Tag Archives: Alex Cole-Hamilton

The Voice

LDV Halloween pumpkin photo competition

By The Voice | Mon 24th October 2016 - 12:25 pm

Donald Trump pumkin by Alex Cole-Hamilton
It’s that time of the year again.

Could you please send us photos of your Halloween pumpkins?

We have had great fun with this in the past.

As a taster, here above is a rather unnerving effort produced by Alex Cole-Hamilton. We’re delighted that Alex is still finding time to keep up his Pumpkin art despite the pressures of office. This is “Trumpkin”.

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Caron Lindsay

What Lib Dems have been doing on World Mental Health Day

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 10th October 2016 - 6:31 pm

Today is World Mental Health Day organised by the World Health Organisation. This year’s theme is around offering support to those in psychological distress – mental health first aid.

Norman Lamb has written for the Guardian arguing that there should be parity between physical and mental health in the workplace with employers being required to provide mental health first aid. He said that he had recently done a training course in mental health first aid.

Employers could find that investing in mental health support saves them money given that mental ill health accounts for 70 million days of sickness absence every year.

How can we possibly justify leaving the law as it is? So far as the NHS is concerned the government has committed to the principle of “parity of esteem” between physical and mental illness. Surely they must apply the same logic to the workplace.

Put simply, this is a call for every workplace to have trained mental health first-aiders just like they have physical first-aiders. A number of employers are taking action. WHSmith has committed to match the number of staff that are physical first-aiders with mental health first-aiders over the next 12 months.

There’s a growing momentum for change, and hundreds more businesses across a range of sectors are implementing mental health training for staff from Unilever and Crossrail to Channel 4. Employers have a duty of care to their workforce, and with the scale of mental issues in this country much more needs to be done. The government must act now to ensure every employee has access to mental health support at work.

In a tweet, Tim Farron called for the NHS to be given the resources it needs to tackle mental ill health:

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NewsHound

Two Lib Dems make shortlist for Scottish Politician of the Year Awards

By NewsHound | Thu 8th September 2016 - 8:34 pm

Two out of the five Scottish Liberal Democrat MSPs have made it on to the shortlist for the Scottish Politician of the Year Awards as the Herald reports.

Liam McArthur is nominated for his “immersion into Orkney life.” He is up against Labour’s Jenny Marra and Jackie Baillie. The latter defied the party whip to vote for the renewal of Trident because Faslane employs so many people in her Dumbarton constituency.

In news that will surprise nobody, Alex Cole-Hamilton finds himself up in the “one to watch” category. Since his election in May, you could probably wallpaper the entire Parliament building three times over with the number of press-releases he’s put out. As the Party’s health spokesman, he is keen to keep the SNP’s attention focused on the deteriorating state of the NHS in Scotland.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Alex Cole-Hamilton’s speech to March for Europe: No Tory civil war will take our EU identity away

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th July 2016 - 10:06 pm

“If you change your mind, I’m the first in line” from Abba’s Take a Chance on Me was not quite what we expected to come blaring out of the PA system at the Young European Movement’s rally after the March for Europe in Edinburgh this afternoon. The good tunes just kept coming, though, with Dancing Queen and the Proclaimers 500 miles featuring as well.

There was a pretty big turnout, which was amazing given that the event was up against Andy Murray winning his second Wimbledon men’s singles title.

The Lib Dem contingent was pretty big, too. We were led by Edinburgh Western MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton who gave a stonking speech. We are here, we are united, and we are citizens of the European Union, he told the crowd. He told people from elsewhere in the EU living here that this was their home, they are our family and they are welcome here. His speech was extremely well received by the crowd. Watch it here.

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The Voice

WATCH: Alex Cole-Hamilton on the EU’s key role in securing peace and freedom

By The Voice | Thu 2nd June 2016 - 3:45 pm

This is not the first time we’re going to show this in the run-up to the EU Referendum, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Alex Cole-Hamilton sums up why he is such a passionate pro-European:

It would do the Remain campaign no harm at all to have this on continuous loop for the next few weeks.

Here is the text in full.

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Caron Lindsay

Alex Cole-Hamilton’s debut speech: EU is most important charter for freedom the world has ever seen

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 26th May 2016 - 3:48 pm

There is a reason I have spent so much time and energy over the past decade trying to get Alex Cole-Hamilton elected to the Scottish Parliament. I hope the video of his debut speech this morning will help you understand it too.

I had pretty high expectations, if I’m honest. The subject, the EU, is one of his strong points. Last year he won best speaker in the Charles Kennedy Memorial Debate on our continued membership of the EU. Alex managed to exceed even my lofty expectations today.

He paid tribute to his immediate predecessor and to Margaret Smith, who, as Liberal Democrat MSP for Edinburgh West until 2011, had played such a huge role in getting Free Personal Care through.

On Europe, he highlighted the role of the EU in preserving the peace. Only the last two generations of his family have been free from the losses of European war. As well as preserving the peace, the EU helps us tackle the challenges facing our world which know no borders, like climate change and human trafficking, he argued.  The case he made for the EU was persuasive, inspiring and optimistic.

The full text is below:

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Caron Lindsay

Alex Cole-Hamilton’s first week in Holyrood

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 15th May 2016 - 4:39 pm

It’s been a wee while since we’ve had a brand new Parliamentarian. Here’s how Alex Cole-Hamilton, who gained Edinburgh Western from the SNP last week, spent his first week in office.

Monday

Outgoing Presiding Officer Tricia Marwick instituted a 3 day induction for new MSPs so that they weren’t just thrown in the deep end. Here’s Alex enjoying his new office:

BBC Scotland were there filming. Watch from around 14 minutes in to see him have a wee bit of a jazz hands moment:

Tuesday

We always knew Alex would be a hard-working constituency MSP. On election day, the Post Office closed a vital Post Office with no notice. Alex was quickly on the case supporting local residents and explaining why this was such a problem for the community:

It’s terrible. The other closures in the area were carried out with the assurance that the office at Duart Crescent would remain open. If you are elderly, infirm or have kids it is too difficult to get down the hill to St John’s Road.

A post office is the surrogate hub of the community and much more than just somewhere to pick up your pension. It is the only slice of social inclusion available to some of the elderly residents. As we close these counters it is another barrier to their involvement in society.

I am sure we have all heard anecdotes of people raising the alarm as someone has not collected their pension for a couple of weeks. That will all be lost if this is a permanent closure.

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Caron Lindsay

The perils of rash election predictions

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th May 2016 - 4:30 pm

If the Daily Record’s Ross McCafferty had followed Stephen Tall, he might not have said what he did in a wee bit of eve of poll banter:

It all started when I tweeted about the Eve of Poll rally in Alex Cole-Hamilton’s HQ:

When Mike Crockart got involved, things got interesting…

Then this happened. I was there, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching it:

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Caron Lindsay

From elation to sadness: my mixed emotions on the Scottish results

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 6th May 2016 - 6:53 pm

If you had told me six months ago that we would retain 5 seats in the Scottish Parliament and win mainland constituency seats from the SNP, I’d have laughed in your face. It didn’t seem possible when polls were giving us 3% and 4% in the polls. It’s a testament to the bright, bold and ambitious campaign Willie Rennie has run.

@timfarron saying congratulations to @agcolehamilton and @willie_rennie for GAINING constituency seats. pic.twitter.com/c5PxBsf53l

I’m finally home now. I might be a little more flaky than usual as I have now been awake for approaching 34.5 hours. I’m desperately trying not to go to sleep for another couple of hours so I can just go to bed for the night then. I’m not sure that’ll work.

It’s been a while since I left a count or ended an election night smiling. For most of the last 4 weeks, I’ve been helping Alex Cole-Hamilton’s campaign in Edinburgh Western. Getting Alex elected to Holyrood is something I’ve tried to do for the past 9 years. In 2007, he topped the list in Mid Scotland and Fife but our success in Dunfermline stopped him getting in. In 2011, he stood in Edinburgh Central and was 2 on the Lothians list, but the coalition made that an impossible election for us. It was at that point that he made his tweet which was immortalised in Nick Clegg’s resignation speech:

In 2011, after a night of disappointing election results for our party, one of our candidates in Edinburgh, Alex Cole-Hamilton said that if his defeat was part-payment for the ending of child detention then he accepted it with all his heart.

Those words revealed a selfless dignity which is rare in politics but common amongst Liberal Democrats.

We will never know how many lives we changed for the better because we had the courage to step up at a time of crisis.

So this time, I really wanted him to win, not least to reward the huge effort he has made in building the team around him, knocking on 25,000 doors in the constituency and running a textbook campaign.

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Caron Lindsay

Scotland: The Results – open thread

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 5th May 2016 - 10:34 pm

This thread will be updated as often as I can during the night. I will be at the count in Edinburgh hoping to see a gain in either Edinburgh Western or the Lothians list.

The party is cautiously optimistic that it can grow from its 2011 nadir of 11 seats – but only by 1 or 2 seats. We have had a brilliant campaign and we can be very proud of Willie for the way he’s conducted himself. We’ve found that people are ready to listen to us and trust us again, but the rebuild is a long-term project.

Willie is standing …

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Caron Lindsay

LDV Top Tip: If you’re going to accuse your opponent of negative campaigning, don’t call him names

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 30th April 2016 - 11:59 am

Edinburgh Western’s SNP candidate Toni Giugliano has been telling anyone who’ll listen that his Liberal Democrat rival Alex Cole-Hamilton has been fighting a negative campaign. He certainly went to town on that particular theme when interviewed by a Herald journalist who was writing a profile on the seat.

The first words in the article are Giugliano’s:

“HE’S spineless,” says the SNP’s Toni Giugliano of his Liberal Democrat nemesis Alex Cole-Hamilton. “He’ll do and say anything to get elected.”

The problem is that in Scotland these days, any criticism of the SNP is seen by them as negative campaigning. Holding the Government and elected representatives to account is a vital part of any healthy democracy and the SNP’s record in West Edinburgh has given cause for concern. The current MP, who narrowly defeated our Mike Crockart last year, resigned the SNP whip pending an investigation over property deals. She took 9 months to open an office in the constituency.

The main features of Alex’s campaign have been first and foremost to promote him as the candidate, to outline Lib Dem policies like the penny on income tax to invest in education, improving mental health care, meeting our climate change targets (important as two of the roads in the constituency are the most polluted in Scotland) and putting local accountability back into policing. Thirdly, it’s to emphasise what people know only too clearly from last year – that the constituency race is between Alex and the SNP. Fourthly, it’s to hold the SNP to account on its record locally and nationally.

You can tell that he’s getting somewhere when the Press and Journal highlighted Alex as one of the candidates to watch across Scotland.

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Caron Lindsay

Farron makes pitch to centre left voters – support Lib Dems for good local councillors and effective opposition to Tories

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 29th April 2016 - 8:54 am

Farron in Edinburgh Western 28 April

At about 8:45, Tim Farron made a flying visit to Alex Cole-Hamilton’s campaign HQ in Edinburgh Western. He did notice that the SNP office next door was  already in darkness.

The visit had an additional bonus for us as the campaigns staff from Scottish HQ pitched up yesterday afternoon and pronounced the place not tidy enough to receive the leader and proceeded to tidy it up for us. No doubt we won’t be able to find anything this morning.

Tim was highly impressed with what he’d seen, which is definitely a compliment given the amount of campaigning that goes on on his patch.

He also told us of his visit to Cardiff Central and candidate Eluned Parrott where he visited a refugee centre and played football with some of the refugees.  We know how strongly he feels that we should be doing more to help refugees from conflict and particularly those children already in Europe. He told us how he’d just been speaking to one of the “Windermere Boys”, a group of young men who were welcomed to the Lake District after being rescued from the death camps at the end of World War 2. They had gone on to build successful lives for themselves, serving the community in many ways, too. Helping people in these desperate circumstances is, Tim said, the least we can do.

This morning, he is visiting a nursery in Cowdenbeath with Willie Rennie, with the challenge from us that he has to at least match Willie Rennie being interviewed on a slide at our manifesto launch.

First, though, he was up early to be on both Radio 5 live and the Today programme to talk about the Lib Dem local election campaign. He made a very clear pitch to centre left voters, asking them to lend their vote to the Liberal Democrats. For that, they’ll get a brilliant local councillor to represent them locally and the appalling Tory government would be held to account He emphasised how the Liberal Democrats had shown more gains in votes and seats in local council by-elections since last May than anyone else. 

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Caron Lindsay

LibLink: Alex Cole-Hamilton: Criticism of SNP policies is vital

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 8:00 pm

Alex Cole-Hamilton Edinburgh WesternA few days ago, Edinburgh Western’s SNP candidate took to the Evening News to take a swipe at the Liberal Democrats, accusing us of being negative before lobbing a few insults our way.

Alex Cole-Hamilton, who hopes to regain the seat for the Liberal Democrats, wrote his own article for the News. He writes:

Toni, I’m sorry you’ve been offended. But I don’t think that drawing attention to the failings of your government or your local representatives should be viewed as underhand, I’d view it as the democratic duty of a healthy opposition.

When the person you asked us to vote for last May turns up for fewer than half of the votes in the House of Commons since September then I think that as your nearest challenger, I should voice the view of the significant majority of those in our constituency who feel that’s just not good enough.

When your ministers preside over a year on year decline in the global rankings of our education system, the shambolic and unwanted centralisation of public services or a waiting times crisis in our health service, then someone should point out that we deserve much better.

Now, I understand it’s hard for you. The constitution of the SNP prohibits you from openly criticising your party or its policies. But I’m not in your party so I can provide a counterpoint to the nationalist dogma that is currently choking Scottish Politics.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Alex Cole-Hamilton on tax, education, glaciers and the SNP’s “magic tractor”

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 10th April 2016 - 10:46 am

This week, Edinburgh Western candidate Alex Cole-Hamilton took part in a debate on Scotland 2016 on tax.

Here are his highlights. I think my favourite was the “magic tractor.”

Scotland 2016 Tax Debate

Last night Alex Cole-Hamilton took part in the Scotland 2016 Tax Debate. If you missed it – catch the highlights below, including John Swinney's magic money tractor and our plan for education:

Posted by Scottish Liberal Democrats on Wednesday, 6 April 2016

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NewsHound

Photo of the week: Alex Cole-Hamilton in a gas mask to highlight air pollution

By NewsHound | Thu 21st January 2016 - 3:45 pm

ACH gas mask

Edinburgh Western and Lothian List candidate Alex Cole-Hamilton took to the most polluted street in Edinburgh this week. St John’s Road in Corstorphine, where he has his campaign office, is the most polluted road in Scotland. It’s one of the main routes from the west into Edinburgh.

Pollution levels in Corstorphine and Queensferry Road are a national disgrace. They represent a clear and present threat to public health, yet the SNP, who have been in charge of this City and this country for nearly a decade, continue to drag their heels.

Almost 2,000 Scots die prematurely each year as a result of vehicle emissions and nowhere is this risk more present than in communities that span the arterial routes into Edinburgh. Investment in my 5 point action plan will actually save our country money in the future in terms of reduced demand on health services and days lost to work through illness.

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The Voice

Edinburgh West Lib Dems re-open their office ahead of Alex Cole-Hamilton’s bid to gain Holyrood seat

By The Voice | Fri 8th January 2016 - 9:05 am

Edinburgh West office

This is the site greeting commuters and pedestrians in one of Edinburgh’s main roads.

In June, sadly, the office which had been rented by Mike Crockart and the local party closed down. This week, it’s re-opened, four months ahead of the Scottish Parliament elections in May where Alex Cole-Hamilton hopes to regain the seat. He also heads the Lothian list.

Since May, newly elected MP Michelle Thomson, who is yet to open a constituency office, has had to resign the SNP whip after a police investigation started into her company’s property deals.

Edinburgh Western’s sitting SNP MSP was deselected in the Summer and replaced with a candidate endorsed by former First Minister Alex Salmond.

Alex Cole-Hamilton told us:

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Caron Lindsay

SNP Scottish Parliament selections – 2 MSPs deselected so far as Salmond endorses one challenger

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 20th August 2015 - 1:25 pm

The SNP is currently choosing its candidates for the Scottish Parliament. Like the Liberal Democrats, they allow challenges of sitting parliamentarians. Two MSPs have been deselected so far. Of greatest interest to Liberal Democrat fortunes is the deselection of Colin Keir in Edinburgh Western. The seat will now be fought by Toni Giulani who had the backing of former SNP leader and first minister Alex Salmond. In our party it would simply not be permitted for a senior, powerful party figure to take such an influential public stance in a selection.

SNP parliamentarians already have a fairly draconian disciplinary code to obey. They are not allowed to publicly criticise any decisions of the group and have had very few rebels in parliamentary votes. Their MSPs are, on the whole, pretty compliant. When two of them voted against the party’s new position on NATO in a vote at their conference, they resigned from the party. It now seems that if their faces don’t fit, key players will contribute to your demise.

Alex Cole-Hamilton is our candidate in Edinburgh Western. He also tops the party’s Lothian regional list. Although we lost Mike Crockart in Edinburgh West in May, the SNP’s margin of victory was comparatively small, our West campaign organisation is pretty strong and the SNP have given up any benefits of incumbency. 

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Newspuppy

It’s the knitwear election in Edinburgh West

By Newspuppy | Sun 3rd May 2015 - 1:45 pm

People say that the election in Scotland is pretty hostile. They are right a lot of the time, but in Edinburgh West, where Mike Crockart’s campaign HQ is next door to the SNP base, things are much more civilised, as this Twitter exchange between Mike’s campaign manager and the SNP candidate Michelle Thompson shows:

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Caron Lindsay

Alex Cole-Hamilton selected for Edinburgh Western

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 26th March 2014 - 11:54 am

Alex Cole-Hamilton Edinburgh WesternThe Scottish Liberal Democrats are cracking ahead with selections for the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections. Alex Cole-Hamilton has been selected for the constituency of Edinburgh Western. This seat is part of Mike Crockart’s Westminster constituency and was held by Liberal Democrat Margaret Smith from 1999-2011.

From the Edinburgh Evening News:

Despite this year’s independence referendum and next year’s Westminster elections, Lib Dems in Edinburgh Western have already chosen their candidate in the 2016 Scottish Parliament elections and are promising a “relentless” drive to regain the seat from the SNP, who took it from them three years ago.

Former MSP Margaret Smith, who represented the constituency for 12 years, decided not to stand again.

In her place, charity worker Alex Cole-Hamilton – who has stood for both Holyrood and Westminster – has been selected to fight the seat.

He was chosen in a postal ballot of all party members in the constituency, which saw him win 71 per cent of the votes, with long-serving councillor Robert Aldridge the runner-up.

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Tom Brake

Tom Brake MP writes… Labour has a lot to apologise for on immigration – it should start with child detention

By Tom Brake | Tue 26th June 2012 - 4:53 pm

On the subject of immigration, Ed Miliband was in apologetic mood this week. And not before time.

Labour has a lot to apologise for on immigration – not just the dog whistle ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ rhetoric and an attitude to the views of ordinary people that resulted in Gordon Brown’s ‘bigoted woman’ slur.

Miliband could apologise for not reintroducing the exit checks abolished by the Tories and allowing our border controls to descend into farce.

He could apologise for wildly underestimating the number of migrants from Eastern Europe when new countries joined the EU.

But if there is one thing Labour really …

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Tim Farron MP

Tim Farron’s Christmas message

By Tim Farron MP | Fri 23rd December 2011 - 12:57 pm

Well that was quite a year, wasn’t it? It was a good one too!

I know, I know, after the referendum and the horrible results in May you’d be forgiven for believing we were sinking faster than Blackburn Rovers (how it pains me to write that), but you know what, it’s not true.

This year we did some amazing things, things you and I have wanted to do for years but never had the power to actually get done.

For one, we put an end to the horrific practice of locking up innocent kids behind bars for months on end in immigration …

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Caron Lindsay

Opinion: Tackling the myths about that Scottish Diversity motion

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 18th October 2011 - 2:25 pm

I’ve seen a few comments online over the past few days insinuating that the Scottish Liberal Democrats don’t care about improving diversity in the wake of a motion passed at the recent Scottish Conference after a passionate debate and a protracted and complex series of votes.

I want to correct some myths about what happened. Scottish Women Liberal Democrats (SWLD) put forward a motion containing a wide ranging series of measures. Most of these were uncontroversial. Who can argue with making sure that the concerns of women are hardwired into the policy process?

The first main points of contention were over the …

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Opinion: An American Student in an Edinburgh Election – inside Alex Cole-Hamilton’s campaign

By Jillian Gorelick | Thu 7th April 2011 - 7:25 pm

It is fairly common in American Universities for 3rd year students to go abroad for a semester.  Although I had many options, I eventually decided to come to Edinburgh, Scotland to intern with the Scottish Parliament.  The way my program is structured is that there was class for five weeks, an internship in parliament for 4, then once parliament dissolved we began working on a campaign up until polling day.  So that’s how, on March 22nd I came to be working with Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Edinburgh Central.  When I first met Alex I was sitting in …

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