RICHARD Leonard has insisted his party is getting “a really good response on the doorsteps” despite recent polls suggesting a near wipe-out on Thursday.
The Scottish Labour leader said the election wasn’t “just about Brexit” and that people were also keenly interested in better public services and ending austerity.
On a visit to Edinburgh Sick Kids hospital, which is staying open while its £160m replacement is delayed for a year because of last-minute repairs, he said his party would invest massively in the health service across the UK, with knock-on benefits for Scotland.
He said the Tories would pursue a hard Brexit while the SNP would focus on securing another independence referendum.
He said: “We will invest an additional £2b a year in the National Health Service in Scotland and that will lead to a significant increase in support so we can fill GP and consultant vacancies across Scotland.
“We can start to look at what we can do to expand the health service instead of it being constantly under pressure.”
He added: “We’ve had a really good response on the doorsteps. This election isn’t just about Brexit and it’s certainly not a referendum on a referendum on independence - it’s who’s going to be the Government for the next five years.
“In the end, the choice that people have to make is do they want a Tory Government re-elected for five more years of austerity, a squeeze on living standards and a rolling back of investment in public services, or do they want a Labour Government that will invest in the NHS, start to build houses again, turn back austerity and start to rebuild our economy.
“So that’s the choice that people will face on Thursday when they go into those polling stations.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here