Alex Salmond Visits Cumbernauld

Attendance at a reception for a friend's wedding meant that I was unable to get posting on the blog until today, but yesterday was hugely busy.

In the morning my wife Julie and I joined Councillor Neil MacCallum to visit the Beild Sheltered Housing complex in the Seafar area of Cumbernauld. This is a wonderful facility and my second time there. I managed to visit it along with Nicola Sturgeon when I was candidate for the area in the 2005 general election and was impressed then. I was impressed by the place again.

The staff there seem utterly dedicated to the residents who were amongst the friendliest people I have met in while. They were interested to hear about the campaign and I was interested to hear from them. One couple recalled that I had visited before and even remembered what school I had attended! So I was amongst old friends.

Sadly not all of Scotland's pensioners live in such circumstances as those at the Beild complex. It is a national disgrace that one in five of pensioners lives in poverty at this time. You can tell a lot about a society by the way in which it treats its older citizens, so this statistic makes for sad reading. That is why it's time for the SNP policy of a non means-tested Citizens Pension of £120 per week linked to earnings and to cast the means-tested pension credit, which far too many poorer pensioners fail to claim, to the dustbin of history along with pittance pensions under the Tories and then Labour.

After the visit to the Beild complex the three of us set off to Cumbernauld Village to meet up with Councillor Liz Irvine at the Senior Citizens Lunch Club at the Roadside Hall. We were fed and watered by this fantastic organisation which is run by the members for the members themselves. The food was top quality but I was left disappointed by failing to win a prize in their raffle, although Neil won some Jaffa Cakes and Julie managed to win a can of mushroom soup.

We then dashed off to Cumbernauld Town Centre where over twenty SNP activists were able to engage with the public and distribute literature with balloons and flags for the kids. A really good atmosphere was topped off by the visit of Alex Salmond who was able to meet with many members of the Cumbernauld public. I was struck by just how many wanted to shake his hand and pledge support to the SNP.

We then visited a local small business, Hopscotch, a children's clothes store. There Alex was able to meet with the owner, Frances, and explain the benefits of the SNP "Small Business Bonus" scheme which will see the ending of rates in their entirety for the 120,000 smallest businesses in Scotland, with reduced rates for many thousands more. This policy will ensure that small businesses are better able to keep afloat, something which is absolutely vital given that small to medium enterprises are by far and away the major employer of private sector workers in Scotland. It will also mean a better range of shops and services for people in their local communities.

This is particularly pertinent in the case of Cumbernauld Town Centre which has suffered particularly poorly with many empty lets there at present.

Then to round off the day Alex was interviewed by the local newspaper. So if you live in the area look out for the report of this interview in next week's editions of the Cumbernauld News and Kilsyth Chronicle.