Here is Scottish Liberal Democrat Leader Willie Rennie’s New Year Message in full:
It’s hard to imagine that this year could match last year. I suspect on the sporting front it will certainly be difficult.
In politics, experts often underestimate the strong minds of voters to do what they want, rather than what those experts predict.
After his two week long retirement, our former First Minister has posed the big test for the year ahead. Alex Salmond wants to use May’s General Election to rerun the referendum he just lost. And he wants to secure independence by the back door with his unstable, extreme form of devolution. But putting his party’s policy ahead of local interests might not be what is wanted by the people of Gordon.
I’ve been encouraged that voters of all persuasions are rallying behind our candidate Christine Jardine to put local interests ahead of the interests of Alex Salmond.
The same contest will be repeated right across Scotland. I want to put local interests first – building a stronger economy and a fairer society to create opportunity for everyone. I know that our MPs, with their powerful track records, are best placed to win and win for their communities.
It is important because there is so much at stake. Thanks to our place in government we have an economy that is now growing, there are millions of new jobs, taxes have been cut for millions of low and middle earners, pensions have gone up for millions and big powers have been delivered for Scotland. The combination of a stronger economy and a fairer society is something that would not be possible without the Liberal Democrats.
We have kept but reformed Scotland’s relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom and got our country back on track. I am relishing the opportunity to secure and build on the progress our country has made.
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9 Comments
One of the first practical things I learned in politics is not to give your opponents any publicity.
Just don’t mention them.
Mention your own candidates by name over and over again, but don’t name your opponent.
Willie Rennie possibly thinks devoting half his New Year Message to a candidate from another party is a good idea.
I fear Willie may be wrong.
Yes John, especially when today Baxters electoral calculus gives the SNP 49 seats!!!
theakes
I guess the headline in Scotland is “Baxters shows Lib Dems in the soup”.
And the award for the most obvious shoehorning of the party’s slogan into an otherwise perfectly reaonable sentence goes to:
I want to put local interests first – building a stronger economy and a fairer society to create opportunity for everyone
And like John Tilley I agree that attacking Alex Salmond is bizarre – he is by miles the most well known and popular politician north of the border. Perhaps if the Scottish Lib Dems found a more concilliatory tone with Alex Salmond they might find themselves in a better position .
While I agree with John Tilley, in his first post, that, in general, it is not good practice to give publicity to one’s opponents, I see why Willie did it here.
If he didn’t have a go at the Scots Nats and Alex Salmond, in particular, most Scots would find it a bit strange. Salmond has himself thrown down the guantlet by choosing to stand in one of the LibDems safer seats.
As someone who spent his first 22 years in a province ruled, apparently in perpetuo, by politicians appealing to a sectional interest, I find narrowly nationalist politicians repulsive.
I hope Christine Jardine does to Alex Salmond in May what Phil Willis did to Norman Lamont in 1997.
John Tilley wrote:
“One of the first practical things I learned in politics is not to give your opponents any publicity.
Just don’t mention them.”
I agree. If you look back to the 1984 Chesterfield byelection, the Liberal/SDP Alliance campaign was much more about Tony Benn than Max Payne, and Tony Benn won. By contrast, the SDP/Liberal Alliance campaign at the 1987 Greenwich byelection was much more about Rosie Barnes than Deirdre Wood, and Rosie Barnes won. At the former, we said too many negative things about Labour and not enough positive things about ourselves. At the latter, we presented Rosie Barnes as a local champion who would change the face of politics, both locally and nationally.
Attacking Mr Salmond directly should be done sparingly, for two reasons. (1) The issue is separatism and the identity politics behind it, not Mr Salmond. (2) It hypes Mr Salmond up, it contributes to his ego-trip, and it fuels the separatists’ false narrative that Scotland is being done down by wicked “Westminster” (the burning of Mr Salmond’s effigy by the Firle Bonfire Society was portrayed in just this light).
We should be focusing on the good things that our MPs in Scotland are doing for their constituents, and what Liberal Democrats would do if let off the leash. Anything associated with Nick Clegg and the “coalition” must be avoided like the plague, more in Scotland than anywhere else. Please dump this ghastly PR agency automatic language stuff!
Ian Sanderson (RM3) 2nd Jan ’15 – 9:01am
“….in a province ruled, apparently in perpetuo, by politicians appealing to a sectional interest…”
I can certainly understand that, Ian. How do you feel about exactly those sorts of people (nowadays under the flag of the DUP) ruling at Westminster with the DUP joining a Cameron-Clegg Coalition ?
According to someone on the BBC (Robinson I think) there is a team at Conservative HQ working full time on just such an outcome from the 2015 election.
John. I would expect all parties, with the resources to do it, are working through alternative scenarios of how the numbers might stack up after the election and also what concessions they could make in order to be with each other party in a coalition.
Many of the DUP’s policies would be pretty repugnant to most other parties, with the possible exception of UKIP, so getting the DUP into any coalition would require them to be rather restrained. (It’s not impossible; the DUP built their power base on opposition to Power-sharing executives of the type they now lead.)
I believe that this was one of the factors that made a Labour-LibDem based coalition a non-starter in 2010, that the numbers required DUP assistance to get it off the ground.
In my personal view: No.1 nightmare for the UK is UKIP having influence in government; No.2 is having the DUP in the same position; No 3 is the Scots Nats. In any post-election conference, I would expect to oppose and vote against any of those three.
@Sesenco
I agree on two points.
Willie’s attack on Alex Salmond is phrased too personally; it should be a positive statement about what Lib-Dems in Westminster Government can do for the people of Scotland, as opposed to the narrow-minded approach the SNP would take if Alex was there.
Willie should also avoid reference to Nick Clegg in any way that projects him as the true and comprehensive approach of Lib-Dems, if only because people will immediately switch off their minds.