I THINK that most people would agree that there’s a huge amount of change which our country desperately needs. We will probably all differ on what the priorities are, or how best to achieve them, but I hope to set out here some of the changes which I feel are priorities, and how I – and the Liberal Democrats – would set about making those changes happen.

  • Health: Ed Davey and the Lib Dems are really prioritising health at this election. Central to our manifesto is investing in the NHS and carers, restoring the UK as a world leader in health research, and perhaps most importantly considering everyone’s mental health to be as important as their physical health. Right here in Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, I know just how important access to GPs is. One woman told me that she had to phone her local surgery 150 times in one morning to be able to get through to someone, only to be told that she should call back the following day! The Lib Dems have committed to increase spending on the NHS so that patients can be seen, diagnosed and treated earlier.
  • Housing: So many people raise the problems of finding a suitable place to live with me, and the Lib Dems want to repair the UK’s broken safety net in this area. We would scrap the bedroom tax, the benefits cap and the two-child limit. We want to see the wait for the first payment of Universal Credit reduced from five weeks to five days, and we would end the young parent penalty by restoring the full rate of Universal Credit for all parents regardless of age.

I am also proud that Liberal Democrats are fighting for a fair, effective immigration system that treats everybody with dignity and respect. I would vote immediately to end the Conservative’s hostile environment scheme and nonsense like their Rwanda Bill.

The Lib Dems have also pledged in our manifesto to get the UK back into the EU single market as soon as possible and in so doing start to repair our damaged relationship with the rest of the world and begin to bring down many of the prices which have made the cost of living so high recently.

Finally, my two personal priorities are the repairing of our damaged natural world and fixing our broken democracy. We need to urgently start managing the many competing land uses across the country and better integrating them to work together for the sustainable future of our soils and biodiversity. But we also need to fix politics by changing the way elections work to make them more representative and finding new and innovative ways to better help communities engage with each other over the solutions they need locally.

A vote for me, and for the Liberal Democrats, on July 4 will be a vote for a fair deal for all and a chance to start making all of these changes which our country so definitely needs.

Charles Dundas biography - I grew up in West Lothian and graduated with a history degree from the University of Glasgow. Since then, I have worked in accountancy, policy research, advocacy and campaigning. I am currently the chief executive of a Scottish environmental conservation charity. Between 2007 and 2012, I was elected to the City of Edinburgh Council, representing the city centre. I chaired the Liberal Democrat Group and sat on a number of committees including planning, education, culture, and transport and the environment. I also sat on Lothian and Borders Police Board and the board of the Royal Lyceum Theatre. I am currently the convenor of the Scottish Green Liberal Democrats group and outwith work and politics have performed at each Edinburgh Fringe Festival since 2015. I also enjoy amateur filmmaking and quizzing, and have appeared on both University Challenge and 15-to-1 (where I even managed to win my episode),