a safe Labour seat. If the recent opinion polls are correct and remain unchanged in the weeks ahead we will lose Edinburgh South West to the SNP.

While the Nationalists may have more money to spend, more activists to call on, we have the values and policies that will make the UK and Scotland and Edinburgh South West fairer and better, especially for the most vulnerable people in our communities.

I believe that we need a credible local candidate with a strong track record of success to retain this seat for Labour. I have lived, worked and brought up my family in this part of the city for the last 35 years. In addition to the dozens of organisations I have worked with and the hundreds of constituents I have helped through being a local Councillor for 16 years I also have a campaigning record to be proud of.

•Between 2007 and 2012, I increased the Labour share of the vote in my ward by 9%.

•Even in 2011 (not a good year for Scottish Labour) as the Scottish Parliamentary candidate in Pentlands I increased the Labour share of the vote by 2%.

We can and must hold this seat and help return a Labour government. But we can only do it if we do it together: your contribution, whether that’s time, campaign ideas or both, will be vital. The General Election is going to be as hard, maybe even harder, than the referendum. But we pulled together and we got a good result. We can and will do it again this May. That’s why I am optimistic going into this new year.

I hope that you had an enjoyable festive season and that you too are starting 2015 with the same sense of optimism and determination that I feel.

Best wishes,

Ricky Henderson

p.s. I hope you can make it to our idea-sharing session on Sunday. If you can't make it along I'd be happy to chat any other time and can be contacted on 0771 549 0859 or on this email address - ricky.henderson@btinternet.com

Check out my blog at http://rickyhenderson.blogspot.co.uk/
or follow me on Twitter @henderson_ricky