Driving to Glasgow at 6am on a wintry Sunday morning was slightly scary, especially for someone who really doesn’t do Winter, but that’s what I did to take part in the review of the Sunday papers on the Radio Scotland programme Crossfire. I was on with former Herald editor Murray Ritchie and Cat Boyd from the Radical Independence campaign.
Obviously we talked about some bloke deciding he wants to stand for the Westminster Parliament he claims to revile. Former Special Adviser Sam Ghibaldan on Sunday Politics Scotland and I both made the case that Salmond’s victory is far from assured.
I raised the story on the front page of the Sunday Times (£) about Osborne “declaring war on the Lib Dems”. Funny, since he’s been taking credit for all our popular policies. He really can’t have it both ways.
I also spoke about Better Together research director Gordon Aikman’s plea to Nicola Sturgeon to use money from the Autumn Statement Barnett Consequentials to improve care and double the number of specialist Motor Neurone disease nurses. Gordon was diagnosed with the disease earlier this year and gave a frank and moving interview on Sunday Politics Scotland about his campaign this morning.
The breastfeeding protest at Claridges also drew my attention. I really can’t believe we are still having this discussion over 10 years since Scotland led the way in ensuring that women had the protection of the law behind them if they wanted to feed their babies in public. The best thing I’ve seen on the subject is this from Kelvin Holdsworth, the Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow.
I really enjoyed the experience despite almost having a major coughing fit on live radio. I had to dash out of the studio briefly at one point but once I’d had a good cough and a cup of ice cold water I was fine and ready to resume. You can listen to the whole thing here. After the paper review we were quickly bundled out of the studio so that the three Scottish Labour leadership candidates could have their radio hustings. The tragedy of the whole thing is that whichever of them wins willl have half the party plotting and scheming against them from Day 1. If they could stop fighting each other, they might actually rediscover their soul. I’m not holding my breath.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
One Comment
You have a bright radio voice, Caron. As you will be in demand until the Westminster election, I don’t suppose you could, in the interests of the party, decamp to Glasgow until then?