I AM sure that I am not alone among Scottish Tories in looking forward to the results of Sir Malcolm Rifkind's Policy Commission. While we were against the wholly unnecessary establishment of a Scottish Parliament, we must none the less participate fully in the whole democratic process and use our influence to the good at Holyrood.
I look forward to the party, and its new Scottish Leader when elected, setting out some simple but clear Unionist priciples around which we should base our Holyrood manifesto.
I want to hear that we will ensure that the Health Service in Scotland will remain fully a part of the British NHS, the best health service in the world.
I want to hear that we will remove any discrimination based on ''geographic'' or any other basis to access to our publicly funded education system - and that includes the immediate removal of tution fee anomalies so beloved of New Labour.
I want to hear a pledge that the Scottish Parliament will knock on the Chancellor of the Exchequer's door every week seeking UK-wide fiscal incentives to encourage low-emission and emission-free motor vehicles - the environment cannot be tackle by a little Scottish Parliament acting in isolation - we need to influence and support our major world-power Parliament at Westminster in this, a transport issue within Holyrood's remit.
An important commitment which I want is one to increase Scotland's voice in European Union affairs - this is not a plea for more power for the Scottish Parliament so much as a plea to restore the access to Europe which Scotland had under the Tories and will now lose under New Labour's flawed schemes.
Most important, I want to know that our party, the Conservative and Unionist Party, will use all the new powers of Holyrood to strengthen and maintain the integrity of the United Kindom, to defeat all divisive campaigns seeking to undermine the Union and shy away from cheap, quick, and ostensibly popular sound-bites which the SNP will use in trying to lead us all by the nose, as they already do Dewar.
Mike Scott-Hayward,
Sawmill Cottage,
Kemback Bridge,
Cupar.
August 28.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article