When Willie Rennie and Alex Cole-Hamilton get together in a car, fun and mayhem usually result. Their General Election stunt in a De Lorean was just such an example.
Today they were both at the Scottish Parliament when double Formula One World Champion Mika Häkkinen, showed up with a racing car to launch a festive campaign to encourage Scots to never drink and drive known as #JointhePact. The initiative encourages people to make a commitment never to get behind the wheel if they’ve had a drink. In the 10 years it has been running, 14 million people have apparently signed up around the world.
Willie and Alex were quick to take over the car.
Love this – @willie_rennie telling @agcolehamilton how to drive a racing car. #jointhepact pic.twitter.com/eihizKvWs2
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) December 6, 2018
Mika Häkkinen dropped by the Scottish Parliament today to promote @johnniewalker_’s anti-drink driving festive campaign. Don’t risk it #jointhepact pic.twitter.com/Y5y5MeSqxN
— Scottish Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) December 6, 2018
Living my best life with Mika Hakkinen, promoting Diageo’s #jointhepact campaign to never drink and drive at Parliament today. @Diageo_News pic.twitter.com/uaHe7CMLMM
— Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP (@agcolehamilton) December 6, 2018
Alex was the official sponsor of the event and he said:
The anti-drink drive message is a crucial one all year round, but it is particularly important at this time of year as people prepare to celebrate the festive season. That’s why I’m delighted to support the Join The Pact campaign and to welcome Mika Hakkinen and Diageo to the Scottish Parliament to help encourage people in Scotland to never drink and drive.
Formula One is enormously popular and it is great initiative to use that power to reach as many people as possible throughout Scotland with the never drink and drive message.
They tell you never to meet your heroes, but I have to say I’ve yet to be disappointed. As a massive Formula 1 fan, I was thrilled to meet one of my favourite drivers of all time. Annoyingly, he hasn’t aged.
Look who I met! He was such a good guy. #jointhepact #f1 pic.twitter.com/AR1M8IpQ7h
— Caron Lindsay (@caronmlindsay) December 6, 2018
And before you all get on to me about racing not being environmentally sound, I would gently remind you that a lot of the green stuff currently in road cars was developed in F1. Also, I saw at least one starstruck looking Green MSP down there today.
My favourite moment, though was the photo at the top where Willie was trying to tell Alex how to drive a racing car. In front of a proper racing driver. In another life, he probably could have been….
* 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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One Comment
Good stunt, with an important message.
On the environmental point, you are right to say that many of the technologies that make todays cars safer and greener came from racing. The fuel used and enormous resources devoted to building and running each car need to be divided across all the normal cars on the road.
There is also Formula E, for battery electric cars, which look like other racing cars and are just as noisy.
Perhaps it is well that none of LibDem celebrities tried to drive the racing car. There was once a humbling moment for the Clarkson Top Gear trio, when despite their experience with many types of vehicles, they couldn’t actually get a a Formula 1 car moving at all.