Tory candidate admits: 'People are very pissed at the SNP, and pissed at us nationally as well, but then there’s no real Labour party presence here'
Tory candidate admits: 'People are very pissed at the SNP, and pissed at us nationally as well, but then there’s no real Labour party presence here'
It was a fun and fascinating exercise, and it is fair to say that Scotland isn’t quite having the same election as the rest of the UK. According to current polling, it is now – do try to contain your shock – going to be a toss-up between Labour and the SNP. It is strikingly similar to the tactic currently being deployed by the Conservatives: we know we’re probably stuffed nationally but please, oh please, do not make this KC God Emperor of Britain.Perhaps most interesting in his opening gambit is what is missing from it; the I word. Over five minutes, Sheppard only mentions independence once, in passing. Ten years really is a very long time in politics.
Still, the highlight of the speeches comes from the Liberal Democrat candidate Charles Dundas who, in a really rather Partridgesque moment, describes his past as a councillor as “being the grease in the wheels of democracy” – I laugh out loud and have to disguise it as a cough. Once an MP with one of the safest seats in Scotland, she doesn’t think she’s going to lose next week but believes “it will be narrow”. Livingston was Robin Cook’s seat for more than two decades, but it went to the SNP in 2015. Labour came third in 2019, but may be about to win again.
On several occasions, we stand in the middle of cul-de-sacs, wondering how we could have possibly missed number 58. Second: leafleting largely involves petting as many cats as you can, while gently walking away from barking dogs. John Swinney, the First Minister, has only been in post for a couple of months. Had the election happened in the autumn, as was predicted, the Scottish public would have had more time to get to know him, she argues. She probably isn’t wrong, as my taxi-based focus group of one showed.
Our first stop is a pub, in front of which an older, intimidating woman is smoking a cigarette. Graham introduces himself as the local Conservative and she makes what I can only describe as “a face”. Over lunch, Graham admits that it hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows. “There’s a different dynamic here. People are very pissed at the SNP, and pissed at us nationally as well, but then there’s no real Labour party presence here. You can see people being almost a bit torn between one and the other.”The seat, newly created in the last round of boundary changes, was mostly held by the SNP’s Pete Wishart, who has been in parliament since 2001.
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