Douglas Alexander MP

Labour MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South

Paisley Daily Express Column - 04 Jan 2012

It's my first column of 2012 so let me wish a Good New Year to every Paisley Daily Express reader!

Although the weather was rubbish and the M8 traffic truly terrible on the Cart Viaduct, I really enjoyed Christmas here at home in Renfrewshire with some good food, family and friends.

But back at work this week I'm struck by how tough the year ahead will be for many local families.

Here in Renfrewshire we have a long memory of the destructive effect of mass unemployment.

This week the new film, "The Iron Lady" opens at the Showcase Cinema in the Phoenix in Linwood. It will be just the latest reminder of the time and the politics that saw the Linwood Car Plant close. But a generation later, 2012 begins with 127,000 employees across Scotland on short term contracts, of whom 44,000 had failed to find work last year.

652,000 Scots are today in part time employment, of whom 100,000 - many of them women - are unable to secure full time work.

215,000 Scots are now on the dole - with unemployment on the rise locally.

No wonder so many of us saw in the Bells on Saturday Night with a deep sense of trepidation about the economic outlook for the coming year.

In the face of such bleak statistics optimism is in scarce supply - but muster it we must.

This jobs crisis demands action here in Renfrewshire, in Edinburgh and at Westminster.

Here in Renfrewshire 2012 marks the fifth year the SNP have run Renfrewshire Council. Of course times are tough, but a walk around the town centre shows how hollow have proved their promises, and just how much the local Council's leadership is failing our community: Empty shops litter the High Street, with Littlewoods and Arnotts long gone but Wilkinson's having turned their back on Paisley, while local landmark buildings like the Russell Institute and the former TA Building are abandoned and up for sale.

So bold local leadership is needed now to do everything possible to get the local economy moving. We need and want visitors to come and see attractions like the historic Abbey. Yet Paisley's Tourist Information Centre - a showcase for the town's attractions - has been shut down. Welcome refurbishment work is underway at Gilmour Street Station, but the station's Travel Centre is gone. Paisley, as Scotland's largest town, has long lacked a bus station, but even a widely available map of local bus routes is not available in the Town Centre - which doesn't make it easier for any would be visitor to get around. Just ask yourself this simple question - is the town centre in better shape today than it was five years ago? And before anyone tries to defend their failure by smearing anyone who questions their five year record of failure, it's not 'negative' to want better for our local community: I honestly believe Paisley deserves better than the SNP leadership of the Council we've seen over the last five years.

Yet 2012 also marks the fifth year the SNP have run the Scottish Government. For all of their talk and boasts, the Fraser of Allander Institute are forecasting just 0.4 per cent growth over the whole of 2012. Just before Christmas we learned that in the nation that invented the ideas of "a school in every parish" and "the democratic intellect" teacher numbers have fallen year on year, while funding to colleges like Reid Kerr have been slashed just as unemployment has risen.

Alongside all of this is a Conservative Government at Westminster that gambled growth would follow deep and immediate cuts in public spending. That gamble went wrong last year with growth squeezed out of the economy just when it should have been strengthening.  At the same time, they've failed to influence Europe at a time when a Eurozone crisis still threatens to imperil the British economy.

So as 2012 begins, as the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, I make these pledges. I'll work and campaign to oppose policies that are harming our local community. I'll work with anyone across party lines - as I've done in the past - to promote our town.  And I'll also continue to work hard to help local people and organisations through these tough times. As someone who grew up here in Renfrewshire in previous tough times I have great faith in our resilience as a local community. That resilience will be needed in this New Year. But, working together, we can look out for each other, and work for a better tomorrow.