'Every single person tells me they want to be like me', says Reform's Malcolm Offord
Mr Offord denied claims he was “out of touch” on a visit to Castlemilk in Glasgow on Thursday morning.
“Every single person” Malcolm Offord meets tells him “I want to be like you”, the Scottish Reform leader has said.
Mr Offord denied claims he was “out of touch” on a visit to Castlemilk in Glasgow on Thursday morning.
It comes after he boasted about owning six houses, six boats and five cars in the STV leaders’ debate on Tuesday.
SNP First Minister John Swinney claimed Lord Offord's boast was "an example of how completely and utterly out of touch Reform are with the reality of people’s lives".
When asked about Mr Swinney’s comments, Lord Offord said: “Every single person I'm talking to in every area that I go to says, ‘Good on you, big man, because I want to be like you. I want to work hard.’
"What they say to me is, especially young people, we're not getting as well educated as you were, how come you got it better than we did?
"The reason why I'm here, and the reason I'm talking about it, is we need to fix this. Scots are the most creative, innovative people in the world, but we are underperforming. Especially in communities like this - some of the toughest people you'll meet are in these communities, but we need to help them get out and achieve. So that's why I said what I said."
He also said Reform would like to “recruit 1,000 police officers in Glasgow” but provided no means of how he would fund it.
The SNP had pledged to bring in an extra 1,000 police officers across the whole of Scotland at the 2007 Scottish election - something which was not easy to do.
Glasgow currently has roughly 2,400 police officers.
Lord Offord said: “Six police stations across Glasgow have been shut down absolutely crazy idea, while you take policing communities, centralising it, which is only good for bureaucrats and managers and not good for communities.
“So we want to get these places reopened again. We want to recruit another 1,000 police in Glasgow.
“We want to get them [equipped] with tasers, because of public disorder out there.”
When asked how he would pay for it, Lord Offord said: “There's no shortage of money in the Scottish budget.”
He continued: “The biggest spending department in the last 10 years has been the welfare department.
“The smallest spending department has been the police department. So it's very simple, we have to reallocate how you spend money.”
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