Bill Wilson MSP

A West of Scotland MSP has decried the £4-million pound cuts facing Renfrewshire Council following reports revealing the desperate state of the UK’s finances.  He claimed that these exacerbated £140-million of debt inherited from the previous Labour administration.

Bill Wilson MSP (SNP, West of Scotland) said, “A new Scottish Government report, confirmed by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, has warned of severe cuts from Westminster in the next fifteen years. It was produced by the Scottish Government’s chief economic advisor and based on last month’s UK budgetary figures.

Dr Bill Wilson MSP (West of Scotland, SNP) today inspected an exhibition set up by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) outside the Scottish Parliament in protest at the “Israel is a world leader in Science, Medicine and Technology” exhibition occurring inside the building.

He commented, “I have no doubt that Israeli science, medicine and technology are highly advanced, but it is offensive to promote these things while the Israeli regime tramples on the human rights of Palestinian citizens.

“I was disturbed to see the pro-Israel exhibition glibly state, ‘Forget petrol, fill your tanks with water’.  Yes, it’s wonderful that Israel can use boron and water to make hydrogen, but should you really be singing about this when the people of Gaza struggle to get enough clean drinking water?

“Until Israel lifts the siege of Gaza and makes reparation for the harm it has done, it does not deserve to have a platform in the Scottish Parliament.  That is why I signed Patrick Harvie’s motion condemning the pro-Israel exhibition.

“I welcome the SPSC counter-exhibition and was moved by the powerful display of children’s shoes and hundreds of tiny coffins, symbolising the children murdered when Israel invaded Gaza two years ago.  The photographs were disturbing, but people should be reminded of the horrors perpetrated on the Palestinian people.

“To oppose Israel’s policies in a peaceful way is to stand up for the long-term wellbeing of all the people of that part of the world, be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian and of other faiths and none, and I was not surprised to see that Scottish Jews for a Just Peace were amongst those protesting the pro-Israel exhibition.”