Second SSP leaflet for Liberton Gilmerton Election

First Hasselt, Now Leipzig and then Scotland

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The German city of Leipzig today introduced a 4 day free public transport initiative in a bid to persuade motorists to leave their cars at home.The scheme entitled 'Down with petrol price insanity- Time to switch' has been introduced in response to record prices for fuel in Germany.A Leipzig Transport Services spokesman announced all buses, trains and trams in the city will be free for the rest of this week. Leipzig has a population the same size as Edinburgh and the scheme will be closely monitored throughout Europe to see what impact it has on passenger numbers. A new political party called 'The Pirates' advocates free public transport in all German cities.The Leipzig initiative follows one introduced by the city of Hasselt in Belgium where free public transport was established permanently in 2005. They have seen a 900% rise in passenger numbers and an equally substantial reduction in pollution levels and traffic congestion.The Scottish Socialist Party advocates free public transport for Scotland as a way of persuading people to leave their cars at home and combating the harmful emissions linked to global warming. We will be most interested in examining the evidence arising from the Leipzig experiment this week

Galloway's Bradford Victory

George Galloway's election as the new MP for Bradford West will send shivers up and down the spines of all 4 'mainstream' political parties in Scotland. It represents a highly visible demonstration of the extent of opposition to Britain's ongoing occupation of Afghanistan, which they all support. It also shows the widespread revulsion at the corrupt political practices they all employ. Money grabbing career politicians are oblivious to the anger in working class communities throughout Britain at their own growing impoverishment on the one hand and the unbridled greed of MPs on the other. Make no mistake further results like this one will not be uncommon.

Young Danes Interested in the Scottish Socialist Party

A group of students and teachers from Copenhagen, Denmark, contacted me some weeks ago to ask if they could meet me whilst they were in Edinburgh and talk about the Scottish Socialist Party's ideas and achievements. I met them today in the sunshine outside The Dynamic Earth and had a thoroughly engrossing chat.

Council Tax - It's Not A Freeze We Need, It's Abolition

Like other Edinburgh householders I've just received my Council tax bill for the coming year. And as unwelcome as the financial demand is, it's the unfairness of it I find hardest to swallow. In the current economic climate, with incomes falling in real terms, millions of Scots find the Council tax a significant drain on family budgets. Yet in 2007 Alex Salmond promised to scrap the Council Tax because it was unfair. He told us he would bring forward a Bill to replace it with one which was fair, based on your income and related to people's ability to pay. But 5 years later we are still waiting. The Council Tax is even more unfair than it was, but the First Minister has done nothing to address this injustice, where those on modest incomes carry the greatest burden. There are pensioners in this city paying one quarter of their income on this bill, whilst others on seven figure salaries, like RBS CEO Stephen Hestor, pays 'buttons' relatively speaking. His Council Tax bill is twice the average despite his salary being 300 times greater. SNP apologists will doubtless point out that Council Tax bills have been frozen in recent years but freezing it doesn't somehow make it fair. And since the First Minister's excuse for not abolishing the Council Tax between 2007 and 2011 was that he didn't have a Parliamentary majority, I am sure I am not the only one asking when will he make good on his promise now that he does?

Appearance on Jeremy Vine

I was speaking on Jeremy Vine's BBC Radio 2 programme on Friday, March 2nd about benefit fraud. You can listen to my contribution by visiting this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01c9y6x. Apparently the link doesn't last forever so you may need to be quick.

I am happy to say I received many emails and - would you believe - Tweets of support following the show.

Follow me on Twitter

You can now follow me on Twitter

@colinfoxssp