Another doorstep, another constituency...

Campaigning again this weekend, not surprisingly. I spent a day this week campaigning with Sarah Boyack, part of whose Edinburgh Central Scottish Parliament constituency is in my Westminster Parliament Edinburgh North & Leith constituency. Sarah's obviously well-known on the doorsteps; we were campaigning in an area with a lot of families, and people were positive about the money that has gone into local schools (something Labour would have done well in this campaign to have been more positive about, in my opinion). That discussion was the context of yet another complaint about Lib Dem misleading leaflets; in this case, one of the mothers complained that the LibDem candidate was claiming credit for new investment in a local school, without she thought any justification as she had no knowledge of the candidate ever having been involved in the campaign to get the investment.

I'm trying not to make this blog a whinge about political opponents (well not too much, it is election-time after all!), but the Lib Dems really do seem to be plunging new depths this time round in Edinburgh when it comes to misleading leaflets. I've mentioned earlier in this blog the misleading Lib Dem leaflets in this constituency, which use the 2005 UK election result for different boundaries to claim they are in second place (when in the last Scottish Parliament elections for the comparable constituency they were way behind in fourth place); and I've had a few emails from people who I know are not hard-line Labour supporters complaining about this.

Community life going strong

I was able to get back to Edinburgh on Thursday to attend two important community events. the first was the opening of the Community Flat in Persevere Court, which will serve the whole Leith Community. It aims to offer a wide range of services, including advice and drop-in sessions on benefits and community health issues. The staff are keen and enthusiastic, and I've no doubt that the flat will be a real benefit to the local community. They've asked me to publicise their Barbecue, which their holding at Persevere Court outside the flat on Saturday May 12th 1 pm to 4 pm (all welcome - details from 555 6042). As well as the BBQ, they'll have some information about their plans for a community garden.

Later on, I went to the AGM of the Pilton Central Association (PCA) at the West Pilton Neighbourhood Centre. The PCA has been a key community organisation in the area for more than 50 years, and it's still going strong. A particularly poignant part of the evening was the annual presentation of the Rose Bowl to mark a local person's contribution to the community - poignant because the Bowl had originally been donated by Agnes Laidlaw who had been one of the founder members of the PCA back in 1954, and this AGM was for the first time without Mrs Laidlaw who had died during the course of the year. The Bowl was presented this year to Betty McVay, who herself has been at the centre of community life in West Pilton, and further afield, for many years.

Not enough questions!

Wednesday was the regular slot for Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs), and this week we got a bonus extra minute because we'd reached the end of Northern Ireland questions early - normally we don't reach the end of any question session, so this took most people by surprise! This no doubt reflected the fact that at long last the peace process is moving forward again, and of course in a week or so when the Northern Ireland Assembly reopens many of the subjects of Northern Ireland questions will become "devolved" again to the Assembly in Belfast.

It was fitting, I think, that one of the last "PMQs" for Tony Blair underline what even his critics must surely accept has been a significant achievement, namely his part in bringing about what will hopefully be a permanent settlement in Northern Ireland.

I was able to get in to ask a question to the Prime Minister myself this week. I raised the issue of the big sewage spill from the Seafield plant, because although the responsibility for this issue lies with the Scottish Executive and Parliament, the company that actually operated the plant was Thames Water (a privatised water company!), and it seemed to me that what went wrong at Seafield had lessons not just for Edinburgh and Scotland, but for the rest of the UK as well.

A plug for Leith FM....

Tuesday morning saw me speaking in a debate at the House of Commons on "Community TV and Radio". This was a backbench MPs debate, which had been held at the suggestion of the Labour MP Ian Stewart (MP for Eccles, in Greater Manchester). There's a ballot of MPs to decide who gets these debates (I had one a few weeks ago, see this blog), and I thought this would be a subject which would interest a lot of MPs, as there's been a big growth in community radio in particular over the last few years (due to changes in the regulations and funding made possible by the Labour government, I'm pleased to say!). Somewhat to my surprise, apart from Ian Stewart himself the only two back bench MPs who made full speeches were myself and my neighbour MP from Edinburgh West, although a number of other MPs did join in the discussions for a while.

Anyway, we were both able to use the opportunity to say something about the positive experience of community radio in our own area, in my case Leith FM. I was also able to make the case for local, community TV, something which hasn't really taken off in the UK. One of the key people behind the campaign for local TV is Dave Rushton who runs the Institute for Local Television from his office in my constituency, and he'd given me a very helpful briefing beforehand. You can read my speech here. (My speech starts towards the end of the page).

After that, it was another session of the Environmental Audit Committee's latest enquiry, where we had evidence from the Energy Saving Trust, WWF, and RSPB. In fact, Climate Change was on my agenda a lot this week, as we had the first meeting of the Joint House of Commons and House of Lords committee looking at the new Draft Climate Change Bill. It was a good meeting, and my view that we ought to involve the public as widely as possible in our work of considering the Bill seemed to be shared by the rest of the Committee, not least its chairperson, Lord Puttnam, who has been a leading advocate of making Parliament more accessible to the public.

On that theme, I went to the opening in Parliament of an exhibition about the newly expanded Parliamentary education service, which now has a lot of good material for schools and teachers about the way Parliament works. I've encouraged the unit to try and make sure that as far as possible it ensures that its work is accessible to schools throughout the UK (not just those from London and nearby) - I'm pleased to say that they are making real efforts to do this.

More Opinion Polls...and the Seafield spill

Another opinion poll at the weekend, showing SNP on 35%, Labour on 28% and the LibDems and Tories both going down with 13% (or thereabouts, I don't have the figures right in front of me at the moment). Still a lot of undecideds, though, and there's still a lot of friendly responses when we're out canvassing and at street stalls, so the campaigning goes on!

The weekend also saw me being involved in some very local community activity, helping to set up a neighbourhood watch in our own area. We're fortunate to have a very enthusiastic community police officer covering my own area (and quite a bit of the rest of the constituency as well), and he's been putting a lot of work under his own initiative to try and establish some drop-in facilities for youth in the area.

In the constituency of course the big news was the breakdown at the Seafield Waste Water plant. Although that comes under the Scottish Parliament, and the actual plant is just outside my constituency, what's happened has obviously concerned many people in the constituency, as our shoreline is obviously at risk from all the "waste". I've been keeping in touch with the information being put out by Edinburgh City Council, which has been quite helpful - in marked contrast to the lack of information from Scottish Water, who didn't seem to get in touch until Monday afternoon, telling me I "may have heard" about the incident - not surprisingly, as it had been on Scottish, UK, and even the BBC World Service - not to mention concern from local residents - I had indeed heard about it! The Evening News has also had good coverage

Scotland's voice on the Climate Change Bill!

The details have been announced of the MPs who will be members of the Joint Committee (joint between the House of Commons and House of Lords) who will be scrutinising the Draft Climate Change Bill (which was published in early March). Because of my interest in the issue of tackling climate change, I put my name forward for the committee, and it's been confirmed today that I will be one of the members. In fact, I'll be the only MP from Scotland on the committee - there are 11 MPs on it, I think - and so I'll be taking a particular interest in how the UK Climate Change Bill (which will set down binding targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions for the entire UK) will mesh together with the proposed Climate Change Bill for Scotland.

The Climate Change Bill owes a lot to the massive public campaign last year for such a law, and I'm keen that our committee will genuinely try and engage with the many members of the public, up and down the country, who are concerned about this issue. I was speaking yesterday to some of the other members of the committee who share my views about this, so I hope that as well as doing our work of scrutinising the Bill, we'll also set a good example of how Parliament can engage in a real dialogue and process of consultation on an important policy issue.

Back at Westminster

The first few days back at Westminster were dominated by the Tory attacks on Des Browne and Gordon Brown. I felt both of these fell fairly flat. The criticism of the Defence Secretary for his handling of the interviews by the sailors and marines captured by Iran was punctured by his apology - and I think most people outside Westminster probably recognised the real issue is the much wider question of British policy on Iran and Iraq, rather than a media obsession with media stories. And the attack on Gordon Brown was also met very effectively when the Chancellor pointed out that the policy for which he was being attacked was one that the Tories themselves had argued for when in government - and that far from pension funds losing out under Labour, the assets of pension funds had actually doubled in real terms since Labour came to power.

A lot of my time this week has been spent on the two Select Committees of which I'm a member; the Environmental Audit Committee, where we had witnesses this week giving evidence about the proposed Climate Change Bill, and also the emissions from aviation - and the Modernisation Committee which is contiuing its enquiry into ways of strengthening the role of back bench MPs.
For more details of these (and our other) committees, click here.

I was also able to ask a question of the Transport Secretary in support of my campaign for improved (faster) inter-city rail services, in this case between Edinburgh and the North-West of England to take advantage of the upgraded West Coast Main Line.

LibDem plan for 24 hour drinking in Edinburgh

I picked up the Edinburgh Evening News on Monday afternoon, and came across the proposal by Edinburgh's Liberal Democrats for an extension of 24-hour drinking in parts of Edinburgh. I wasn't impressed by the suggestion that this would be OK for areas in Edinburgh City Centre because "very few people live in Queen Street". Well - that may be true (and those who do live there have rights as well!) - but there are lots who do live in the streets nearby. I think this proposal will particularly worry people in areas like the New Town, off Broughton Street, and along Leith Walk, where there are already plenty of pubs and restaurants.

It doesn't seem to me like a very well thought out proposal. The idea of encouraging a more continental, cafe-type culture, sounds attractive - I enjoy it when I go elsewhere in Europe, and it's been good to see it happening in Edinburgh already, and no-one wants to turn the clock back to the old restrictions we used to have. But widespread 24-hour opening of pubs and restaurants in Edinburgh City Centre is a step too far, it seems to me.

Let the workers in!

Went over to Glasgow on Monday morning to speak at a fringe meeting at the Scottish TUC. It was organised by Communicate Mutuality Scotland, the think tank/pressure group lobbying for cooperative and mutual enterprise. The idea was to promote the concept of employee ownership, particularly in a form where workers come together in a trust or a cooperative to own a share, or all, of their business. It's a form of ownership which has had a long history in the UK, but it's still not as common here as it is in many other countries. I was invited to speak because as a Labour and Co-operative MP I've been involved in arguing the case in Parliament for more employee ownership (a few years ago, I successfully introduced a "Private Members' Bill" into Parliament which was designed to encourage collective ownership by workers of shares in the business which they worked in.

Jackson Cullinane of the TGWU Scotland spoke about the possibilities of worker coops or employee ownership in areas where unions were currently finding it difficult to organise, and we also had a very impressive speaker from the Amicus union in Ireland. Employees owning a substantial part of their business is a growing trend there - and the benefits are not just in the financial returns for the employees, but also the influence it can give them in important decisions about the future of their business. For example, the 15% share held by the employee trust in Aer Lingus was apparently an important factor in stopping Ryanair's takeover, to which I understand the unions were opposed.

A lot of interesting ideas at the meeting, and I hope we can do more to follow them up both in Scotland and in the UK.

And then down to London to get back to Parliament after our short Easter recess.

LibDem Fibs AGAIN!

Just got a LibDem leaflet through the door, and see that they're using their dodgy statistics for this constituency, once again. They've been claiming they're in second place for the Scottish Parliament elections by quoting the result from the last UK general election in 2005. Of course, the boundaries for the Scottish Parliament election are considerably different from the UK Parliament constituency, as the UK Parliament includes an extra 10,000 or so voters from areas which have a LibDem councillor or MSP.

In fact, it was the SNP which came second in the last elections for Edinburgh North & Leith for the Scottish Parliament, and in the most recent elections where it's possible to make a comparison with the Scottish Parliament boundaries (the European elections in 2004), it was actually the Greens who came second in Edinburgh North & Leith.

I see the SNP have also put putting out their election graphs for this constituency, and they claim the fight in this constituency is between them and Labour. I think they're right - all my contact with voters over the last few weeks suggests to me that the SNP are doing fairly well (hardly news, given the opinion polls!), and the LibDems are falling back in Edinburgh North & Leith.

Hot campaigning weather

Saturday brought some good campaigning weather. I was out early with some leaflets, and then joined our local Labour Party team at some of our street stalls in the constituency - we had the four stalls in different areas which we've been doing most weeks. Once again, a good reception by and large, and we handed out thousands of leaflets and spoke to a lot of people. My comments on this blog about not seeing the SNP out-and-about seems to have spurred them into action, as we got a brief visit at the Foot of the Walk from Kenny Macaskills' battle-bus (battle mini-bus to be precise), along with the local SNP candidate Davie Hutchison (who was obviously taking a break from his "Teach Yourself Catalan" course).

The SNP mini-bus was plastered with slogans saying "Buses not Trams" - but the effect of this was undermined when it was parked squarely in the bus way, blocking the cycle path as well for good measure!

The SNP disappeared fairly quickly, along with the Green Party who'd also set a stall up off Leith this week.

And then some more leaflets to deliver in the afternoon...up and down the tenements again!

Meanwhile, back at the office and in the constituency....

Although I've obviously been heavily involved with the election campaigns, there's still a lot of my normal work as a constituency MP to be done. Letters and emails in the office, of course (more and more), but as it's the post-Easter recess week there's been an opportunity to get involved with a number of local issues in more detail. This week has seen a meeting which I organised between a local residents' group and builders who have just begun a major construction project behind their houses. The residents have been having problems with dust and noise fron the site, and I set up the meeting to give the residents a chance to raise their concerns directly with the builders. We got some promises from the builders to make some change to the way they were working, and I'm pleased to say that the local residents contacted me the next day to say they had already some improvements - I hope it stays that way!

Next, to try and deal with a recurring problem of waste dumping in parts of West Pilton. It's a particular problem in areas where housing has been emptied to wait for demolition, and I've been taking up the issue along with the local councillor. Some of the problem areas got a clean-up a week or so ago, but the problem was back again, so that needs to be taken up again.

A quick visit after that to the Edinburgh Sculpture Trust, based in Newhaven. They do a lot of good work with schools and community groups. They're keen to get a higher profile for their work, so I said I'd give them a mention in my blog (so here it is!).

A very pleasant duty this week was a visit I made along with Sarah Boyack, our Edinburgh Central candidate, to George Jamieson to make a presentation to mark his 75 years of Labour Party membership. George is now a (sprightly) 94 - he was an activist in the Edinburgh Labour Party and Fabian Society for many years, and is one of those people who helped lay the foundations of today's Edinburgh Labour Party.

I was also glad to drop in to the opening of the new housing built by Port of Leith Housing Association on the site of the old Duke Street church. The development incorporates a new church for the URC congregation, and I was very impressed to find out that they had made a definite decision to stay in the local community, in such a way that also made it possible to provide some badly-needed affordable housing. I was told they could have made much more by simply selling off the whole site to a commercial housebuilder, but chose to reject that option; very much putting Christian principles into practice, I think.

And the week ended as always with my MP surgeries. Fairly busy sessions at both my surgeries, although I think a few people were surprised I was still holding them during the election campaign - but I will be, including on the day after the election when I suspect I might be a bit bleary-eyed!

Education, education, education!

I'm glad to see that today's media gave a fair bit of coverage to Jack McConnell's pledge to put education at the centre of Labour's manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections. It's a good positive message to show what can be done in the Scottish Parliament, and also underlines what has already been achieved since Labour was elected. In my own constituency, when people want to know the positive achievements of the Scottish Parliament, I can point to the physical evidence on the ground - the big refurbishment and fine new sports hall at Drummond, the new primary schools built or on their way at Forthview, Pirniehall/St. Davids, Royston and Granton, the new secondary schools to built at Broughton and Craigroyston; and the new dining hall, gym and music facility at Flora Stevenson's starting this summer is more good news.

I've been out campaigning in different parts of Edinburgh North & Leith - West Pilton & Telford, Dean Village, and Leith Walk. The response on the doorsteps is quite positive, certainly a lot better than the opinion polls. There's a lot of awareness that there is a clear choice between Labour and the SNP, and understandably a lot of unease about what an SNP government would mean for Scotland. It seems to me Labour's task in these elections is to combine asking quite reasonable questions about the implications of separation and an SNP government with a positive message about our achievements at both Scottish and UK level. Without wanting to give a party political broadcast, we - in the UK, Scotland, and Edinburgh - do have one of the strongest economies in the world, low unemployment, high employment, low inflation and mortgage rates, and a lot of investment in public services (schools I've mentioned, but hospitals in our area as well, like the £50+ million investment at the Western General). Not a bad record!

Northtoleith

I see that one of my political opponents in Edinburgh North & Leith constituency (Davie Hutchison of the SNP) has been given a recommendation in a Sunday newspaper for his "blog". I met him when he was the candidate who stood against me in the last UK general election in 2005, and we got on OK. I had a look at his blog, and it's quite a good read. I was interested, though, in his description of the SNP campaign in this constituency in the current election. Of course, it's in the nature of political blogs that they all tend to show candidates and campaigns in a positive light (have a look at a few, and you'll see that all campaigns are incredibly active; all candidates get up at 6 am, go for a 10 mile run, do hundreds of emails and letters before spending the rest of a non-stop day meeting lots of enthusiastic voters, etc etc!) - but even allowing for that, the description on his blog of the local SNP campaign is almost the complete opposite of what I've seen on the so far in this constituency. I've seen hardly any sign of SNP campaigns on the ground in this area, which is pretty surprising given the way the SNP has been doing in the opinion polls.

What this underlines for me is not that he and his SNP team aren't campaigning hard - they probably are - it is just another reminder of how much more difficult is to actually get in touch with individual voters than it used to be (for all sorts of reasons ranging from more single person households, changing work patterns, to the bane of all campaigners nowadays, the entryphone!). The rise of the political blog is of course both an effect (and perhaps also a cause?) of this change in the way politicians make contact with the public. It's an issue which one of the Parliamentary Committees I'm involved in at Westminster, the Modernisation Committee, is looking at at the moment, and we've heard and seen a lot of very interesting evidence about this issue, which is well worth looking at.

Return to the blog

Back to blogging after a few days away at Easter. It's longer than I intended since I last put a post on my blog, so rather than try and cover all that's been happening over the last few weeks at Westminster and in Edinburgh, I thought I'd make a new start! - although I have responded to some of the comments people have put up on my blog during that time.

So it's been down to the campaign in support of my Labour colleagues for the Scottish Parliament and the Council. With the different boundaries, there are now 3 MSP candidates in my constituency - Malcolm Chisholm for most of it, but also Sarah Boyack and our new enthusiastic candidate in Edinburgh West, Richard Meade; and parts of four new council wards as well!

However, it's not just been campaigning. It's the school holidays, and for me the priority has been spending some time with my family, to at least try and make up to some extent for the time I spend away in London. And yesterday I was out with my three youngest kids in Midlothian: first a visit to Crichton Castle, which I don't think I've visted for decades! - and then to Vogrie Country Park (with a new playground since we were last there, we were pleased to see!). And then it was back to Edinburgh to help in election campaign; but first I had to go back to the office to catch up on a large batch of emails which had suddenly appeared, having mysteriously disappeared into cyberspace for about four weeks! A lot of these had come in just before the vote in Parliament on Trident, and I was obvously keen to reply to these as soon as possible (although as most were against Trident replacement, it was quite easy to deal with them, as of course I was one of the MPs who had voted against Trident).

Back after Easter

Blog off for a few days over Easter - back soon with response to comments, more posts, and hopefully some improvements......