Archive for the ‘Scotland’ Category
LibDems and other parties defeat Conservative motion to help Highland people – Scotland
I was totally shocked to hear that a Conservative motion was defeated by the LibDems and other parties to a motion put forward by Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon to use badly needed funds to assist local people in the Highlands and Islands.
The rate of registrations for Highlands and Islands NHS is a mere 50.7% which is a shockingly low rate of registrations and this money could have been put to good use for local people across the area.
If this is the sheer contempt that the SNP, Labour and LibDems have for the Highlands then I would urge people to remember this betrayal of their health interests at the coming General Election.
Jim Ferguson
Conservative move to treat 27,000 new dental patients and scrap SNP dental propaganda is defeated
A Conservative motion aimed at annulling the £2.4m annual cost of allowing patients to remain registered with a dentist forever, regardless of whether they have ever been treated, has been rejected by other parties at Health Committee.
£2.4m would be enough to fund at least 20 more dentists, which means an extra 27,000 patients could have been treated
Mary Scanlon MSP, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health & Wellbeing, says:
“At a cost of two and half million pounds every year, the SNP Government wants to allow the names of patients to remain registered with a dentist for ever – even if that patient hasn’t turned up for years or hasn’t turned up at all. By contrast, if my annulment had been accepted this morning, at least 20 new dentists could have been funded and 27,000 extra patients treated.
“This £2.4 million a year is there just to make the SNP Government look better. It allows the SNP to trumpet that more and more patients are being registered with dentists – but it doesn’t mean any more patients are being treated by dentists.
“NHS dentists in Scotland warn that this change will undermine the importance of regular check ups, and most alarmingly of all, they warn this change will increase the chances of serious conditions such as mouth cancer going undetected.
“I am astonished that the other opposition parties have also voted to put SNP propaganda ahead of patient care. We need to scrap this pointless and costly measure as soon as we can.”
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Fuel prices set to rocket – Highland business at serious risk Scotland UK
Business and hard pressed people across the Highlands face even greater hardship due to fuel prices that are set to soar. Some estimates suggest that the more rural parts of scotland will face prices of around £1.30 per litre.
This is totally unacceptable and as if we wern’t facing enough problems this latest bombshell may see more and more people struggling to cope. How will penshioners manage to heat their homes ? The fact that the vast majority of the cost is tax that goes straight into the Labour Governments pockets is scandalous when they can see the pressure that people are already under thanks to Labours recession.
And what of the LibDem MP Danny Alexander. What will he do ? Not much. Not much a minority party MP like him can do anyway.
This general election will give the people of the Highlands an opportunity to elect an MP who will be able to deliver.
If the country is fortunate enough to elect a Conservative Government then I as the MP for this region will be in a far stronger position to bring real help and support to the people of the Highlands of Scotland instead of the empty weak words of the Liberals who can only whine and wring their hands in helplessness.
Jim Ferguson
Petrol Price Woe For Drivers As Costs Soar
4:28pm UK, Tuesday March 16, 2010
James Jordan, Sky News Online
Petrol prices could reach an eye-watering 120p per litre later this year, the AA is warning.
The organisation is claiming that unleaded fuel could even top the price, equivalent to £5.41 a gallon, and Alistair Darling is being urged to delay the introduction of a planned 3p increase in petrol duty due to come in on April 1.
AA president Edmund King said: “The UK is barely out of recession, yet petrol prices threaten to rise to record prices seen during the boom of 2008 – shortly before the collapse into recession.
“If families, drivers on fixed incomes and those on low pay were unable to cope with record prices then, they are even less likely now.”
AA research found an average family with two cars is paying £52 a month more to fill up now than a year ago.
Motorists are being legally mugged at the forecourt by petrol companies.
Lindsay Hoyle, Labour MP on the Commons business select committee
The average petrol price in the UK is 115.9p for a litre of unleaded and 116.6p for a litre of diesel.
Even if the 3p increase is withdrawn, the price paid by drivers could soon hit 120p a litre – £5.41 a gallon – according to the organisation.
This would overtake the previous high of 119.7p of July 2008.
The AA said the price increases were caused by the rise in the price of wholesale gasoline since the end of January.
Lindsay Hoyle, the senior Labour MP on the Commons business select committee, said it was “a complete disgrace”.
He told the Daily Telegraph: “Yes, crude oil has gone up this year, but nothing like the rise in petrol prices. Motorists are being legally mugged at the forecourt by petrol companies.”
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For the sake of the British people we must get rid of this Labour Government UK
The biggest risk for Britain is five more years of Gordon Brown
Wednesday, March 10 2010
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, has argued that the biggest risk for Britain is five more years of Gordon Brown.
Speaking to the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, he said that ”our ability to undertake economic modernisation will be critical to Britain’s future influence”.
“When capital, labour and technology are increasingly mobile we cannot stand still”, he said. “That is why James Dyson’s report about how we can give more weight to science and technology in our economy is so welcome”.
“That is why our proposals on business taxation are oriented towards attracting and maintaining investment, why our programme of education reform explicitly draws from best practice across the globe, from Alberta to Sweden to Singapore, to ensure we make the most of every young person’s talent in the future.”
Hague warned that the modernisation our economy needs is not guaranteed. “If our opponents’ mistaken arguments and mistaken principles prevailed Britain will move backwards towards a ’70s style model, with a bigger say for the trade unions who want to impose rigidity and unaffordable regulation across the public and private sector. The bridge will be drawn up against innovation and investment.”
He also warned that Labour is no longer “the outward-looking thinking of the late 1990s”, but that it’s taking “an explicitly old-fashioned Left approach” – particularly in selecting candidates who are ”hardened union activists with a track record in resisting modernisation”.
Hague said Gordon Brown was right to refer to the economy being “at a crossroads” in a speech he gave today. “We could continue with five more years of his debt, waste and taxes. We know where that would lead – just yesterday an international credit rating agency warned that Labour’s plans would result in the loss of our credit rating. ”
“That would be a catastrophe for our economy and for our reputation around the world”, he said.
“So the biggest risk for Britain is five more years of Gordon Brown. The alternative is to change direction, deal with our debts more quickly and restore confidence in our economy. A new Conservative Government will be a chance to send the signal far and wide that Britain is once again open for business.”
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Family breakdown a symptom of the sickness in Britain UK
What happens when a nation obsoletes the traditional family structure?
Can a nation survive without strong families? You need to know the answer to this question, because strong marriages and families in Britain are devolving to unprecedented levels. But if we reach back into antiquity, there is one powerful empire that does offer a precedent—a chilling one. But things in modern Britain are different, right?
On February 14, the UK Office for National Statistics reported that the percentage of Britons getting married for a second time is falling, but not because marriages are lasting any longer. Marriages are still breaking up at record rates. It is just that now fewer people are choosing to remarry following a divorce.
Cohabitation is the new trend. And Britain is a world leader.
My mistake. Cohabitation is actually the old “new trend.” The new new trend is single mothers who have never lived with a man at all choosing to live alone on state benefits. According to new research by sociologist Geoff Dench, these premeditated single mothers believe they have no need for a spouse and that their children have no need for a father.
Of the one in four mothers who currently live without a man in their house, half have made the conscious determination to live alone.
How dangerously ignorant.
The increasingly rapid breakdown of the traditional family is an ominous indicator because it coincides with several other uncomfortable facts. Besides leading Europe in crazy “families,” Britain also leads in rates of obesity, public drunkenness, drug use, and sexually transmitted infections. It is also a leader in illiteracy, crime, teenage pregnancy and, well, brand awareness.
Is it any wonder that Britain is also the leader in family breakdown?
Yet when faced with this list of disturbing accomplishments, it is amazing how blind many people are to the looming social and national disaster facing the country.
History shows that once national family life breaks down, societies are on the downhill slide. “[T]he strength of any nation depends on the strength of its families,” Gerald Flurry wrote in the March 2009 Trumpet. “Family is the rock-solid foundation on which a country’s superstructure is erected. That was the case for both America and Britain.” Note the past tense.
Strong families were also the concrete foundation of the Roman Empire during its heyday. “Back then, when people talked about Rome falling, they were scoffed at and scorned,” noted Mr. Flurry. “When Seneca, the famous Roman, warned that Rome would fall—even telling people why it would fall—the people ignored him. In the words of Seneca, one of the foundational reasons Rome would fall was the fact that ‘they divorce in order to remarry. They marry in order to divorce.’”
Seneca warned that family breakdown would destroy the Roman Empire—and it did! And it is destroying Britain (and America) today.
In his masterpiece, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbons identified five major causes that contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire. First on the list was breakdown of the family. The other factors included increased taxation, an insatiable craving for pleasure, an unsustainable buildup of armaments, and the decay of religion.
Doesn’t Rome before the fall sound like today’s United Kingdom? The looming disaster is hard to miss.
Some few in Britain acknowledge something is wrong. But there is a conspicuous—and ominous—lack of drive for action. Even those politicians who publicly endorse the idea of supporting traditional families have shown through decades of inaction that they don’t have the will to stop the downhill slide and make the controversial changes necessary to get families back on track.
Writer Melanie Phillips suggests things are to a state now that the government should give dowries to men who get married for the first time. This would “increase their worth to women” and “send a powerful signal that men are not worthless creeps but are essential to family life.”
Wow. How the British man has fallen since the feminist revolution—to think that state-funded dowries are needed to show that men are not worthless in family life, of all things!
A real man should have his own career and be able to provide for his own—before getting married. And he should be the solid core of that marriage and family for the rest of his life!
Yet according to some, British family life is not in crisis. “[T]his country has never been broken by anyone or anything,” said British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. “[F]or all the challenges, I don’t believe Britain is broken—I think it’s the best country in the world. I believe in Britain.”
Sounds just like something Seneca’s countrymen might have said.
All the while, nationwide collapse is thundering closer as the bulkheads snap under the pressure. The evidence is clear. A host of studies have shown that stable families result in children who are less prone to violent crime, better educated, less likely to take drugs, healthier physically, healthier mentally, and less likely to have teenage pregnancies.
Why do we have children today who publicly harass and denigrate their teachers, calling them fat and obese? Why does London have a higher crime rate than Istanbul? Why do government officials feel the need to hand out morning-after pills to 11-year-olds? Why are British girls having up to four abortions by their 18th birthday?
Because there has been a serious breakdown, of one kind or another, in those children’s families.
And because nothing is changing, Britain as a nation will—just like its families—fall apart. History provides no examples of societies that can remain viable without viable families. Even the mighty Roman Empire fell.
It is cause and effect.
God says that when you break His laws on marriage and family life, He will send curses as correction. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God says, “For the land is full of adulterers; for because of swearing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right” (Jeremiah 23:10).
In this verse, God says there is a direct connection between marriages and escalating national problems. The phrase “their course is evil” implies aggressively running after evil ways like runners in a race. As Melanie Phillips points out, British society is totally geared toward not only promoting single motherhood, but towards denigrating fathers. Britain is steaming full-speed ahead contrary to God’s laws.
Therefore curses are inevitable.
Jeremiah says the land will mourn and the pleasant places will be ruined. Britain is suffering intense natural disasters. Over the past few years it has suffered devastating crop failures and cattle diseases. Flooding has taken huge tolls. Severe snowstorms have blanketed the nation. Economically, its place as the world’s financial capital is gone, the pound is under attack, and the nation is on the brink of financial collapse.
The phrase “their force is not right” implies a failure in military action. The Hebrew word for “force” means valor, victory, mastery, might, mighty (act, power), power, strength. It’s a military word. God warns us that national sins destroy military might. Today, British troops are worn down and short on equipment. Troops are heading home from failures in Iraq and will probably come home from a failure in Afghanistan soon as well. Just a couple of weeks ago, the Daily Mail lamented that if Argentina were to take the Falklands, the bitter truth is that Britain doesn’t even have the resources to send a task force to retake the islands. That is a far cry from the nation that once boasted the world’s largest empire backed by its most powerful navy.
But that is the thing with curses; eventually they result in destruction. Family breakdown in Britain is breaking the nation. And worse is yet to come. If you don’t believe it, just ask Rome—or the now largely vanished British Empire.
No matter ones Religious belief or lack of it this article is pertinent and relevant in many ways.
The facts speak for themselves.
Jim Ferguson
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Labours tax bombshell for local pubs UK
Community pubs facing tax bombshell
Sunday, March 7 2010
Shadow Housing Minister Grant Shapps has warned of a ‘tax bombshell’ faced by community pubs this April.
New research by the Conservatives reveals that Gordon Brown’s tax inspectors are hiking up business rates for local pubs across country. Friendly community pubs with darts and pool tables face the biggest threat.
This comes as figures show that a net 3,690 local pubs have closed under Labour, according to official records held by tax inspectors.
“Gordon Brown has pushed local community pubs to the wall”, Shapps said, pointing out that at the same time Labour has ignored “the binge-drinking dens that have wrecked our town centres and fuelled violent crime”.
The three key elements of the tax bombshell are:
- New tax hikes on local pubs: New analysis of Government figures slipped out before Christmas has revealed that pubs, pub restaurants, wine bars, wineries and coaching inns face above-inflation hikes in their Rateable Values – and thus their tax bills. This will be top of Brown’s above-inflation rises in alcohol duty imposed in the Budget.
- Stealth tax on pub sports: According to the tax inspectors’ guidance, features such as a pool room, skittles alley, bowling green, children’s play area and darts have been targeted. The clipboard-wielding inspectors have secretly toured pubs, recording “pool, darts or football teams playing in leagues”. Pubs showing sport will not escape, as Sky Sports will be taxed extra, Ministers have admitted.
- Stealth tax on nice pubs: The tax manuals tell the state snoopers to take photographs inside and outside the pub, and record “Does the pub appear friendly and popular?”. Factors being logged include good beer cellars/stores (thus taxing real ale), “rare and unspoilt pubs”, and beer gardens (taxing those which have ducked the smoking ban).
“Not content with a council tax revaluation to tax people’s home improvements and scenic views, Gordon Brown also wants to hammer the nice local pub with higher local taxes”, Shapps said. “Only Conservatives will stand up for the local community pub”.
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Labours betrayal of our armed forces – Military chiefs accuse Brown
The truth of Brown’s attempt to cover up the amount of defence spending is starting to come out. The armed forces are now quite clear on the position that Brown’s Labour Government cannot be trusted. Despite huge professionalism and bravery on the part of our armed services the armed forces cannot depend on this Government. Every military person needs to wake up fast to what Brown and his cabal of misfits have done and how Labour has turned its back on them and our nation.
Labours disrespect for the armed services is staggering and their appalling record and betrayal of our military personel cannot go unpunished. I would urge every soldier, sailor, and air force member of the armed services to assist the rest of the people in this country to throw this dredful Labour Government out of power as soon as the General Election takes place. Only then can we begin to properly fund and support not only our fighting men and woman but ensure we get the support that their families deserve as well.
Jim Ferguson
This graph (hat tip to Burning our Money) gets closest to the truth about Labour’s record on defence spending (click on the image to enlarge it):
For the reasons pointed out by BoM, because defence costs have risen faster than inflation the second graph is most relevant. At a time of two wars Labour has cut the buying power of our armed forces.
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Yesterday Gordon Brown told the Iraq inquiry that he gave the military all they needed. Liam Fox hit back, accusing the Prime Minister of being “evasive” and pointing to contradictory statements issued by others.
Today, Mr Brown gets both barrels from retired military chiefs in The Times and Telegraph.
“He’s dissembling, he’s being disingenuous. It’s just not the case that the Ministry of Defence was given everything it needed. There may have been a 1.5 per cent increase in the defence budget but the MoD was starved of funds.” – Admiral Lord Boyce, the Chief of the Defence Staff up to the start of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, quoted in The Times
“To say Gordon Brown has given the military all they asked for is simply not true. He cannot get away with saying I gave them everything they asked for, that is simply disingenuous.” – Lord Guthrie in The Telegraph
“The real truth is the Armed Forces are underfunded.” – Major General Patrick Cordingley, quoted in The Telegraph
Speaking on Radio 4 at 8.15am this morning, General Sir Richard Dannatt backed his former colleagues in the armed forces. The whole of the armed forces had been robbed to provide the basics for combat operations, he told listeners.
In its leader column The Telegraph makes the obvious conclusion:
“What they do know is that there are soldiers who would not have been killed had they been better equipped and whether that was the Treasury’s fault or the MoD’s is neither here nor there. The Government must be held to account; and Mr Brown has been at its heart for 13 years.”
Tim Montgomerie
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Shocking state of people admitted to Accident and Emergency – Inverness, Scotland
Drunk 12-year-old girl rushed to hospital
Published: 04 March, 2010
“Raigmore Hospital’s A&E department was not a pleasant place to be on Saturday night, according to Jim Ferguson.”
A 12-YEAR-old drunk, two men who had been assaulted in booze-fuelled bust-ups and a drug user who had overdosed…
These were just some of the many patients who ended their Saturday night at Raigmore Hospital’s accident and emergency department.
And it wasn’t a pretty sight, according to crime-fighting charity Crimestoppers’ Highland chairman Jim Ferguson, who shadowed A&E staff for six hours to see first-hand their dealings with the fall-out of drink and drugs.
For, during his visit, he saw only one patient whose admission was not down to booze or substance abuse.
Mr Ferguson, who is also Scottish depute chairman of Crimestoppers, told the Highland News: “While it wasn’t pleasant to see all the blood, gore and trauma, it did highlight a number of issues that are screaming out for action to be taken on.
“I would appeal for other people like Highland councillors and government officials to see for themselves what is happening.”
Shortly after his arrival at 10pm, the first patient rushed to the ward was a 12-year-old girl.
He recalled: “She had consumed a fairly large quantity of alcohol. I am not sure what the circumstances were, but she was taken in with serious alcohol poisoning and was kept in for several hours under observation.”
He continued: “I saw a number of people who were in as a result of alcohol. I saw one chap under the influence of alcohol who was covered in blood, with his clothes ripped and he was being helped to walk by two police officers. He had been severely beaten and he was taken into one of the observation units.
“Another chap came in with serious facial injuries so severe he would have been unrecognisable to anyone who knew him. He was badly cut round the face and there was blood coming out of gaping head wounds. His lips were torn and bleeding. Again, he had been assaulted while under the influence of alcohol.
“I also saw a man who had been involved in a road traffic accident and he had crashed his vehicle while being under the influence of alcohol.
“There was another man, probably in his 20s, who was suffering from a drugs overdose.
“There was only one admission to A&E I saw that was not drink or drugs-induced and that was an elderly gentleman with breathing difficulties.”
Speaking to reception staff, nurses and doctors, Mr Ferguson found that this was not a particularly busy night for A&E – and was perhaps even on the quiet side for a typical Saturday night following pay day.
He took the opportunity to speak to staff about the sort of problems they come up against while dealing with people who are the worst for wear due to drink or drugs.
He explained: “I was aware that in A&Es across Scotland there are incidents of very serious verbal and physical violence and that was confirmed on Saturday by staff I spoke to.
“Reception staff who deal with people when they first come in told me about incidents of verbal abuse where people threatened to find out where they lived and told graphically, in ways I can’t repeat, what they would do.
“They also told me of incidents of physical violence where people under the influence of drink or drugs have lashed out, often without warning. They said they really have to have their wits about them.
“I’m shocked and appalled to hear people who are genuinely doing their best to help people are subjected to such violence and disrespect.”
He also asked staff their thoughts on the impending closure of the city’s drying-out centre at Beechwood House. The unit, which will close at the end of March if funding is not found, provides 24-hour emergency rehab care for those suffering the affects of drink or drugs.
He said: “They told me this is a nightmare waiting to happen. Beechwood House has incredibly patient staff and provides a unique facility.”
Mr Ferguson, who hopes to foster greater links between Crimestoppers and NHS Highland, said he was impressed by “the sheer level of professionalism of A&E staff”.
He added: “Not only are they proficient, they are incredibly knowledgeable. They are dedicated, hard working and don’t judge, however frustrating they find things.
“We are fortunate to have a such dedicated people working in Inverness.”
Another point in all of this is the fact that people should simply not have to run the gauntlet of drunks and drug addicts often fighting while in Accident and Emergency. Its bad enough being there trying to deal with whatever has happened without this going on which adds to the stress and suffering of people there especially children.
Jim Ferguson
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Labour and EU dictate terror policy putting British people at serious risk
Labour are at it again. Now they want to put the British people at risk from terrorists and all with the EU’s blessing.
Incredible.
Jim Ferguson
EU rules are fatal for terror watchlist
Thursday, February 25 2010
Shadow Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones has pointed out that EU rules will make the Government’s proposed terror watchlists ineffective.
In response to the failed attack on an airliner heading for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, the Government announced that it would use the existing Home Office Watchlist as the basis for two new lists.
There was to be a no-fly list, and a larger list of those who should be subject to special measures prior to boarding flights bound for the UK (including transit/transfer passengers).
However, the European Commission says the UK cannot compulsorily collect Advance Passenger Information (API) for flights from within the EU under the e-Borders scheme, regardless of the nationality of the passenger.
And as the British Government has decided to also not collect and use Passenger Name Record information (PNR) for intra-EU flights, this means that Britain currently has no way of collecting advance information on all travellers arriving from within the EU.
The Detroit bomber flew from Nigeria to Holland and then on to America. If he’d travelled through Britain he might well not have been picked up by the new watchlist.
Speaking about the issue in a speech at the Royal United Services Institute, Neville-Jones said that Labour are “knowingly and inexcusably misleading the public into thinking that they are creating a system which will be an effective barrier to dangerous people being able to get on to a flight to the UK”.
“The flimsy basis of the new watch list will provide no such protection”, she added.
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British jobs for British workers – a joke under Labour
Labour have failed to get a grip on immigration
Thursday, February 25 2010
Damian Green has accused the Government of allowing immigration to run “out of control” following new evidence published by the Home Office.
The Shadow Immigration Minister was commenting on figures that lay bare the extent to which the Labour Government has failed to get a grip on the level of immigration in the UK.
The Home Office figures show more student visas being issued than ever and visas, settlements and EU benefit claims all up.
New asylum statistics also reveal that there are more asylum seekers arriving in Britain than failed asylum seekers leaving.
Damian said these immigration figures, the last to be published before a General Election make it clear that immigration “has been running out of control throughout the lifetime of this Government”, and he added:
“Even in a recession with more than two million unemployed the number of work visas issued is going up. So much for British jobs for British workers.”
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Pope to unleash ” hell ” on Labour and the socialist liberals
Pope could give Labour Party ‘hell’
catholic leader responds to Jim Murphy’s speech appealing for religious voters’ support
By Katrine Bussey
The Pope could give Labour “hell” over its record on family matters, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland said yesterday.
Cardinal Keith O’Brien hit out in the wake of a speech by Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy in which he attempted to appeal to religious voters.
Cardinal O’Brien accused the government of making “a systematic and unrelenting attack on family values”.
With Pope Benedict XVI due to visit Scotland later this year, the churchman revealed he had told Labour Holyrood leader Iain Gray that “he could really give you hell for what you have done in our country over the past 10 years”.
Cardinal O’Brien has criticised government policies on stem cell experimentation on human embryos, civil partnerships, same-sex adoption and abortion.
He said: “There’s a whole series of measures which have been legislated for over the past 10 years which are against basic Christian standards.
“I feel on behalf of my own Church and peoples of other faiths as well, that I am entering into this daily contest, fighting for the standards by which we stand as Christians here.”
Cardinal O’Brien said he had met the Pope in Rome recently and also said he had spoken to Mr Gray about the pontiff’s visit to Scotland.
He said the Labour Party had “accepted some praise” for playing a role in attracting the Pope to Scotland.
Cardinal O’Brien continued: “I said to Iain Gray ‘when the Pope does come I hope he emphasises to you the Christian teaching when he’s here, that’s what John Paul II did when he was here’.
“And in some ways I said to him he could really give you hell for what you have done in our country over the past 10 years, demeaning family and married life and these other things that have been happening over the past 10 years.”
Mr Murphy said on Tuesday night that “faith has always been important to Labour”.
The Scottish secretary, who was delivering the Progress lecture, stated: “In the US, faith has long played a central part in politics.
“Not surprising for a country where 60% of people say that God plays an important part in their lives.
“But it’s wrong to think that it plays no role in British politics.”
Mr Murphy, a Catholic, added research from the time of the 2005 general election suggested Labour support was strongest among religious people.
The Pope was invited to the UK by Prime Minister Gordon Brown during a private audience, and earlier this month the Catholic Church confirmed Scotland would be included in the visit which is expected to take place in the autumn.
Pope Benedict XVI’s visit will be the first since predecessor John Paul II’s visit in 1982.
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