Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference Address

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Scottish Liberal Democrats on Sun 27th Feb 2005

There's good news and bad news.

The bad news (and it is bad) is that the world is an unstable, confusing and, at times, frightening place.

We are in fear of terrorists, AIDS, avian flu, crime and the effects of accelerating climate change. The good news on that is that Russia has signed up to Kyoto. The bad news is that the United States hasn't.

The good news is that the number of democracies has increased in the past year. The even better news is that, in the face of all these uncertainties and the frightening certainties of the neo-conservative agenda, Liberalism (with a big L) is on the advance.

Did you know, for example that eight of the European Union commissioners are members of Liberal, Democrat and Reformist parties (that's more than any other political group).

Liberals are in Government or heading for Government in an increasing number of countries across Europe as well, of course, in our own beloved Caledonia. During the Cold War the clash was between capitalism and communism. Now the clash is between neo-Conservatism and Liberalism.

At home and abroad we face confusion and uncertainty. Yet, slowly but surely the case is being made that the Liberal agenda offers hope in a climate of despair.

One interpretation of the word Liberal is generous. The reaction of the Scottish people to the Tsunami disaster was truly Liberal, shaming the Government into raising their commitment - and we must make them deliver.

I don't want to oversell our case but six years into the Scottish Parliament, we have abolished tuition fees and resisted top up fees; we have pioneered Freedom of Information and Human Rights Legislation; we are delivering free personal care for the elderly and we will reform the voting system for local government.

I could take you on a tour of my constituency and show you a new state of the art primary school at Strathburn, Inverurie, a brand new secondary school at Oldmeldrum, new primary schools in an advanced state of construction at Kintore and Rothienorman. Other major school developments are being planned.

In the parts of Aberdeen City Gordon constituency reacquires under boundary changes I could show the Scottish Executive funded music school for talented musicians at Dyce Academy. A long overdue new bridge over the River Don is firmly planned and under Liberal Democrat leadership recycling levels are raising rapidly from the abysmally low levels we inherited from Labour.

Incidentally the only Liberal Democrat Lord Provost (the first ever?) John Reynolds and his wife Helen, recovering well from a stroke, are superb ambassadors for the City as are Aberdeenshire Provost, Raymond Bisset, and his wife Heather (also a councillor).

By the way, these two councils are both ably led by women - Kate Dean in Aberdeen and Audrey Findlay in Aberdeenshire. If we are as successful as we hope in the General Election I look forward to being joined in the House of Commons by several more talented women Scottish Liberal Democrats.

We have able men too in the North East and Nicol Stephen as Transport Minister delivered a double Christmas present when he announced the ending of Skye Bridge tolls and the introduction of free bus fares nationally for older people from next year. Thanks Nicol, we oldies appreciate it!

At a recent briefing to MPs and MSPs, Grampian's Chief Constable informed us that he had a net increase of 200 police officers since 1998 and that further increases promised would provide another 120 over the next two years raising the force to 1500 officers.

As the Scottish Trustee for the RNID I am pleased that the Liberal Democrats insisted on extra funding for audiology in Scotland. It is a good start; keep it coming!

Of course the Tories regard all this as waste.

There are many other things our ministers and MPs are achieving for Scotland. That doesn't make us satisfied nor should it. Let's face it dentistry is in crisis across the UK and here in Scotland.

Quite rightly we are committed to introducing free dental check-ups as well as eye tests. However, with people unable to find an NHS dentist at all in many areas this will be cold comfort.

It is not a purely Scottish problem. We have to compete across the UK (and beyond) to attract and retain dentists. They need job satisfaction and good pay. Initiatives, such as training finishing in Aberdeen and determined recruiting of NHS dentists should help but our aim must be that everyone who wants an NHS dentist can find one in their area. I want to read no more stories of my constituents taking out second mortgages on their house to pay for a teenager's dental treatment privately because it is not available on the NHS.

Putting the Liberal Democrats into Government in Scotland has made a positive difference for the better. Of course we cannot deliver on everything. Even if we were the lead partner we couldn't but I like to think we would achieve more.

So let us issue this challenge to the voters of Scotland. Give us a chance to take the lead.

The first step down that road will be the Westminster election everyone expects in a few weeks time.

You know, I was really irritated by some BBC broadcasts during the last election. You may remember they had 15 minutes extended onto the news bulletins to accommodate election coverage.

On one occasion I monitored the distribution of time - not among the parties you may be surprised to know. I can't remember if these figures are exactly right but they are not far out. I concluded that of the fifteen minutes, one minute twenty-nine seconds consisted of interviews with politicians. The remaining 13 minutes thirty-one seconds consisted of BBC staffers interviewing each other.

No disrespect, guys, but who elected Andrew Marr or John Humphreys?

On another occasion they transgressed even more seriously. They featured one part of the UK where the election was largely irrelevant. You guessed it. Scotland.

Because we had our own Parliament which took decisions on education, health, law, local government etc the General Election would have little significance to Scottish voters, they said.

They seem to have lost sight of the fact that almost all our taxes are levied and collected by Westminster, that our Parliament is funded by a direct grant it does not control; that significant areas of policy such as pensions and benefits, interest rates, company law, defence and foreign policy, war and peace, drugs, firearms and human rights for example are decided at UK level - and they do matter to Scottish voters.

Tony Blair took us into an illegal war, on a false premise the outcome of which we cannot yet foresee. He deployed Perth and Tayside's own regiment the Black Watch in a dangerous frontier at the Americans' request and promptly announced a the end of their tour that their long and honourable history would be summarily terminated.

Westminster doesn't matter to Scottish voters?

Tony Blair protested somewhat feebly about British citizens incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay while presiding over our own unlawful detentions at Belmarsh.

He is now struggling to find a way through the law lords' ruling on this breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Charles Clarke is perpetrating the undemocratic fallacy that he has responsibility to provide security meaning he is demanding the right to detain without trial people he deems to require it.

Without a proper judicial process his proposals will be just as illegal and were he to persist would mean that the UK was creating political prisoners. This measure would include British citizens.

Westminster doesn't matter to Scottish voters?

Of course, the Government is persisting in its pursuit of identity cards.

What kind of example is that to set to the new democracies of Europe let alone the post Soviet states that have not achieved democracy or, in the case of Russia is busy stamping it out.

I'll come back to Russia later but meanwhile let's return to ID cards.

There is a story about Churchill in the Palace of Westminster shortly after his defeat at the end of the war. A newly elected Labour MP got into the lift that rises from outside the Members' Dining Room to the Upper Committee corridor. Churchill was already on board.

As the lift rose Churchill turned to the rooky. "What party are you then?" "Labour, sir", replied the slightly overawed new member. The lift arrived at the second floor.

"I'm a Liberal", said Churchill. "Always have been" and strode off leaving the freshman open-mouthed.

One thing Churchill was Liberal on was identity cards. He accepted they were necessary for the exceptional circumstances of the war. Even when they were introduced he asserted we were fighting the war for the day when such devices would not be necessary and it was a Churchill-led Conservative Government that eventually abolished them in 1952.

There is no such language from Tony Blair. If he has his way the ID cards will be for keeps, for everyone and compulsory. He argues they are needed for the present threats. But it will take years to introduce, cost billions and eventually require non passport holders to register by compulsion. And the terrorists will find a way round them by forging them, transferring them or, cunning devils, being British. After all if you are a suicide bomber, lying low for years, you do not need to hide your identity only your intentions until it is too late.

Aside from terrorism we are told that ID cards will prevent social security fraud and be required to receive public services. The Scottish Executive has gallantly said it will not have anything to do with ID cards. However they do not issue passports or deliver benefits or other services. So be not lulled. Scots will require ID cards.

Westminster doesn't matter to Scottish voters?

I said at the start that there were more democracies than a year ago. Unexpectedly, the people of Georgia took to the streets in the rose revolution and after a stand off Mr Scheverdnadze gave way to Mr Sakaashvilli. I have had the privilege of meeting him and hearing him speak. He is undoubtedly seeking to move Georgia into the free and democratic world and stamp out endemic corruption.

Who said the future is bright the future is Orange? I know what you are thinking but Mr Kilroy-Silk, who regularly sat on the bench in front of me in my first Parliament, is not the author - possibly because he has no political future. Nor is Ian Paisley.

Actually Mr Victor Yushenko didn't say it either but he should have done.

I have a friend and colleague, Serhei Holovaty, a former Ukrainian Justice Minister and newly elected as the Liberal Chair of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

A few weeks ago at a Liberal dinner, I sat next to Myroslava Gongadze, the young widow of Georgiy Gongadze, whose beheaded body was found after extermination threats by ex President Kuchma were recorded by a security officer

In the climate of the Kuchma regime Serhei was in despair. He never believed the democratic revolution could happen yet the Orange revolution in Ukraine is almost certainly the biggest political event in Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall.

And let me tell you, Mr Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin do not like Roses or Oranges one little bit.

I attended a hearing of the US Senate foreign relations committee a week ago. They took evidence first from executives of Yukos, Russia's most successful post Soviet company, destroyed by the Kremlin, whose executives are in the final throes of a Soviet style show trial.

Then they took evidence from a variety of academics. The views expressed were strident and uncompromising. Russia is not a democracy it is an anti democratic force. Witness Mr Putin's endorsement of the fraudulent result in Ukraine.

Senator Lugar asked the witnesses what they thought the United States should do. The answers were hard-hitting. Russian should be denied membership of the WTO, a G-8 summit in Moscow (and membership of the G-8) and, by the way why are President Bush and Tony Blair proposing to attend the celebration of the triumph of Stalinism over eastern Europe at the end of the war?

Russia being anti-democratic a bit strong? Consider this. Over seventy per cent of the people running Russia are former KGB agents (as of course is Mr Putin). At a seminar at New York University School of Law this question was posed. Are we back in the USSR? The answer was no. The KGB was never as strong in the USSR as they are now in Russia.

Next you should know; regions will no longer elect their Governors they will be appointed by the Kremlin. There will be no constituencies (therefore no chance of electing popular favourite sons or daughters). Only parties who have 50,000 members or more across more than half the regions (Alex Salmond, I think your policies are rubbish but I will fight to the finish for your right to try and peddle them) will be allowed to contest elections at any level. The threshold for election to the Duma is increased from 5 to 7 per cent of the popular vote.

There are no independent television stations nor independent courts.

Let me tell you something else. You may take the view that Mr Khodorkovsky is an oligarch who made billions out of flawed privatisation. (He wouldn't be the first). But consider the treatment of Svetlana Bakhmina. She was a lawyer working for Yukos who was in London for the final meeting of the board before the company's demise.

Yet within hours of her return to Moscow the security services came to call. She was dragged into custody in front of her pre school age children who were left abandoned. Within hours of being taken she collapsed and was taken to hospital. Her captors waited outside the door until she was deemed sufficiently recovered to leave.

They took her back into custody where she remains a hostage within what passes for a legal system in Russia.

Should we care? I think we should

It is true that Russia has an economy the size of Belgium's. However, Russia has a large footprint and if we do not insist that they deliver on their commitment to democracy the world will come to regret it.

It will be a supreme irony if Tony Blair and George W Bush are so distracted by imposing democracy on Iraq by force that they collude in its extinction in Russia.

Vladimir Putin has told George W Bush that Russia has made an irreversible commitment to democracy. Sadly, this is totally inconsistent with the evidence of what he has done in the past twelve months.

Democracy in Russia and its near abroad is not secure.

Viktor Yushenko was horribly poisoned. The Prime Minister of Georgia died in mysterious circumstances. Dark forces are at work to undermine liberal democracy. We need to be vigilant and we need strong voices to speak out for Liberalism, democracy and the rule of law. And you won't find any of those among the present Labour cabinet.

Tony Blair has no respect for constitutions or human rights. 'Trust me I'm Tony' was no substitute for a gut sense of Liberalism but right now hardly anybody trusts Tony and there are a string of reasons for wanting him gone.

Tomorrow he will be asking the House to vote for the creation of more political prisoners in Britain. He certainly wasn't there to hear the outburst from one of his MPs who finished his speech by saying. "This is the Labour Party's descent into hell and the Government be damned for it."

Barbara Follett, whose first husband was shot dead by South African security forces, likened the control orders to the notorious pass laws.

Tony Blair shows cavalier contempt for the constitution and human rights. He led us into an illegal war. No wonder he won't publish the legal advice. A Government that couldn't even get the legal advice right for a Royal wedding cannot be trusted to have got right the legal basis for war.

The forthcoming election is more important than just offering a menu with prices on the usual issues.

It is an opportunity indeed an obligation to make a stand for the fundamental principles on which our democracy was founded and are under threat from an increasingly overmighty and authoritarian Government.

A proportional voting system has tamed Labour in Scotland and enabled us to deliver many Liberal Democrat policies.

The undemocratic Westminster system is a different beast. Firstly, as Charles Kennedy has made clear we could not prop up a Government that had lost its overwhelming majority and we will not.

Faced with the arrogance of Blair's Labour Party and duplicity of Michael Howard's Tories there must be no limit to Liberal Democrat aspirations.

The election is only weeks away and the message must be clear. Give the Liberal Democrats the chance to end this Government's endless spin. Let us reconnect with the people. Let us join the advance of Liberalism and put the Liberal Democrats on the road to Government.

Tony Blair is not fit to be Prime Minister of this country and the one sure way to remove him is for people to vote Liberal Democrat in overwhelming numbers. Let's go out and campaign our hearts out to make election day Tony Blair's nemesis and a victory for the people.