Michael Marra, the new leader of the Scottish Labour Party, has pledged to do politics differently with the doors open to all, writing in his first column for the Daily Record. He has promised to put the national interest first and to work with others to confront poverty and the drugs death crisis.
Values of fairness and social justice
Marra said the paper's values of fairness, social justice and the dignity of work are his values too, and that they are Labour values and Scottish values. He said these values have never been more relevant or needed than they are today, pointing to recent events.
In just one week, Scotland saw record levels of children in temporary accommodation, with homeless Scottish children growing up in hostels and B&Bs. Statistics also showed Scotland remains the drugs death capital of the developed world, with 1,133 Scots losing their lives to drugs in the last year.
Drug deaths crisis
Over 7,000 people have lost their lives since the Scottish Government declared a public health emergency, and Scots are 15 times more likely to die from drugs if they are poor than if they are rich. Marra said in the Scottish Parliament that if this was a middle-class epidemic, the response would have been far more significant.
He said nothing near that scale has happened, and that never have shared values of justice and compassion been more desperately relevant than now. To deliver the change needed, he said, the party must be prepared to do things differently, starting with how he leads his party.
Offers of cooperation
Marra said he has offered to work with John Swinney to get to grips with the drug death crisis, put forward a plan to fix education in Scotland, and written to the Scottish Government offering to work together to meet child poverty reduction targets. He said poverty is not an inevitable fact of life and can be confronted and prevented.
He promised Record readers that he will always put the national interest first, saying Scotland has been let down too often by politicians that put their party or career before the common good.
Glasgow City Council fire and rehire
Marra said he was astonished when the SNP-led Glasgow City Council announced plans to fire almost 25,000 workers and re-hire them on contracts with poorer terms and conditions. He said the council tried to blame a trade union, but it was not trade unionists brandishing the P45s as a threat.
He said the SNP and Green councillors that backed the decision must shoulder the blame, and that the SNP's job in Glasgow has been to run the City Council and vital services. He described the fire and rehire tactics as cynical opportunism and incompetent desperation, coming just weeks before they are officially outlawed by the Labour government.
Marra said no worker should be threatened or feel intimidated to accept a poorer contract, and that the council needs to get a grip, rule out fire and rehire for good, and get around the negotiating table to thrash out a deal that protects workers and services.
