Democracy:  from Carrick to China
I am very impressed with the Gazette’s new website www.carricktoday.co.uk. I was particularly interested to see that you had introduced an ‘It’s your vote’ item every Thursday. I must admit after a week of voting at Westminster the last thing I want to do on a Thursday is vote on anything, but last week’s topic “Should new nuclear power stations be part of our future energy mix?” caught my eye. It came just after I had made my own submission to the Government’s energy review. It is often said that we take our democracy for granted in this country although we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the generation who fought so hard for the right to vote. It certainly concentrates the mind when looking at the many countries in the world where democracy is non existent or where it remains a life threatening activity to exercise your democratic right to vote. In Iraq we at last have a Government in place from elected representatives of the whole people in spite of the shadow of terrible sectarian violence.
My Select Committee in Parliament (Foreign Affairs) is looking at the emergence of China as an economic and political power in the light of the booming market economy with a population of 1.2 billion. It is clear from our evidence that the Chinese Government has no intention of bringing in political reform to accompany their development in the global economy. China remains an authoritarian regime where dissent is crushed, the media is tightly controlled by the state and human rights abused including the right to religious freedom and to join free trade unions.
Despite this, there have been literally hundreds of thousands of demonstrations in the last few years and I recently met a member of the Chinese Labour Network who had been put in prison for trying to organise trade union activity but who continues his campaign by means of a weekly broadcast phone-in programme where he advises Chinese people on their rights.

Pensions Boost
The Labour Government’s pensions proposals published last week represent the greatest renewal of our pensions system since the post-war reforms implemented by Clement Attlee's government. They include introducing a new low-cost savings scheme supported by a higher, fairer state pension once again linked to earnings, and measures to address the unfairness of the current system towards women and carers by making sure it rewards social contributions equally with cash contributions. We will make sure the new settlement is sustainable over coming decades by gradually raising the state retirement age in line with life expectancy.
Since 1997, we have made real progress in tackling the appalling legacy of pensioner poverty we inherited from the Tories, so far helping a million pensioners out of poverty. These new reforms announced last week are for the future - they are the blueprint for the system for the next forty years.
The Secretary of State also announced that the Government will extend the coverage of the Financial Assistance Scheme which Labour set up to help some of the people who lost their occupational pensions when the private schemes went bust. We had already made £400 million available to help and now we will add another £2 billion. This is something I have long been campaigning for along with workers who lost their pensions. You can read my views on this in more details elsewhere in the paper this week.

Youth Parliament Competition

A few months ago I had the pleasure of attending a school debate at Girvan Academy. Last week I was a judge at the heats for the UK Youth Parliament debate in Westminster and can confirm that the standard of debate at Girvan Academy was in every way equal to the very high standard demonstrated last week in London

Jools an’ a’ that
The annual Burns an’ a’ that Festival continues to go from strength to strength. This year we have just had a heady celebration of arts and culture from Scotland and beyond ranging from the Orchestra of Scottish Opera to Julian Cope and from the SNO with Eddie Reader to John Martyn. Events both official and fringe have taken place all over Ayrshire. I made a special point of taking in one of my own favourites, Jools Holland & his Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. My brother and sister are also fans so we made it a family occasion at Turnberry  last Saturday.