Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar will today call for a UK-wide focus on ‘national recovery’ from the pandemic. UK Labour leader Starmer will join Scottish Labour leader Sarwar to pay tribute to frontline NHS workers in Scotland.
Keir Starmer said:
“Scottish Labour, under Anas’s leadership, is the only party serious about tackling the injustices which have been brutally exposed by Covid. Whether it’s education, the economy or Scotland’s NHS, a vote for Scottish Labour in May is a vote to secure Scotland’s recovery.”
Speaking ahead of a visit to Edinburgh and Glasgow, Starmer added that Scotland’s recovery “must be the number one priority for its government”.
Anas Sarwar revealed earlier this week that Scottish Labour’s Holyrood campaign for May’s election will prioritise unity over division, with a ‘national recovery plan’ including a jobs recovery, an NHS recovery, an education recovery, a climate recovery and a communities recovery.
Sarwar added:
“At this election we will be prioritising unity over division. After everything we have been through across the entire UK, we can’t return to the old arguments.
Over the past year, our NHS staff in every nation and region of the UK have worked so hard under intense pressure. But our thanks is not enough – we need a relentless focus on a national recovery plan which prioritises our NHS, so that we never again have to choose between treating a virus or treating cancer.”
Anas Sarwar, “At this election we will be prioritising unity over division”
Ordinary voters, “At this election we will be prioritising dealing with the pandemic.”
I do think that Anas Sarwar should be thinking less about promoting his Unionist beliefs and more about getting us through this pandemic.
You’re writing this comment under a story headlined “Sarwar and Starmer focus on pandemic recovery” which literally says that will be Labour’s focus under Sarwar.
Hi Duncan. You make my point for me: the heading is about ‘pandemic recovery’ and then Sarwar sets out his priority as ‘prioritising unity over division’. He can’t help stop himself bringing up constitutional arguments even when the official line appears to to be ‘first priority: dealing with the pandemic’. I think you would concede that if a SNP politician said “we are going to focus on pandemic recovery and will prioritise a second independence referendum to give us the powers to do it’, Sarwar would be the first to criticise them for raising the constitutional question – just as he is doing but from the opposite point of view.
Jim this is ludicrous. You are implying that
“We want to prioritise pandemic recovery that’s why we think a second referendum is a bad idea”
is equivalent to
“We want to prioritise pandemic recovery that’s why we’re organising a second referendum”
One involves only focusing on the one thing you say you’re focusing on, the other involves saying you’re focusing on one thing and actually focusing on two.
Again, it’s ludicrous to pretend they are equivalent. The issue isn’t whether “raising the constitutional question” is okay, it’s whether actually organising a referendum is a diversion from pandemic recovery. And you know it. Please don’t try this ridiculous line of reasoning again.
Hi Duncan, so the reason why Labour opposes a second referendum is because they want to prioritise pandemic recovery? And here was me thinking they opposed it because they are Unionists….