The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Corbyn courts youth vote with living wage pledge
Labour leader’s nightclub speech hits out at benefit levels for young
It might not be as glamorous as Glastonbury, but Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn used an appearance at a Kirkcaldy nightclub to again drive home his party’s message on Saturday.
Having famously addressed thousands from the Pyramid Stage earlier this year, Mr Corbyn was given a warm welcome on stage at Kitty’s by a few hundred people on this occasion, who had packed the venue to hear him speak.
Mr Corbyn gave a rallying 20-minute speech to supporters in between live music at the Big Band Bash event on Saturday afternoon, organised by the Kirkcaldy YMCA and given his surroundings and the nature of the audience, it came as no surprise to see Mr Corbyn reach out to younger voters.
“We’re here in a nightclub – a little early for a nightclub I can see – but nevertheless we are,” he said.
“Music, imagination and enjoyment comes from it.
“All young people have amazing levels of creativity so our arts policy is about putting money into schools all over the UK for music, for art, so that young people can express themselves. I think it’s absolutely crucial.
“It’s also about the life chances of young people.
“Why are the benefit levels so low for young people? Why are the wage levels so low for young people?
“So we will make sure there is a living wage of £10 an hour across the UK, that starts at 18.
“Our suggestion is that young people should be treated better, given better opportunities and live in an economy that values their work, provides for their skills and a government that is prepared to invest in their needs.”
Mr Corbyn also said he “deplored” the loss of college places north of the border, criticised the Tories and the DUP for failing to lift the public sector pay cap and hit out at the Government for what he called a “carve-up” of the health service across the UK.
The Labour leader also thanked all those who helped elect Lesley Laird to the Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath seat at the general election in June following what he described as a “relentlessly positive” campaign.
“Everybody wrote us off at the beginning but they seem to forget that people have very long memories, of what Tory governments have done in the past,” he added.
“The poverty and the misery that they have imposed on Scotland and the people of Fife in the past. Their policies of privatisation and deindustrialisation, the brutality of what they did to the miners in the 1980s. These things are not forgotten in common folklore.
“But it’s also about what we offered during the election. What we said was, there has to be an alternative.
“There might not be an election tomorrow, there might not even be an election next month but this government cannot last.”
Not everyone was happy to see Corbyn-mania sweep into Fife, though.
Members of The European Movement in Scotland staged a peaceful demonstration outside Kitty’s.
“He was utterly invisible and wishywashy during the EU campaign,” protestor Ian Cooper said.
“If he had done half of what he did in the general election campaign we would not be in the mess that we are in now. It’s as simple as that.”