Ok, let’s get this out of the way first. We know that Willie has had his issues with farm animals recently.  I know it’s kind of hard to stop laughing, but try for a second, because this is important.

Before Willie had even set foot in that city farm yesterday, he’d been standing up for farmers across Scotland. As we told you earlier this week, the SNP has totally failed on delivering payments to farmers on time. This has caused our farmers tremendous difficulty. To add insult to injury, apparently whacking rates of interest will be charged on the emergency loans farmers were given by the Scottish Government. Tavish Scott highlighted this the other day. Willie made it clear in yesterday’s Press and Journal that the SNP Government should be compensating farmers for its failures:

Speaking on his visit to Fife, which came after the Press and Journal revealed farmers could be charged extortionate interest rates on state loans they have only received because of the CAP payment bungle, Mr Rennie said: “Farmers should not be footing the bill for SNP incompetence.

“Liberal Democrats will guarantee to increase the resources deployed in advance of the future rounds of CAP payments to ensure there is no repeat of the shambles we have seen this year.

“We will also establish an immediate restitution scheme to compensate farmers who incurred extra banking costs because of the delay in their CAP payment.

“That is the right, fair thing to do.”

I tend to take the view that it is unwise to mistreat the people who provide our food so I’m glad that the Liberal Democrats, alone amongst the political parties, are taking this seriously and making a fuss about it.  We need to keep up the pressure on the SNP to make sure that they reverse the decision on interest payments as soon as possible.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings