Willie Rennie in front of Forth Rail Bridge. Photo: G Littlejohn
This was the scene in the Fife coastal village of North Queensferry today where, in the shadow of the Forth Bridges, Willie Rennie talked to the media after being confirmed as the new leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats. He replaces Tavish Scott, who resigned 10 days ago in the wake of devastating Scottish Parliament election results and was the only candidate when nominations closed at noon today.
The venue was symbolic. Five years ago, on the day of the Dunfermline by-election, the Courier, the major regional newspaper, carried a photo of Willie, our soon to be victorious candidate and then leader Nicol Stephen taken at the top of the towers of the Rail Bridge. Today, 330 ft lower down, Willie’s feet were clearly on the ground. This is a man, however, who runs up hills for pleasure. He’s not one for the easy option and he was clearly eyeing the top of that tower with intent.
If I had to design a blueprint for the leader we need in Scotland at this time, it would look pretty much like Willie. When a likeable campaigner with boundless energy, whose fingerprints are all over the biggest Lib Dem gains in Scottish politics, free personal care and free university tuition, whose advice Nick Clegg respects, we’re going to welcome him with open arms.
I managed to grab 5 minutes with him for a quick Audioboo, which is also available here. I’d asked for questions from members via Facebook and Twitter and put a selected few to him. It was clear how full of admiration he is for the members who have gone through such a difficult election. He thinks that this is the low point and by working together and going back to first principles of community politics, we’ll regain the trust of the voters.
I asked him how he was going to ensure members had their say and that was when he said that Liberal Democrats aren’t so easily led – he sees his leadership as being more of a collective thing and he wants to hear ideas from members. That will be very welcome to those in the party who thought that the party at Holyrood had become too distant from the members.
Listen to find out more about his plans for his first 100 days and what he has to say about the Coalition and Nick Clegg. I’m having problems getting it to embed, but I’ll keep trying.
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7 Comments
Caron, pleased you’re so positive. Generally I trust your judgement!
“If I had to design a blueprint for the leader we need in Scotland at this time, it would look pretty much like Willie”. I probably wouldn’t argue too much with that, but the current challenges in Scotland would test the very best of leaders and it’s guartanteed to be tougher for him than any previous Scottish Lib Dem leader. Naturally I wish him every success – not least because his leadership simply has to be a success.
Small criticism, though – as a photographer I would be quite disappointed if I took a photo like that. Appendages (i.e. the bridge that is seemingly coming out of Willie’s head and dominating the picture) look dreadful – it might have been a bit better of Willie was slightly off centre and the camera angle adjusted upwards, the bridge leading over his shoulder… (sorry to be such an artistic pedant!) If the Scottish Lib Dems need a photographer you know where I am….
I do like Willie’s fetching new Forth Rail Bridge hat.
Andrew – its not actually the Forth rail bridge, its Willie Rennie’s Scottish themed Philip Treacy Royal Wedding fascinator.
Watched Willie’s interview on Newsnight Scotland. In the intro they replayed his comments on election night asking that we be left in peace as we were in mourning. Well based on his interview it seems that he is still in the first stage of mourning – which is denial.
The scale of our defeat in Scotland does not seem to have hit home if our leadership believe that we are going to have a great election next year. In Glasgow, a city with a population of nearly 600,000, we gained less than 8000 votes across the city.
Faith is put in the Scottish Council elections being better. Community politics is the core of our ward work but the loss of 695 council colleagues in England starkly illustrates how easily the hard work of councillors could be set aside by voters intent on opposing the coalition. All the local Focus newsletters in the world won’t change the damage done daily in negative media headlines about coalition cuts. such as: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/the-war-against-the-disabled-1.1101511
Nick said that all we need to do is “to get up, dust ourselves down and move on”. Sorry but as much as I like show tunes they aren’t much use as political strategies and it’s disappointing that Willie seems to have bought in to this.
He had a chance to put a distinctive mark on the upcoming constitutional debate by setting out the Scottish Liberal Democrats distinctive position on Fiscal Federalism instead he fell in behind the Coalition’s proposals in the Scotland Bill. Surely it’s ok to say well this is the coalition position but of course as Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats I’m here to argue for Scottish Liberal Democrat policy which is….. If we can’t even do that then we have deeper problems.
Comments that the SNP didn’t have a mandate for demanding control over corporation tax because it hadn’t been front and centre in their campaign were nonsense (and again why argue against the Steel Commission?). It was a blessing that Brewer didn’t ask when were £9000 tuition fees front and centre in the UK manifesto?
The rhetoric of “listening to the people, learning lessons” is always trotted out after defeats, but the proof of it is always undermined by politicians that then go on to say all we need to do is communicate our policies better as if the people are thick, don’t understand what we are doing for them and if we only shout louder and put out more leaflets it will all come right.
Compare the interview that followed with Labour MP Tom Harris who set out the need for a route and branch review by Scottish Labour with no areas off limits including looking at the relationship between the Scottish and UK parties.
I noted Nick’s speech on the one year anniversary of the coalition. A single one word note of Scotland seemed poor acknowledgement of the tremendous public service given by our MSPs and indeed hard work by our candidates.
Just like Nick’s speech I’m not feeling inspired by Willie’s early interviews.
I got to know Willie a little in the run up to the 2009 Euro-election (for which he headed up the federal campaign). He’s a great guy – Westminster’s loss is Scotland’s gain!
@Alex – give the guy a chance, he’s been propelled into a position which probably only a month ago he didn’t expect to be in. Certainly nobody I’ve spoken to expected Tavish to resign even after the results were announced, so at the moment all Willie’s had to prepared is the best part of a weekend.
Willie’s position of being anti-Conservative but pro-Coalition is unsurprising, but in many ways essential. In the interviews yesterday he stated his position – not supporting a full breakaway from the English party – but he didn’t rule out having the discussion, and like Caron says sees the leadership as being more of a “collective.” If that’s the case, then great because Lib Dems aren’t exactly cowards at telling the leadership where they’re going wrong (just ask David Steel and Paddy Ashdown!)
I’m concerned, too, about the apparent lack of understanding from the English party about what happened in Scotland and the fact that our recovery will be more difficult, and agree that Nick’s speech last week was uninspiring and poor as far as Scotland was concerned.
What matters more isn’t so much what Willie, Mike Moore, or anybody else is saying publicly, but the discussions going on in local parties across Scotland. They’re more than aware of the impending council elections, but given that in many places we’re in coalition with the SNP the overall tenor of those will be different. It’s those discussions which will drive what happens next.
Of course Willie isn’t emphasising the scale of the defeat in public – and he’s quite right. The late Conrad Russell had some good advice: “think big, especially if you’re not”. Willie has either taken that advice, or he instinctively believes the same – I’d guess the latter.