Lib Dem tells of pressure to vote against Airborne

A SENIOR Liberal Democrat MSP faced renewed criticism last night after admitting he gave in to pressure from ministers in a vote on the future of a boot camp for young offenders.

Donald Gorrie said he decided not to vote for an SNP amendment demanding the Executive reconsider its decision to close the Airborne Initiative to "prevent the coalition unravelling".

With Tony Blair due to give a key speech at the Labour Party conference the next day, it would have been "embarrassing" for Labour to be defeated.

"Coalition politics are difficult. It would not have helped the Labour Party to go off to Inverness having suffered their first defeat in this parliament with some Liberal Democrats voting against them," said Mr Gorrie. "There was a strong feeling within our people that it was very important that we did not provide any ammunition for the anti-coalition people at Inverness."

Describing the climbdown as "humiliating", Mr Gorrie added: "I painfully decided an apparently indefensible vote against the amendment would produce less harm than a vote for it. It was for me the hardest vote in five years of the parliament."

His explanation failed to quell anger in the ranks of those fighting to keep the Lanarkshire-based project open.

Clive Fairweather, the former chief inspector of prisons, said: "It makes one wonder about the amount of pressure people like Mr Gorrie found themselves under to toe the Executive line."