The Herald reports that Alex Salmond has postponed a trip to the US to promote his book which had, incredibly, been due to take place in just 10 days’ time, after the start of the general election campaign.
His publishers pencilled in signings in New York and Toronto for the week after next, during the annual Scotland Week festivities.
Banff & Buchan MP Eilidh Whiteford was also lined up to appear at a hustings in Gordon, where Mr Salmond is the SNP candidate, during his absence.
Jean Marie Kelly of HarperCollins in New York said yesterday: “Unfortunately, we only have him in Toronto for one day and in New York for one day so a very whirlwind trip.
“We are just firming the exact dates and times, but all indications are the week of April 6.”
However after press enquiries to the SNP, Mr Salmond’s plans melted away.
His rival candidates in Gordon said a transatlantic tour mid-election would have demonstrated an ego “spiralling out of control”.
What’s interesting is that there seems to be some new law of the universe that requires every mention of Salmond’s book to be accompanied by Paddy Ashdown’s memorable review of it. The Liberal Democrat election chair said that the book was:
the longest exercise in literary masturbation since politics began
It seems incredible that a candidate in a high profile seat could think it would be ok to just up and leave for a few days. He’s spending enough time out of the constituency at the moment as he heads around the country to take part in book signings and talks.
The Press and Journal reports that Eilidh Whiteford was to take his place at a hustings in Gordon on 7th April and quotes a source close to Christine Jardine as saying:
After taking his eye off the ball to focus on his referendum campaign, it now seems that Alex Salmond has taken his eye off of Gordon to focus on his book tour.
It seems only Lib Dems get that the whole point of running for election is to represent your local community.
This news comes after Christine Jardine performed brilliantly at the first public hustings of the campaign:
First public hustings of the campaign. @Cajardinepic.twitter.com/p1J7uvKXzE
— Sheila Ritchie (@wishfullythinks) March 26, 2015
She was cheered by the crowd for calling Salmond out on the many SNP broken promises on education and their disappointing record on schools.
It may be that it’s dawning on Salmond that he has a real fight on his hands. All the more reason to help Christine by phoning, delivering leaflets or donating to her campaign.
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11 Comments
Do the lib dems expect to hold Gordon?
We would never take any seat for granted, Mr Wallace, but we have a very good chance.
Excellent news, lets hope even the thought of Salmond going to the USA on a book tour loses him a bucket load of votes,
Hmm – four by elections in Scotland on Thursday and the Lib Dems managed a grand total of 61 votes with the SNP winning three of the four on big swings – including in nearby Buckie.
The idea we have a ‘very good chance’ in Gordon is the sort of wishful thinking that leads to other seats going down narrowly as resources are thrown into an obvious lost cause.
There is no point predicting the result now. We will know in 6 weeks. I wish Christine the best of luck.
The point in predicting results at this stage is to focus effort where it can achieve the best results. Of course if there is nowhere else within travelling distance that could benefit from more resource or people are unwilling to reallocate themselves then it is a mere indulgence. What we have to avoid if we can is losing several seats in an area because we spread ourselves too thinly, when one or two could be saved by a focussed effort. This has been my message here for several years now, but even in 2014 at least one London Borough chose to pretend they could take control, spread themselves far too thinly and so lost more seats than they should have.
Luck really has nothing to do with it.
Best of luck on the day of the election. If I had a vote in Gordon I certainly would vote for the Liberal Democrats.
Yesterdays YouGOV poll Lib Dems 1% in Scotland. SNP 44%.
Hallo, Dan. If our total votes in 4 by-elections on Thursday was 61, that means we only stood in one of them, and I was that candidate who got 61 votes.
Caron is havering.
Even Sir Malcolm Bruce could not have held Gordon.
I am sure the Lib Dem campaign is not being helped by the “masturbation” comments of Ashdown or his
disgusting comparisons with Yugoslavia.
This is an election for a uk gov:not a rerun of the referendum.so why are $almond’ s people setting out to destroy a Labour party that has the whole of the country’s interest at heart?when there is already so much power transferred to edinburgh,is that not just selfish and small minded.:anyway salmond is yesterday’s man and surely for intent on self interest than the welfare of this constituency,unlike christine Jardine.(excuse lack of upper case letters:my devise is having a bad day)