Gurkhas join up for Danny
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Five Gurkha soldiers are to help Danny Alexander ‘s campaign in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey as thanks for his support during the Gurkha Justice Campaign.
The Gurkhas will spend the coming days traveling around the constituency helping his campaign team, with polling day just three weeks away.
He said: “I was proud to be able to play a part in the Gurkha Justice Campaign. It was scandalous that brave soldiers who fought to defend the UK before 1997 were not allowed to settle in the UK.
“After a brilliant campaign fronted by Joanna Lumley and supported by Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats, we were able to secure residency rights for Gurkhas who had served four or more years in the British Army before 1997.
“I face a tough fight in the Highlands and these battle-ready campaigners are a boost to my campaign. I’m delighted to have their support – and as Highlanders see them out and about over the coming days I encourage them to thank the Gurkhas for their service to our country.”
* The fight got under way in earnest on Wednesday (April 15) when Mr Alexander launched the party manifesto which, he said, contained a raft of measures which would benefit Scotland and the Highlands.
“Our manifesto builds on the work that we have done over these last five years in the heart of government. It contains measures to finish the job of balancing the nation’s books and to do so fairly. It then outlines a raft of measures to further strengthen the economy and to increase fairness. All these measures will help families, communities and businesses across all of Scotland. As I have done during all my time as a Highland MP, and particularly as I have done as the Highlander at the heart of government, I’ve worked hard to make sure that the particular needs of our unique part of the country are addressed.”He explained the country was within sight of eliminating the deficit, with the Liberal Democrats the only major party to have an optimistic plan to forge ahead once that job was done. “The country suffered a massive set back as a result of Labour’s great financial crash. Right from the start of the coalition, the Liberal Democrats insisted that the recovery plan had to be fair – that those with the broadest financial shoulders should bear the greatest burden of the necessary tough choices.“During the coalition, we’ve held our coalition partners to that principle. But now, as the election approaches, the Conservatives are lurching off to the right, balancing the books on the backs of the working age poor, and then cutting even more to shrink the size of the state and damage the public services like health and education that we all rely on. This is wrong, unfair and unnecessary. Our manifesto today sets out that we will balance the books by a mixture of some spending reductions and some tax increases on the best off and big business as well as continuing the clamp down on aggressive tax avoidance and tax evasion.”One of the highest priorities in the manifesto is the move to further increase the amount people can earn before paying income to £12,500.“Increasing the amount of money that people can earn before paying income tax was a flagship policy in 2010. We fought tooth and nail in the coalition and raised it from £6475 to £10,600 in this parliament. This has given over two million Scots a tax cut worth £825 to typical basic rate tax payers and lifted over 200,00 Scots out of paying income tax altogether. And today we confirm our plans to go a lot further. We will raise the amount people can earn before they start paying income tax to £12,500. As a first step, we will raise this to £11,000 in our first budget.”On measures specifically to help the north of Scotland, Mr Alexander said: “We will continue to implement the rural fuel duty discount which is saving people in the Islands, and now in some areas of the Highlands, 5p per litre. I was told repeatedly that such a discount would be impossible, but I didn’t accept that, instead I fought for the rural communities that suffer from high fuel prices and I won. I’m delighted that this scheme is helping with travel costs in the areas affected where we all know that longer journeys and higher fuel distribution costs are a fact of life.“And thanks to Lib Dem action government, by the end of this year fuel duty will have been frozen for five years, the longest duty freeze in over 20 years. That means pump prices are 16p per litre lower than under the previous Labour government’s fuel duty plans, saving the typical motorist £9 each time they fill their tank. In total, by the end of 2015-16, a typical motorist will have saved £675 from these changes.“The manifesto will also strengthen our commitment to tackle the higher cost of supplying electricity across the Highlands. The measures will start to end years of Highlanders paying over the odds for electricity by bringing down the distribution costs to the level of next highest region in UK.”
