.@timfarron & @Cajardine talk delayed farm payments, centralised public services and GP shortages in Inverurie #SP16pic.twitter.com/1YZ0VnUb8k
— Scot Lib Dems (@scotlibdems) April 26, 2016
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.
He went a lot further in an interview with the Press and Journal that the SNP didn’t “give a monkeys” about rural Scotland and compared them to how the Tories treated rural communities in England, saying that both had “absolutely screwed up” the distribution of payments to farmers.
2 Comments
I gather that the Scots Tories could leapfrog Labour into second place and the Scots Greens could leapfrog the Lib Dems into fourth place. Any comments?
Quite likely, John. The Greens could get up to 10, Libs might gain 1. We’re still paying for the Coalition but Willie campaigns cheerfully & well.
Labour, paying for years of taking votes for granted and being outflanked by the SNP and more radical Greens. In some ways a shame because there are some good individual Labour MSP’s such as Anne MacTaggart who played a blinder with her transplant bill.
Tories quite effectively campaigning negatively on anti-nationalist ‘we need an opposition card’ – even though they have no substance.