“Why are the Tories writing to us?” groaned my husband as he brought the post through this morning. Getting to the doormat before the dog is a daily challenge in our house.
Remember how, before the General Election, the Tories carpet bombed their target constituencies with direct mail creating fear of a pact between Ed Miliband and the SNP? You almost expected them to say that they had evidence that Ed and Eck had done a deal with the Loch Ness Monster to crash the stock exchange after relocating Trident to a lake in David Cameron’s constituency. It was all preposterous and neither Liberal Democrats nor Labour showed it up for the nonsense it so clearly was. There was never going to be a pact between the SNP and Labour. Why on earth would they want to show they could be part of a stable UK Government that worked?
Well, they are at it again in Scotland ahead of the Holyrood elections in just two and a half months’ time. That letter from the Tories was from Ruth Davidson herself. She’s standing as a list candidate in my region. It’s certainly the only time in the 16 years I’ve lived here that I can remember getting direct mail this far out from polling day from the Tories if at all. They are clearly well funded, but one of the things that they say in their letter is simply not true:
“Labour and the Lib Dems have dropped their opposition to independence?” WHAT? That is utter nonsense and the Tories know it. All Willie Rennie and Labour’s Kezia Dugdale said was that the small minority of people in the party who backed independence weren’t going to be drummed out for that sincerely held view. Both parties’ policy, backed by the vast majority of their members, is to stay in the UK. That’s probably just as well given the fall in the price of oil. We could be facing independence, a month from tomorrow, with oil at around a quarter of what the SNP based its projections on. Despite what would be a massive black hole in our finances, there is not a huge sense up here of a bullet being dodged.
Both Conservatives and SNP seem to want to talk a lot about the Constitution at the moment. It certainly takes the focus off what they are actually doing in Government, I guess.
What makes Ruth’s letter really hilarious is that it’s not as if the Conservative Party is united on a massive issue of constitutional significance at the moment. Former Tory MP Jerry Hayes did a very sweary rant about Boris the other day. If they think they can put this genie back in the bottle after 24th June, they have another think coming.
What makes it really worrying is that we know that the Tories are spending a fortune drip-feeding these untruths to their target voters. There is one way to stop them in their tracks, though. Donate to the Scottish Lib Dems so that we can get across our positive vision of a Scotland where we invest in the future of our children and young people.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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11 Comments
The GE of May 2015 proves there are plenty of people ready to swallow Tory lies hook, line and sinker….
The Tories were bound to leap on this and the Lib Dems and Labour paved the way for her.
Meanwhile, I still cannot bring myself to vote for my former party which still refuses to contemplate independence and is so emphatic that it is the wrong option for Scotland. I don’t know how many Yes members will remain simply because they won’t be “drummed out” or, more importantly for the Scottish Lib Dems, how many former members like me will ever return to voting for the party.
@ Caron Remember how, before the General Election, the Tories carpet bombed their target constituencies with direct mail creating fear of a pact between Ed Miliband and the SNP? You almost expected them to say that they had evidence that Ed and Eck had done a deal with the Loch Ness Monster to crash the stock exchange after locating Trident to a lake in David Cameron’s constituency. It was all preposterous and neither Liberal Democrats nor Labour showed it up for the nonsense it so clearly was”.
Actually, not so long ago, a certain Councillor Joe Otten of Sheffield admitting on LDV to “using such nonsense” to win votes on the doorstep for a certain candidate to retain his seat against a strong Labour challenge in Sheffield Hallam. Is there a secret Trident missile in the Derwent reservoir ?
Reminds me of a letter Charles once read out to conference on behalf of the conservatives.
http://youtu.be/sxAQXktRIjM
Maybe you could argue that the SNP are in the pocket of the Conservatives asking for their support. As you say get a positive view of Scotland going. Put the facts, truth in your leaflets
” neither Liberal Democrats nor Labour showed it up for the nonsense it so clearly was.”
Erm I think you’ll find the LIb Dems actually repeated this nonsense in the GE, the colluding in the nonsense.
Paul McGarry 23rd Feb ’16 – 10:18pm………….Reminds me of a letter Charles once read out to conference on behalf of the conservatives………….
Sadly, history records that the LibDem leadership heeded Eric Pickles’s call to join them….
Whether we like it or not the Conservatives in Scotland are more popular nowadays whilst we are, well…………..
We could not even put up a candidate in Argyll last week.
I seem to recall Madame Nic offering to put Ed Milliband into Downing Street.
However, that is no excuse for the current Tory nonsense.
It would be interesting, should this canard pop up on the doorstep, to ask the voter how many LibDems have knocked on their door urging a vote for independence. I would guess none.
I take it you will be looking closely at the expenses returns after the election.
This should be stamped on in big bold letters in focus leaflets,with an explanation underneath.