Browse content similar to The Scottish Liberal Democrats: 07/04/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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I'm Willie Rennie, I'm leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:05 | |
I was born and brought up in a small village called | 0:00:05 | 0:00:07 | |
Strathmiglo, in the north of Fife. Beautiful part of the world. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
We lived above the family shop | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
with my three sisters and my mum and dad. | 0:00:12 | 0:00:14 | |
My mother, she was secretary of the Community Association. | 0:00:14 | 0:00:17 | |
She got involved in Meals On Wheels, | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
and helping out people who were perhaps struggling in the village. | 0:00:19 | 0:00:22 | |
Caring in the community was something that was | 0:00:22 | 0:00:25 | |
imbued into our family. | 0:00:25 | 0:00:27 | |
My father was the local grocer. | 0:00:27 | 0:00:30 | |
We were part and parcel of the community. We got involved. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:32 | |
Hard work was something that I knew was really important to do | 0:00:32 | 0:00:36 | |
in your life. If you wanted to get on, you had to graft. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
That was the kind of life that I grew up in. | 0:00:39 | 0:00:42 | |
And it's certainly affected me now in the way that I view the world. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:46 | |
I think my decision to get into politics grew in me over time. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
I was brought up through the miners' strike, | 0:00:49 | 0:00:51 | |
but also the emergence of the SDP-Liberal Alliance. | 0:00:51 | 0:00:55 | |
The ambition to break the mould of British politics really appealed to me. | 0:00:55 | 0:00:59 | |
The people who have inspired me in politics | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
are people like Charles Kennedy and David Steel. | 0:01:02 | 0:01:05 | |
They're kind of the essence of decent people | 0:01:05 | 0:01:07 | |
who have got compassion in their heart, | 0:01:07 | 0:01:09 | |
that really want to shake up the world | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
and change things for the better. | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
To me, liberalism means a combination of that | 0:01:14 | 0:01:18 | |
economic discipline, hard work so that people can get up and get on, | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
but also compassion. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:24 | |
That sense of social justice that means that everybody | 0:01:24 | 0:01:27 | |
gets a chance to achieve, no matter what their background. | 0:01:27 | 0:01:30 | |
I've got two active boys. One's at college, one's still at school. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:34 | |
The younger boy, he loves rock climbing, | 0:01:34 | 0:01:36 | |
swimming, the Scouts, biking. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
The most important topic in British politics today is education. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:43 | |
Everybody deserves a chance. | 0:01:43 | 0:01:45 | |
So investing in early years education to help kids who are struggling, | 0:01:45 | 0:01:50 | |
I think that's the way to change the way the country works. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:53 | |
Liberalism, at its heart, is about fairness, | 0:01:53 | 0:01:57 | |
is about looking to the long-term, | 0:01:57 | 0:01:59 | |
looking beyond our shores to help other people in other | 0:01:59 | 0:02:02 | |
parts of the world, and pushing power right back down into communities | 0:02:02 | 0:02:06 | |
so it can reflect the wide and varied country that we live in. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:10 | |
That is the essence of liberal democracy. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
My message to people in Scotland is this - | 0:02:14 | 0:02:16 | |
if you want to get up and get on, | 0:02:16 | 0:02:18 | |
to care for the people next door, across the world or in the future, | 0:02:18 | 0:02:22 | |
if you want that combination of | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
economic discipline and social justice, | 0:02:24 | 0:02:27 | |
if you're an aspirational Scot | 0:02:27 | 0:02:29 | |
with a social conscience, | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
then back the Liberal Democrats. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:33 |