Labour gains support for key knife-crime pledge

Published on Tuesday 26 April 2011 18:37

SCOTTISH voters have offered their backing for a controversial Labour election policy to jail all those convicted of carrying a knife, a Scotsman poll has revealed.

The poll, showing over 50 per cent approval for mandatory sentences for knife possession, came on the first day of Labour's fightback, which saw shadow chancellor Ed Balls drafted in to Scotland to help revive Iain Gray's faltering campaign.

Mr Balls also criticised the SNP government's release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi as "wrong" on the same day as the Scotsman/YouGov poll showed more than half of all Scots wanted him to remain in jail.

The shadow chancellor, speaking during a series of high- profile campaign visits in Edinburgh yesterday, attacked the SNP's policy of independence as "barmy" and dismissed previous comments from Alex Salmond about possible positives for Scotland joining the euro as "totally crackers".

Mr Balls said Iain Gray "talks a lot of sense" as the Scottish Lab-our leader said the knife crime poll was a "huge endorsement" for the party's policy.

The poll showed 54 per cent voters wanted those convicted of knife possession to be sent to jail - a policy Labour claims is "tough action necessary" to reduce the country's "most common cause of homicide".

However, it also showed 43 per cent of respondents were opposed, backing the view that "judges should have the discretion" in handing out sentences.

Just 3 per cent of those questioned said they were undecided over the policy which the party has pushed hard before and during the election campaign.

Mr Gray said: "This is a huge endorsement for Labour's mandatory minimum knife crime policy and shows that Scots want to see those who carry a knife go to jail.

"Knife murders increased by 56 per cent in Strathclyde in the last year and knives remain the most common cause of homicide across Scotland."

But justice secretary Kenny MacAskill claimed Labour's knife crime policy was "unworkable, uncosted and contradictory" and said that it had "collapsed" under scrutiny.

He said: "The police say it won't work and the prison officers say it is not credible and dangerous."

Meanwhile, the same Scotsman/YouGov poll showed that 54 per cent said that the justice secretary had made the "wrong decision" to return the bomber to Libya, while 35 per cent backed the SNP minister's decision.

There were 12 per cent of voters undecided over the decision, which led to a recall of the Scottish Parliament during recess and sparked a diplomatic row with the US.

The latest poll revealed a hardening of opposition to the release of Megrahi's since the decision in August 2009, when 43 per cent of those polled approved of Mr MacAskill's decision, with 51 per cent against and 6 per cent undecided.

Mr Balls said he opposed Megrahi's release. He added: "Everyone has their own view. Personally I thought it was wrong to release Megrahi."

A spokesman for the justice secretary said that Mr MacAskill had made the decision to release Megrahi on the "precepts of Scots Law".

Meanwhile, Mr Balls, speaking during a separate visit to an Edinburgh car dealership, said the global recession would have been an "utter catastrophe" for an independent Scotland,

Mr Balls, who made the visit alongside the Scottish Labour leader, said: "Does he (Alex Salmond] still think that Scottish financial regulation should be separate from the UK even after what happened to RBS? It's completely barmy."

The shadow chancellor went on to criticise comments the SNP leader had made in 2009 when Mr Salmond said "a very strong argument" exists for setting Scotland's autonomous fiscal powers "within a European Euro context".

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But the SNP finance secretary John Swinney criticised Mr Balls's campaign intervention as an example of "London-based politicians talking down Scotland's abilities".

He said: "Labour's campaign goes from bad to worse with its unremitting negativity."

He added: "Labour have abandoned their losing 2011 campaign theme of focusing on Westminster, and are reverting instead to their losing 2007 campaign of bashing the people's right to vote on independence in a referendum, even though every survey of public opinion demonstrates the popularity of a referendum to choose Scotland's future."