Interview with Pete Shears, Scottish Labour candidate in The Ferry, Dundee

 Interview with Pete Shears, Scottish Labour candidate in The Ferry, Dundee

• Why a Scottish Labour candidate in The Ferry?

First and foremost, because there isn’t a Labour councillor in The Ferry just now, and it’s the only ward in Dundee without a Labour councillor, which has been a Labour stronghold for a century until the SNP took over a couple of decades ago. I’m running my campaign based on giving The Ferry its Labour voice back, we haven’t had a councillor for five years. The Ferry is Dundee’s most affluent area, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of people in the ward struggling and unfortunately from what we’ve heard speaking to people on the doorsteps, particularly in areas where there is poverty, addiction, anti-social behaviour; is that the current group of councillors aren’t really taking the action they need to support those people. I come from a single mother working class household, I understand the situation that those people are in. I know how it is to work on a minimum wage job and struggle to pay the bills, I grew up in those situations and there wasn’t anyone speaking for families like ours, so I’m standing in The Ferry to give those people a Labour voice back. Labour is the only credible alternative to the SNP and the Tories in Dundee. People are desperate for change, we can’t deny Labour has had a rough 15 years in Scotland, so we need to take that chance now to rebuild the trust with our electorate and show the people that Labour can deliver for them. 

• What are the main issues you prioritise in this campaign?

Above everything, I’m running on a no-cuts platform. Austerity has devastated local communities and services, and it’s been perpetrated by the Tories in Westminster and the SNP in Holyrood. We’re currently in a cost of living crisis and it’s the politics of austerity that are behind that. I feel like Labour is the only party putting our message forward, we need a recovery for everyone and a much fairer economy for the post-COVID society.

Another issue that is really important to us and to me is education. There’s teacher shortages and recently there’s been a very unpopular reform that removed principal teachers from faculties. We need to break the poverty cycle, we need proper funding to do that. The SNP has passed cuts to education personnel’s payments. 

We also need green policies, that really needs to be a priority for us and the administration as a whole. We need properly insulated homes, we need to tackle fuel poverty and inequality. We’re also calling for a municipal publicly owned bus service as well, the current bus service is horrific in Dundee, we look to the Lothian buses in Edinburgh, which is a really good example of how well publicly owned services can be. Dundee is an example of bus services run for profit. We’re hearing that a lot of people want a public bus service.

We need to look at elected representatives taking responsibility and accountability for the decisions they make (although this is not a policy, it is something I prioritise). Recently in Dundee, in the last six months or so, we’ve seen four million pounds spent on rebuilding the Olympia, as the current administration repetedly ignored warnings about the building’s condition, three million pounds on roof repairs and over a million pound on repairing the heating in Dundee House which the administration sold off to a private company a few years ago and they rented back with full responsibility for repairs, and there’s about 10 million pounds of public money that’s been lost and not a single member of the administration has taken any responsibility for it.  There doesn’t seem to be a culture of accountability.

Then, of course, you’ve got the usual local issues: things like roads, streetlights, street cleanliness, which are really important to residents. I think there are issues all local councillors will be prioritising regardless of the party, so what I really want to push is the ideological differences that make Labour the alternative to the Tories and the SNP and how those differences can make people’s lives better.

• Why is Labour the best alternative to the SNP and the Conservatives?

At the moment, The Ferry has four councillors: 2 Tories, 2 SNP and 1 LibDem, we don’t have a Labour councillor. We’re the only party that offers a different way of doing things, we’re the only party that can bring a significant change. We’re the only true anti-austerity party, the other three parties all very much follow the same neoliberal economic policies and the working people of The Ferry don’t have a voice in the city chamber. Like I said before, what we’re offering is a fair recovery that puts people first and we want to prioritise well-payed secure employment for everyone. We’re pushing for green policies that tackle the fuel inequality so people don’t have to choose between heating and eating. I believe Labour really is the only party that can make things different, we’re the best alternative for The Ferry and Dundee.