John Swinney

John Swinney, Scotland's First Minister, visited Buckie and Elgin on the campaign trail ahead of the July 4 General Election.

Transcript

00:00That's a good answer, and you'll have a lot of those days ahead of you in the weeks to come.

00:08But this is a really, really important election because people in Scotland today are facing tough times

00:15because of austerity, Brexit and the cost of living.

00:19And all of those have been given to us by the Conservative government in London

00:23and the Westminster system, and it's been supported by the MP that's been representing this area every single day.

00:30It's been supported by the local MP for this constituency.

00:34So we need to do the right thing at this election, and that's to remove the Tory government

00:40and it starts by making sure this constituency returns to the SNP at the forthcoming Westminster election

00:48and that Graeme gets elected on the 4th of July.

00:52That is what we've got to make sure happens, but it's about more than that.

00:58Because austerity, Brexit and the cost of living are just the three latest examples of what Westminster has delivered for Scotland

01:07and the way out of that is to make sure that the best decisions for Scotland are made in Scotland, all the time.

01:15And what we've proved in our government over the last 17 years is that we can, when we have the chance,

01:22take the best decisions for the people of Scotland.

01:25There's 100,000 children in Scotland today that have been kicked out of poverty because of the actions of your SNP government.

01:33There's early learning and childcare that's now available in communities double what was available when we came to power

01:39making sure that children start off with their best start in life.

01:43And across the country we've got Accident and Emergency Services operating at the best level of any service in the United Kingdom.

01:54We've built more social and affordable houses per head of population than the rest of the UK

02:00and we've seen economic growth in Scotland, where growth per head is rising faster than in Scotland and the rest of the UK.

02:08These are the things that can happen when decisions are made in Scotland for Scotland and we need to make sure that happens.

02:16So this election will be, it'll be every election a tough election, but this is one where we can make the breakthrough

02:25where we can elect a strong group of SNP MPs to Westminster who will do what SNP MPs always do at Westminster.

02:34They'll put the interests of Scotland first on every issue and they will make sure that,

02:41they work to guarantee that decisions will be made in Scotland for Scotland at the earliest possible opportunity.

02:50So please give it all you've got, make sure that Graeme gets elected as the MP for this constituency

02:57and make sure that we do our bit in this part of the north-east of Scotland to remove the Conservatives

03:04and put in place MPs that will put the interests of Scotland first and Graeme needs to be one of them.

03:09Thank you very much.