 | 'What he has done is not going down well with the big figures in Westminster. IÕd ask: 'What do John Reid and Gordon Brown think of this?' What IÕm hearing is that theyÕre not best pleased.' Labour candidate Cllr Charles Gordon on First Minister Jack McConnell. |  |
Conservative leader Michael Howard has joined the campaign trail ahead of two high-profile Scottish by-elections.
Mr Howard met his party's Glasgow Cathcart candidate Richard Cook and hospital campaigners outside the city's Victoria Infirmary.
The Cathcart seat became vacant when Labour peer Mike Watson resigned after he admitted setting fire to curtains in an Edinburgh hotel.
Lord Watson, who held a majority of 5,112 over the SNP in the 2003 Scottish Parliamentary election, is due to be sentenced on September 22, one week before the by-election.
Mr Howard, who met campaigners fighting to save the Victoria Infirmary's accident and emergency unit, said: "Here we have one example of a hospital that is going to be replaced without its accident and emergency facility.
"That is wrong. It is going to make people suffer and is almost certainly going to make people lose lives. That matters to the people of Cathcart."
Asked what he thought of Lord Watson's resignation, Mr Howard said: "I won't comment on that but law and order is an important issue.
"Figures today show that Scotland is the most violent country in the world. That is a staggering statistic.
"It comes from the United Nations, and faced with that immense problem, what you have is a situation in which instead of being prepared to tackle the roots of this problem - like the question of the number of people getting bail when they are up on serious charges like murder - you have the Liberal/Labour Executive tinkering around with the system and not being prepared to take the actions which David McLetchie and his colleagues have consistently urged them to take."
Mr Howard also hit the campaign trail in Livingston, where his party came fourth at the May General Election with 10% of the vote.
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