After the second televised Scotish Leaders’ debate of the election, three newspapers have judged Willie Rennie to be the winner. The Press and Journal, not known for its undying devotion to the Liberal Democrat cause, gave him and Labour’s Kezia Dugdale the winning 7/10 score, saying that he “spoke with a personal touch.”
The Scottish Daily Mail, similarly without a history of Lib Dem love, also gave him 7/10, but made him the outright winner.
The Courier gave him 8/10 and also called him the winner.
Here’s a summary of the media coverage:
The verdict on #ScotDebates is in. @willie_rennie had so much fun he wants another debate https://t.co/9mHboQ1gVW pic.twitter.com/gks5rfJn3o
— Scot Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) March 30, 2016
Personally, I think the P & J and the Mail were being unfair to him. I know 7/10 is technically an A, so I shouldn’t complain, but I thought he showed a combination of heart and common sense. When he talked about the constituent whose self-harming daughter had to wait a year to be seen by a psychiatrist, you knew that he understood what that meant for that family, and the impact it would have on the young person’s education. He was the only one to articulate a positive vision, talking about how the Lib Dems would enact a transformational investment in education from nursery to college by raising income tax by a penny. He talked of poorer children starting school already behind their richer counterparts and showed how our Pupil Premium could bridge that gap.
The format of the debate was interesting. There were two plenary, Question Time style sessions, but in the middle, each party leader was grilled by the others for 8 minutes. Willie, of course, took some grief over the coalition, but was able to highlight others’ weaknesses, too. He had Tory Ruth Davidson squirming over her backing of George Osborne’s budget, asked Nicola Sturgeon if she was proud that education had tumbled down the international league tables and asked Patrick Harvie how long oil and gas workers would have in their jobs under him.
I might be imagining it, but he and Labour’s Kezia Dugdale seemed to give each other a very easy time. He gave her another opportunity to explain what good her tax raising plan would have, although she didn’t make it much clearer.
Here are excerpts of Willie in action.
Second leaders’ debate – 29/03/16I enjoyed taking part in the second TV leaders debate of the campaign last night. Great format that shed real light on what the parties’ plans would mean for Scotland. I talked about our plans for a transformational investment in education, the importance of mental health and challenged the other leaders on tax. Here are some of the highlights.
Posted by Willie Rennie on Wednesday, 30 March 2016
After the debate, from the STV spin room, Jeremy Purvis said:
Willie Rennie’s performance tonight shows just how clear, bold and positive the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ proposals for May’s election are. This is our chance for a transformational investment in education – with £475 million a year for our nurseries, schools and colleges, over and above SNP plans.
Willie brought warmth and personality to the debate, focusing on the day-to-day issues affecting the Scots he speaks to across the country.
One of those is mental health. Too many children in Scotland with mental ill health have to wait over a year for treatment. That has got to change and by doubling funding for children and adolescent mental health services Scottish Liberal Democrats will deliver the step-change we so desperately need.
He also exposed the total lack of substance that the Scottish Conservatives embody. You could see Ruth Davidson was squirming, under pressure from Willie on her silence on George Osborne’s cuts. We always knew the Tories wanted to introduce stealth taxes and finally Ruth’s admitted it.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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10 Comments
As a non-Scot I wondered how on earth Ruth Davidson’s promise to bring in £1,500 a a year charges for university students is meant to attract votes.
That’s really good stuff from Willie. He seems to be growing into quite a heavyweight.
Mmm, not sure many other commentators scored it this way.
What was the “car crash” last week?
Sadly Willie is dealing with the awful awful Clegg legacy. The polls in Scotland are beyond dreadful. I can see Scotland having nil elected Councillors MSPS etc in the coming years. The real terrible price of Coalition.
Caroline Pidgeon did very well in a recent London Mayor debate, now Willie Rennie has done well in the Scottish Leaders debate. Kirsty Williams has for a fair while been seen as a rising star of the Lib Dems. Unfortunately all of them are heading for disaster in May – in London, Wales or Scotland 4th place and 6% of the vote would be considered a very good result. The party has made absolutely no progress since the GE. Tim Farron needs to toughen up and sort this party out. Scrapping the HofL, legalising pot and so-called equality motions are not going to win any assembly votes. The poor sods fighting these elections could do with some help from the top and they don’t seem to be getting any.
@Theakes It was the BBC debate last week which was far from a car crash. He was good in that one too. The format made it difficult for atone to score points, though.
It seems a little odd (hypocritical?) to be attacking the Greens for threatening the jobs of oil and gas workers. I thought Willie Rennie had recently decided that the threat of global warming was an overriding priority. Surely opposition to fracking was not just opportunistic nimbyism and is part of a consistent set of policies which would include downsizing the oil and gas industry and supporting nuclear power.
Malc – I agree we need to get a clear, radical message out there on bread and butter issues rather than navel gazing over our Lib Dem policy fetishes. 😉
It’s all very well criticizing others for tax hikes or budget cuts and promising increased spending but some day someone might ask the feller where he is to get all this money from. If he truly believes that Scots are too fiscally inept to be independent, doesn’t want budget cuts and has vetoed unconventional gas (that might have kick-started a renaissance and offset north sea losses) then the only alternative left seems to be to ask the English to cough up more. Good luck with that Willie!