Salmond calls for “active citizenship”
Alex Salmond, the newly elected leader of the Scottish National Party, has today delivered a keynote speech setting out his vision of “active citizenship” in Scotland.
Following his landslide victory in the SNP leadership contest on Friday, precipitated by the resignation of John Swinney as leader earlier this year, the Banff and Buchan MP called for sweeping reforms of popular participation in public services.
“Real democracy in Scotland doesn’t begin and end with a new Parliament. Real democracy is about ensuring that public services respond to popular will and that we create a culture of citizenship where rights are protected and responsibilities are enabled”, Mr Salmond declared during an address to Cleveden Secondary School 6th form in Glasgow.
“A breath of fresh air needs to be blown through Health Boards by making the majority of them subject to democratic election and in this way more responsive to public needs. Elected Health Boards would have their own mandate and therefore more able to stand up to the Health Secretary rather than being the nodding lapdogs of Labour’s disintegrating health policy”, he argued, warning of massive popular discontent at the centralisation of Scotland’s NHS.
Mr Salmond’s speech follows on from a speech on Friday on economic policy and one on Saturday on social democracy.
“Active citizenship goes much further than democratic reform of public services. Active citizenship is about sweeping away quangos and the appointee state in Scotland. Active citizenship is about a country that defines citizens’ rights and responsibilities in a written constitution. Active citizenship is practiced and experienced not taught or learned. In schools for example school boards should be an integral part of the management environment not a token gesture”, Mr Salmond continued.
He called for 16 and 17 year-olds to be given the vote, and for publicly-selected “people’s debates” to be held in the Scottish Parliament.
He warned, “Scotland cannot claim to have a people’s Parliament unless the people are given the opportunity to set the popular agenda.”
Mr Salmond was SNP leader between 1990 and 2000. Just a month ago he had insisted that he had no plans to seek re-election, maintaining, ” If nominated I’ll decline. If drafted I’ll defer. And if elected I’ll resign.”
The result of the SNP leadership election was as follows:
Alex Salmond – 4,952 (75.76 per cent)
Roseanna Cunningham – 953 (14.58 per cent)
Mike Russell – 631 (9.65 per cent)
Ms Cunningham, who was deputy leader under John Swinney, admitted after the results were announced, “It’s pretty convincing, so there’s not much you can quibble about.”
