Cameron 'will save Scotland'
Monday, 5 October 2009 12:00 AM
By Alex Stevenson
A David Cameron premiership is the best option to "save" Scotland from the threat of independence, Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie has said.
Addressing the Conservative party conference in Manchester, Ms Goldie attacked the way Scottish National party first minister Alex Salmond and Labour prime minister Gordon Brown have not met for over a year.
That, she said, is "not how devolution is supposed to work".
"David Cameron has pledged a relationship of mutual respect between our Scottish and British governments," she added, saying that "replacing the politics of grievance and grudge" would be the best way to "help save Scotland against the SNP threat".
She attacked the SNP as an "irrelevance in the British general election" and criticised Mr Salmond's ability to have free prescriptions despite his £150,000 salary as "morally reprehensible".
Ms Goldie said the Conservatives would not "buckle" in making tough spending decisions, saying her party had identified £250 million of savings in the Scottish budget.
She announced the Conservatives would introduce a business dividend fund which would incentivise councils to help start-up businesses, as part of her goal to make Scotland "a real entrepreneur country".
And she said protection for whistleblowers in the NHS would be strengthened, and a fast-track community court would be established in Glasgow.
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