Tag Archives: Scotland

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

It’s Willie vs Goliath in Holyrood

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 17th May 2016 - 2:28 pm

This afternoon, MSPs will choose the new First Minister of Scotland. Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the largest single party will not be unopposed, though. Willie Rennie, on his fifth anniversary as Scottish leader, is standing against her. Willie is a massive optimist, but I doubt even he expects to get more than a handful of votes. We won’t have a Wales scenario in Edinburgh. However, it is important that someone lays down a marker that the SNP, which no longer has a majority, has to work to make its case to Parliament. Nicola Sturgeon’s comments that she expects Parliament to respect her mandate are not the sort of comments you would expect from a leader without a majority. She has to show a bit of humility and respect for Parliament.

This will not be the only time when the Liberal Democrats will lead the opposition to the SNP, as we did so often in the last Parliament. On Thursday, Sturgeon presents her list of Ministers to the Parliament. Under its standing orders, Parliament can only reject any new names. It can’t pass judgement on any of the people already in post. Willie Rennie has appointed Mike Rumbles to be Business Manager (or chief whip). This is a role that he took during the last period of Holyrood minority government from 2007-11. His experience of the Parliament’s procedures will be helpful.

The Liberal Democrats have been horrified at the total muck-up the SNP has made over payments to farmers. During the election, Tavish Scott slammed the SNP for seeking to charge interest to farmers on emergency payments made to them while they sorted out their IT system. It seems incomprehensible that Parliament should not even get a say as to the performance of the Minister responsible. The Parliament has an opportunity to assert itself and reject that Minister. The Press and Journal reports:

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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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The Voice

Rennie calls for Minister for Mental Health

By The Voice | Sun 15th May 2016 - 8:58 am

Willie Rennie and therapetWillie Rennie, seen here seemingly enacting a scene from Lady and the Tramp with a therapet during the election campaign, has called on Nicola Sturgeon to appoint a dedicated minister for mental health when the new Scottish government is announced next week.

A major part of the Liberal Democrat election campaign was a call for a step change in the way mental health services are supported.  Willie said that this appointment would send a clear message that the Scottish Government is taking mental health issues seriously:

Mental health spending has been cut as a share of the overall NHS budget every year since 2009 and too many young people still wait more than a year for urgent treatment.

Everywhere I went during the election people came up to me to say how important they felt it was to hear a political leader speaking out on mental health. It has been kept as a Cinderella service for too long.

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NewsHound

LibLink: There’s no way to deny it, the Lib Dems are on the rise again

By NewsHound | Sat 14th May 2016 - 1:15 pm

Last week’s election results show that, overall, the Liberal Democrats are fighting back argues Tom Brake in an article for the Huffington Post.

Our party made the most gains in the English local elections, increasing our share of seats more than any other party, now having 45 more, passionate Councillors working hard for their communities.

We strengthened our support in the liberal heartlands of Eastleigh and Cheltenham. We dominated the results in Southport, Cumbria and in Watford, where we took control of the council. And we gained seats in cities like Hull, Rochdale and Manchester thanks to my fantastic former colleague John Leech, who will provide the only opposition to Labour there.

Up and down the country we’ve seen the green shoots of liberalism grow up in communities disillusioned with an impotent Labour party dubbed as the worst ever Government opposition, and a heartless Conservative Government imposing ideological cuts to valued public services.

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The Voice

Rennie: It’s time for answers on China deal

By The Voice | Sat 14th May 2016 - 11:45 am

During the election, the Scottish Liberal Demcorats raised questions about a trade deal signed between the SNP Government and Chinese companies with dubious human rights records.

Willie Rennie has now stepped up his quest for more information by tabling  a series of parliamentary questions.

During the election it emerged that the China Railway Group, who own one of the companies involved, had been blacklisted for investment by the Norwegian government’s oil fund over corruption allegations and criticised by Amnesty International over forced evictions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The First Minister admitted that due diligence was not completed on the businesses involved in a deal that it is claimed could be worth up to £10bn. Scottish Government officials failed to respond to Freedom of Information requests from journalists on the deal ahead of the election last week.

Willie said:

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The Voice

Rennie calls for new rural affairs secretary after SNP CAP payments disaster

By The Voice | Thu 12th May 2016 - 10:50 am

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie said there is no way that the First Minister can keep Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead in his post following repeated delays to vital EU payments.

Farmers and crofters have been hit by extended delays to Common Agricultural Policy payments as a result of the failure of a Scottish Government IT system. Mr Lochhead was informed of potential problems with the £178m IT system before the referendum but waited for months before warning farmers that payments could be delayed.

It also emerged during the election campaign that farmers receiving support from an emergency Scottish Government scheme could face punitive interest charges.

Willie said:

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Caron Lindsay

Rennie: Opposition must be broader than narrow Tory agenda

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 7th May 2016 - 2:30 pm

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie says that opposition to the SNP at Holyrood must be on a range of issues far broader than a narrow Tory agenda. For a start, I’d suggest, neither Tories nor SNP are known for their commitment to civil liberties. The absence of a commitment to fight the Tories’ Snoopers’ Charter in the SNP manifesto is significant. Before you say “that’s Westminster”, note that the manifesto talked a lot about Trident. It’s notable that when SNP MPs had a chance to kill off the Snoopers’ Charter a few weeks ago, they bailed.

Since the election Ruth Davidson has highlighted a limited range of issues as her priorities for the new parliament.

Willie said:

Of course the issues that the Conservatives have highlighted are important. But opposition to the SNP needs to be far wider than a narrow Tory agenda.

On issues like tax there is more that unites the Tories with the SNP than divides them. And on issues like justice they are more likely to chase cheap headlines than push for reforms which help cut offending and reduce the number of Scots who are imprisoned. On education there is no indication that they will press for the urgent investment that is required to make our schools the best again.

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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

Katy Gordon: I want to give hope to young people so that they can change their lives

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 4th May 2016 - 11:21 am

You don’t often find me quoting from the pro-independnece paperKaty Gordon The National, but I’m happy to do it today because they’ve done a really good profile of our top West of Scotland list candidate, Katy Gordon. She explains the influence Charles Kennedy and Jo Swinson had on her and how they inspired her campaigning spirit.

“I had always voted Liberal but sometimes you need a push to join, and I wanted to make sure Kennedy was leader,” Gordon remembers. “I did not join because I wanted to be involved in party politics but because of the Liberal ideas Charles Kennedy articulated.”

However, her abilities were soon recognised and she was asked to be a candidate in 2005 in Glasgow South West against Ian Davidson.

While her chances of winning were minimal, she discovered through campaigning with Jo Swinson in East Dunbartonshire that she loved hearing about what people were thinking, what their concerns were and what they needed.

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The Voice

Katy Gordon challenges SNP minister on housing and homelessness failures

By The Voice | Sun 1st May 2016 - 11:30 am

Scotland 2016 held its final election debate, on housing, earlier this week. West of Scotland lead candidate Katy Gordon represented the Liberal Democrats. She put forward the Lib Dems’ plan, which takes in mental health, addiction and prison services as well and confronted SNP Housing Minister Alex Neil on his government’s failure to keep its promises and deal with a very real housing crisis in Scotland. As always, Katy was full of practical detail and put in a very thoughtful and engaging performance. You can watch her here.

<iframe src=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FScotLibDems%2Fvideos%2F989758271119459%2F&show_text=0&width=560″ width=”560″ height=”315″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” allowFullScreen=”true”></iframe>

You can see the whole …

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Caron Lindsay

Nick Clegg tells the inside story of how the Conservatives put party before country

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st May 2016 - 9:30 am

A couple of polls have suggested that Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservative Party might just edge ahead of Labour to become the official opposition in the Scottish Parliament. That is a truly horrible thought. Just imagine it, the timid, illiberal, centralising SNP opposed by David Cameron’s representative in Scotland. Their leaflets don’t push the fact that they are Conservatives. They are trying to make their campaign all about Ruth, as if she is somehow the saviour of the union. That, of course, is an argument that does not stack up, as this video from the Scottish Liberal Democrats shows.

It was the Scottish Conservatives who pretty much kept the SNP in power during their first term of minority government.

Do we really want them, with their contempt for benefit claimants, nonchalance about inequality and poverty and disregard for human rights and civil liberties, as the official opposition to an SNP government that is already so fiscally conservative and illiberal?

Their claim to be the only ones who care about the union has been shown up to be a pile of hogwash by Nick Clegg. In an article originally published in the Times and now on the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ website, he said:

As the Holyrood elections get closer and closer, I have become increasingly bemused that Ruth Davidson and others have sought to claim that the Conservatives are somehow the authentic opposition to the SNP.

It jars starkly with my experience when governing alongside the Conservatives in Coalition in Whitehall for five years.

In that time, I witnessed an odd ambivalence in the Conservative Party towards Scotland: indifference one minute; confrontation the next.

My party frequently disagreed with the Conservatives on Scottish issues, which was perhaps unsurprising since the only Scots around the Coalition Cabinet table were Liberal Democrats.

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The Voice

Rennie: Sturgeon must shred China deal after human rights warning

By The Voice | Sat 30th April 2016 - 9:11 pm

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie today said that the SNP risks dragging Scotland’s reputation through the mud following reports that a Chinese firm at the heart of a controversial £10bn deal with the Scottish Government is tied to human rights abuses.

It was reported in today’s Herald that Amnesty International named China Railway Group Ltd (CRG) and subsidiaries it controls in a report exposing human rights abuses related to the mining industry in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It had previously emerged that CRG had been blacklisted for investment by Norway’s oil fund over fears that the construction giant was involved in gross corruption.

Willie said:

The last thing that the First Minister did before the election started was sign a £10bn deal with a business directly tied to allegations of corruption.

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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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The Voice

Tim Farron: SNP taking Scotland for granted

By The Voice | Wed 27th April 2016 - 2:20 pm

Tim Farron went to Aberdeenshire East to join candidate Christine Jardine on the campaign trail yesterday.

He had this to say about the SNP’s record and how the Liberal Democrats would improve things:

This is the first Scottish election when people are really starting to judge the SNP on their record. And the further you get from the central belt in Scotland, the more you get a sense that people don’t believe the SNP cares about rural communities.

We’ve seen the terrible way they’ve handled farm payments. Farmers should have been paid what they are owed months ago. We’re now nearly into May and the delays have led to a huge black hole in the rural economy.

Liberal Democrats stand up for the communities for they represent. There is real Liberal Democrat strength in Scotland, our MSPs punched well above our weight at Holyrood and voters know that people like Christine won’t take rural Scotland for granted.

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Simon Horner

And the biggest threat to the Union is….Ruth Davidson

By Simon Horner | Wed 27th April 2016 - 10:00 am

If short-term party political advantage is the aim of the game, then you can understand why the Scottish Tories have chosen to play the unionist card in the Scottish election. Ruth Davidson knows that Tory economic and social policies do not win elections (or even the runner-up spot) in Scotland. She must despair at her colleagues supposedly running the show in London who are tearing themselves apart on Europe and rapidly abandoning any claim to economic competence or social conscience.

Instead, she has put the independence question at the front and centre of her party’s Scottish programme. This is a headline currently on the “Herald” website:

“Ruth Davidson: SNP wants to keep wounds of independence debate open.”

I did a double take when I first spotted the story because at first glance I didn’t take in the “SNP” part. Of course, if you read it without the “SNP” it still makes perfect sense. Every time Ruth Davidson harps on about the union – and she does it an awful lot! – she is poking at the scab.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Two very different interviews for Willie Rennie

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 24th April 2016 - 4:51 pm

Scottish Lib Dem Leader Willie Rennie faced two very different interviews this week. The first was with STV political editor Bernard Ponsonby.

Willie said he thought we were going to grow because of our record as the strong liberal voice and because of our positive, uplifting plan for Scotland with its transformational investment in education and investment in mental health.

Before he was able to talk about all these plans though, he faced quite a grilling over coalition mistakes (he said the Bedroom Tax was one which should never have happened) and over Alistair Carmichael (he said he would still vote for him despite his mistake, which was an aberration and out of character for the Orkney & Shetland MP).

Ponsonby gave him a really hard time over tuition fees in Scotland. Liberal Democrats were responsible for their abolition, against coalition partner Labour’s wishes. He tried to make out that us supporting the Graduate Endowment – which was not a tuition fees, which didn’t go to pay for lectures or learning but simply to enable more students from disadvantaged backgrounds to go to university – and then voting to abolish it (when circumstances allowed) was inconsistent. Willie managed to get across that the Liberal Democrats had been the drivers behind free education.

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Caron Lindsay

WATCH: Alex Cole Hamilton on the SNP’s “smog and mirrors” and singing the recycling song

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 23rd April 2016 - 4:55 pm

This week, Edinburgh Western and Lothian list candidate took part in a Scotland 2016 debate on energy and the environment. After his success at getting in John Swinney’s face on tax, expectations were high, and he didn’t disappoint.

Here are some of his highlights:

Pointing out that the SNP consistently miss its climate change targets while they cut the budget for measures to tackle climate change.

“There is no question in the climate change challenge which shows that tracking is part of the solution”

Describing SNP MInister Fergus Ewing’s justification of a planned cut to Air Passenger Duty as a “smog and mirrors approach”

Outlining the Liberal Democrat plan to make sure houses are energy efficient and warm.

Explaining how good habits on recycling are being embedded in today’s children – and singing the song his 4 year old sings every day at nursery. Whether that latter part was entirely necessary, I’ll leave to your judgement.

You can watch Alex’s highlights below:

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Caron Lindsay

Willie Rennie’s most embarrassing moments – and his favourite films

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 19th April 2016 - 3:05 pm

In London, they have the taxi thing, but in Scotland, the BBC are doing a Leaders’ Lift Challenge. As they travel up the lift in what I presume is their Glasgow HQ, people get on and ask random questions.

Here’s Willie Rennie’s. The answer to “Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?” is very sweet. And we find out about the transgressions in his past. Stealing apples, indeed.

This comes out as a BMG opinion poll had two bits of potential good news. First of all, 51% backed the idea of a penny on tax for education, which is the party’s key policy in this election. On hearing this, Willie said:

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Caron Lindsay

How the Scottish Liberal Democrats are winning this campaign

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 17th April 2016 - 3:55 pm

This morning I headed into Edinburgh at the crack of dawn to take part in a panel on Radio Scotland show Good Morning Scotland.

I got a bit of a shock at the station as there was hardly anywhere to park, which I hadn’t expected for that hour. The reason became clear when I got to the platform and saw lots of people in running gear, heading into town for the Great Edinburgh Run.

I have to say it is much easier to be discussing your election campaign when your leader is on the form of your life and when voters are repeating your campaign messages back to you on the doorsteps and you are winning the campaign with fantastic events involving seals, planes, canoes and happy children in a soft play area. You can listen to what I had to say here from about 1 hour 41 minutes in.

People like the optimism, boldness and fun of our campaign. They like the penny on tax for education, investing from nursery to college. They like the investment in mental health that we’d bring. They like Willie Rennie. He had people in Alloa, not the most ardent Lib Dem stronghold, come up to him yesterday and tell him they were voting for us for the first time. It feels better out there than it has for a long time. I’m not going to make any wild predications, but I think it is reasonable to think that it is possible for us to send a bigger contingent to Holyrood than we currently have. We need to build on the early success of the campaign over the next three weeks.

I wanted to concentrate on us and the good things about our campaign, but if I had had the chance to talk about the others, I’d have taken the SNP to task on their utter timidity. They have been going on about getting more powers for Scotland forever. Now they have them, they are barely using them. It’s like giving them a Ferrari that they won’t ever get out of second gear. 

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Caron Lindsay

The “trailblazing, hell-raising rule breaking Rennie”

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 15th April 2016 - 4:28 pm

Another Friday, another day Willie Rennie wins the internet.

I don’t think there has ever been such fun at a manifesto launch ever.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats’ manifesto is centred around opportunity in so many ways. Children are at the very heart of it, so it seemed appropriate that the event took place in a soft play event in Edinburgh. And if you are going to go there, you need to get into the spirit of the place. You can’t afford to look too stiff and sober. And Willie didn’t.

The team got three specific things right. First a bit of humour, reminding everyone how you won the internet last week too.

And, let’s be honest, it’s a bit of a treat to imagine hard-nosed political hacks being asked to wait in a room like this:

Finally, if you have a leader who can do a 3 second pitch while going down a slide, then that’s a talent you have to exploit.

Jamie Ross from Buzzfeed absolutely loved it:

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Caron Lindsay

Scottish Liberal Democrats to launch manifesto – a plan to make Scotland the best again

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 15th April 2016 - 8:10 am

Willie Rennie will today unveil the party’s “bold, positive and progressive plans to make Scotland the best again” as he launches the Scottish Liberal Democrat manifesto.

He will set out ambitious proposals for a transformational investment in education, a step-change in mental health services, the protection of our environment and guaranteeing Scots’ civil liberties.

Speaking ahead of the launch, Willie said:

Scottish Liberal Democrats offer an ambitious, positive and uplifting programme for Scotland.

The Liberal Democrats are back to our best. Scotland should be the best again too.

Our programme for Scotland is ambitious and progressive. We are offering the biggest investment in education since devolution, new plans for mental health services, new laws to guarantee our civil liberties and new investment so we can exceed our climate change targets.

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Caron Lindsay

Watch: Christine Jardine in BBC Health debate “Let medical professionals do their job”

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 14th April 2016 - 11:30 am

On Tuesday night, Aberdeenshire East candidate Christine Jardine took part in a BBC Scotland debate on health. This is one area in which the SNP has consistently failed. We are going to be 700 GPs short by the end of the decade, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to get a GP appointment, there are no mental health beds for children north of Dundee, and there’s a LOT of Scotland north of Dundee and mental health care is even worse than it is south of the border. In addition to all of that, health professionals often find that top-down targets get in the way of them doing their job.

Watch Christine take on the SNP Health Minister on all these points. The Minister at one point suggested that criticising the SNP’s health policy was in some way talking the NHS down – their usual refuge when they know they are on the losing side of an argument.

Here are Christine’s highlights:

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Caron Lindsay

Watch: The day they let Willie Rennie fly a plane

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 12th April 2016 - 8:53 pm

That should strike fear into the heart of anyone who has ever driven with Willie! Or maybe it’s just that I’m ultra cautious on the road.

Today, Willie went on a training flight with the UK Civil Air Patrol, who provided air support to Tayside Police prior to the SNP’s disastrous merger of Scotland’s Police forces.

The point of his visit was to outline what he would do to restore accountability to the Police service. The party would not do another top down re-organisation, but would ensure that local councils had control of the policing plan in their area to ensure that it meets their needs. Since the merger, it’s been very much a roll-out of what used to happen in Strathclyde across the country. That resulted in armed police being used for routine duties in places like Inverness, much against the views of the local community. After the intervention of the Liberal Democrats, this was stopped.

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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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Caron Lindsay

Friday fun: The story of Willie Rennie and the friendly pigs

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 8th April 2016 - 7:12 pm

An awful lot of planning goes into those photo-ops you see every night on the telly during an election campaign. The party leaders have a specific message they want to get out.

Today, Willie Rennie was at Gorgie City Farm in Edinburgh to talk about the importance of vocational training. He’s done a lot with animals this campaign. Remember those ultra cute therapets? He also got the “seal” of approval at Deep Sea World. What could possibly go wrong?

Today’s visit started so well:

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Caron Lindsay

Tavish Scott slams SNP’s “slap in the face” to Scottish farmers

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 6th April 2016 - 10:46 am

You really could not make it up. Farmers have been struggling for months because of delays in getting their CAP payments to them. For months the failures of an £178 million IT system have stopped farmers being paid, causing them serious cash flow issues.

The SNP Government, after too long, issued them with emergency cash advances.

If those advances turn out to be more than the payment they were due, it has now emerged that farmers will have just 7 days to repay the difference or be charged a whopping rate of interest.

Given that they are in the mess …

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