SSCUP | Press Releases |
| January 2010 | The Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party Leader, former MSP John Swinburne, is demanding that Gordon Brown urgently delivers an additional emergency winter heating allowance to pensioners to help prevent a massive increase in winter related deaths among senior citizens this winter. According to statistics from Duncan McNiven, the Registrar General for Scotland, 34,930 pensioners have died of winter related illnesses since Labour came to power in 1997. (ON YOUR WATCH GORDON) Unless Gordon Brown acts NOW this figure will rise dramatically this winter. |
| July 2009 |
GREY POWER GIVES A LEAD
JOHN SWINBURNE, THE PENSIONERS PARTY(SSCUP) CANDIDATE FOR THE GLASGOW NORTH EASTBYE-ELECTION,
IS CALLING FOR A MEETING OF ALL CANDIDATES STANDING THERE (OR AT LEAST ALL THOSE WITH A BACKBONE) TO JOIN IN A UNILATERAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FOR GLASGOW NORTH EAST AND TURNSPRINGBURN INTO A TAX-FREE HAVEN ON THE GROUNDS THAT THERE MUST BE NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION THIS WAS GOOD ENOUGH FOR AMERICA 233 YEARS AGO AND IT IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR SPRINGBURN. WE WANT AN ELECTION NOW BROWN GOT RID OF OUR SPEAKER BUT HE CAN'T DENY A VOICE TO THE PEOPLE OF GLASGOW NORTH EAST TURN SPRINGBURN INTO A TEMPORARY TAX FREE HAVEN POWER TO THE PEOPLE!! |
| General Election | I am pleased to confirm that Jim Parker will be standing under our banner in the General Election as the candidate for the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party which also incorporates the Pensioners Party(Scotland) in Gordon Brown's constituency of Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath.Jim has been a member of the SSCUP since its inception in 2003. He has gained a great deal of experience in both of the elections for the Scottish Parliament and he also stood for the SSCUP in the recent Glenrothes by-election.Jim Parker can be contacted at 01592 622477 or by e-mail at - jim.coal@blueyonder.co.uk Our Party, which was formed to give a voice to all senior citizens in Scotland in the political arena, was successful in 2003 when I was elected to the Scottish Parliament.In the 2007 election the SSCUP polled over 40,000 votes (plus a vast number of other votes which were disallowed as 'spoiled papers'). This made the SSCUP the sixth best supported party in Scotland. We pensioners would all much rather be in a position whereby we could all sit back and enjoy our hard earned retirement. However, succeeding Governments at Westminster have continued to ignore the plight of our senior citizens and the SSCUP will seize upon this opportunity to confront Gordon Brown in his own 'back yard' and expose him for the way in which he has kept pensioners in a state of penury for the past 12 years. That is providing he is man enough to appear on the same hustings as our candidate- Jim Parker! I understand that he generally manages to avoid such confrontations. Brown in his capacity as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister has always pleaded poverty when the Old Age Pension was on the agenda and the UK can 'boast' the fact that it has the poorest pensions of all the advanced countries in Europe. Even the Republic of Ireland pays 435euros to a pensioner couple and this equates to £401 per week. In the UK we get £196 for a pensioner couple AFTER MEANS-TESTING! Before means-testing to qualify for pension credits the pension is a miserable £168 for a pensioner couple! We can't afford more was Gordon's cry but suddenly he COULD afford MORE to bail out greedy incompetent bankers with £Billions which he conjured up out of nowhere for them- yet he still ignores the plight of the senior citizens. Come on Gordon - Just tell us when you wish to end your spell as Prime Minister - the sooner the better and we will be ready for you ! John Swinburne Leader of the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party/Pensioners party(Scotland)
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Repossessions |
The government is doing all it can to stop the banks and building societies from repossessing people's homes and this is very praiseworthy in the present financial climate.Unfortunately, while they are trying to do their best to help those who can no longer afford to meet their mortgage payments there is absolutely no consideration being given to those who have met all their mortgage payments. I refer to pensioners who are living alone and who now need care in a residential home.They are faced with their home being taken from them by an uncaring government and sold to pay for their residential care. Stewart Maxwell, the Secretary for the Communities,has come up with a £3million offer to the legal profession to provide families who are having their homes repossessed with free legal aid to help guide them through their present difficulties and this is good. Certainly for the legal profession! Professor Arthur Midwinter, who is the financial advisor to the Labour Party in Holyrood ,calculated that it would only cost around £5.6million to do away with the sale of pensioners' homes to pay for their residential care. Surely there is an unanswerable case for the continuing theft of homes of the vulnerable elderly to be halted immediately? We all feel sorry for those who can no longer pay their mortgages, but the same government callously disregards those who scrimped and saved for years to purchase their homes only to see them being 'repossessed ' by Social Works Departments up and down the country to pay for residential care.Free care from the cradle to the grave was the concept.It is high time that Governments at Westminster and Holyrood started to apply this concept to our generation and stopped the theft of the homes of the sick and vulnerable elderly. |
Scottish Pensioners lose out again! | Following the recent 10p tax debacle and the crippling increase in fuel costs, the Government with their increase in Road Fund Licence have yet again completely ignored the plight of those pensioners in Scotland who live in rural areas or do not have reasonable access to public transport. "No thought whatsoever has been given to the added financial pressure imposed on pensioners in Scotland. Once again, the Labour Government have ignored this section of society who have had to face unaffordable increases in fuel, food and the general cost of living without comparable increases in the basic pension. In many cases a car is not a luxury but a necessity to those pensioners who, for instance, are grandparents carrying out child minding duties to help their families cope financially with the ever increasing cost of living.There must be NO increase in road tax for ANY senior citizens due to the current decrease in their living standards due to inflation." |