Award Winning Film-makers to Produce Solidarity Election Broadcast
Wednesday, 27 December 2006
Three award winning stars of TV and Movies are teaming up to produce the first Parliamentary Election Broadcast for Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement.
Davie McKay, Martin McCardie and Peter Mullan will join with technical and creative workers from the film world to create the broadcast for Scotland’s fastest growing political party. Solidarity have been attracting a lot of support from the Scotland’s artistic and creative community with rapper Eastborn, folk singers Alistair Hulett and David Ferrard and Saltire Prize winner and author John Aberdein, already working and campaigning with the party.
Mullan won a Cannes Award for best leading actor for his role in Ken Loach’s film “My Name is Joe” which also featured MacKay and McCardie. He is now best known as a Director, following the success of “Orphans” and “The Magdalene Sisters”. Solidarity Co-Convenor Tommy Sheridan welcomed the news:
“This is fantastic news for Solidarity. I have known Peter, Martin, and Davie for a long time and they are talented and respected artists, as well as committed socialists. To attract such highly regarded professionals to our election campaign is a real boost and the whole party are excited at the prospect.”
Solidarity End of Year Message
Sunday, 24 December 2006
At this time of year - when our television screens are filled with advertisements that go all out to reinforce the myth that human happiness should be and is equated with consumerism; when overpaid presenters and celebrities, wearing plastic smiles, attempt to paint the fantasy of a perfect world in which everyone is in a happy relationship or family situation, in which everyone has a well paid, fulfilling career, in which everyone has reason to smile and indulge to their hearts content – at this time of year we redouble our resolve to the struggle to end this rotten, corrupt and brutal capitalist system, a system which is based on a lie.
For we do not know or recognise the mythical society portrayed on our television screens at this time of year, populated by happy, smiling people filling their faces with food and drink, driving expensive cars and exchanging expensive gifts. No, the society we know and recognise is one in which huge and increasing poverty exists alongside pockets of extreme wealth, in which asylum seekers, immigrants, Muslims, gays, low paid workers, council tenants, the homeless, human beings all, are maligned and attacked daily, made to feel worthless under a system in which the apotheosis of material success and wealth is shoved in our faces every single day.
We recognise and understand that we live in a world that is currently engaged in an epic struggle for the future of humanity. The front line in this struggle is the Middle East, where after 15 years of bloody and brutal occupation – both economic and military – the entire world has come to understand that money, power, and technology pales in comparison to the human spirit. The Iraqi, Palestinian and Lebanese people have written a new page in the history of that war torn region of the world, and we salute their courage and their determination, while at the same time lamenting the huge loss of life and destruction that has resulted.
Solidarity MSP Tommy Sheridan has hit out at the British Association for Shooting and Conservation (BASC) who have sent a press release criticising his bid to ban the sale and possession of air guns in Scotland. BASC claim that the majority of guns owned in Scotland are “legal” and “within the law”.
Sheridan, Co-Convenor of Scotland’s fastest growing political party reacted:
“We know that ownership is within the law, but that does not stop them being used for unlawful purposes. My bill would protect hundreds of people from attacks and vandalism by these dangerous weapons.”
BASC list as their aims “to promote and protect sporting and shooting”, they are a multi-million pound organisation whose patron is the Duke of Edinburgh. Tommy Sheridan suggested that they were not living in the real world:
“ If they think that the hundreds of thousands of these weapons on our streets are being used for sport, they are living in a different world to me. Firefighters, children, pensioners are being attacked by these weapons and we sadly know that it can cost lives. Have your sporting shooting if you wish, but leave your guns locked up at the gun club when you leave.”
Tommy will be discussing this on his radio show "Sunday Morning with Citizen Tommy" live on Talk107 from 10.00am tomorrow. Comrades outside of the Edinburgh, Lothians and Fife areas can listen to the show live www.talk107.co.uk
Solidarity Call for Re-Think on Post Offices
Friday, 22 December 2006
Solidarity MSP Rosemary Byrne has called the decision to cut funding to rural post offices and sub post offices a "grave mistake" that will leave some communities isolated from services and geographically and socially excluded. The Co-Convenor of Scotland's fastest growing political party said:
"This decision flies in the face of the Executives stated aims of social inclusion. It would be a grave mistake to cut off a vital link to services in rural areas. We should be reversing this trend and instead of cutting services, investing in post offices as an important and integral part of many villages and towns across Scotland."
Since Labour came to power 4,000 post offices have already closed and the latest news could mean that another 2,500 will close across the UK, many of them in Ms Byrne's constituency of South of Scotland.
Tommy Sheridan Tells McConnell to "Stand Up" on Trident
Thursday, 21 December 2006
Solidarity MSP Tommy Sheridan welcomed the SNP debate in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday while calling on Jack McConnell to stand up for the people of Scotland. The Glasgow MSP has campaigned against the Clyde’s weapons of mass destruction all of his adult life and has been arrested and jailed for his opposition. He said:
“Jack McConnell and the Labour Party in Scotland have failed to stand up for the interests of the people of Scotland, the majority of whom oppose these weapons of mass destruction.”
Recently an answer to a question in the House of Commons revealed the true cost of replacing Trident and maintaining it’s replacement to be £76 billion. Sheridan, Co-Convenor of Scotland’s fastest growing political party continued:
“I believe that £76 billion, committed over the next 30 years to wage war on poverty and grotesque inequality would concretely raise the quality and standard of life of all pensioners, children and families across the United Kingdom, and that the latest astronomical cost estimate to replace Trident also adds political urgency to the cause of independence. An independent, nuclear-free and socialist Scotland offers the best guarantee of peace and security for all Scotland’s citizens.”
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