The last time the Lib Dems said it was a two horse race, they came third

The Lib Dems are now up to their usual “It’s a two horse race” nonsense. They used that line in the General Election in Tweeddale. They finished third, behind the Conservatives and Labour. As The Times put it yesterday, “no one is taking bets” (the article doesn’t appear to be online).

Council Candidates

The elections to Scottish Borders Council and Midlothian Council take place on May 3rd together with the Scottish Parliament elections. Details on your local Conservative candidates is available for Midlothian here and the Borders here.

Costed, affordable and sustainable

Whether you agree with the policies outlined in the Conservative manifesto or not, at least you can now know that the policies could be implemented.
The Scotsman has commissioned Professor Arthur Midwinter, who was the adviser to the Finance Committee, to cast his eye over each party’s spending plans. His verdict on the Conservative plans is [...]

West Linton

St Mungo’s Church in West Linton organised a very good hustings event yesterday, which they seemed to think was the first to take place in the village. It was all very good tempered too, though I did detect a few jibes between Jeremy Purvis and Christine Grahame.
Although there are some things in common across [...]

Earlston hustings

A hustings with a difference today, at the school in Earlston. The subject was the environment, and the pupils had arranged a really good mix of questions and covered a pretty wide topic comprehensively. As well as some candidates (Jeremy Purvis from the Lib Dems and Chris Ballance from the Greens were there too) there [...]

Small business

Unless you have a subscription to The Scotsman online, you won’t be able to read the whole article from today’s Scotsman by Peter Jones on the parties’ plans for business (if you do, it’s available here).  The final sentence though sums it up “…since the Tories are not planning a local income tax, their plan [...]

Quad biking

Another manifesto launch in the seat, this time in Penicuik. Annabel Goldie and Alex Fergusson came down to a farm just outside Penicuik to launch the rural manifesto, which highlights policies such as a fundamental review of SEPA (Scottish Environmental Protection Agency), SNH (Scottish Natural Heritage) and the Forestry Commission. Also included is funding to [...]

Renewable energy

The lack of a balanced energy policy in Scotland, with arbitrary targets leading to huge numbers of large scale windfarms being planned or built, is one of the current Government’s greatest failings. Rather than have a broader based approach, with more emphasis on energy efficiency, smaller scale renewables and tidal as well as wind farms, [...]

Crime wave?

Candidates don’t like to admit it, but a lot of election literature doesn’t get read and ends up in the bin pretty quickly. Some voters, though, pore over every piece of literature and are quick to spot the smallest error – which is why the process of writing and producing election literature is a lot [...]

Follow that bus!

The bus taking journalists from Holyrood to Gala for the campaign launch was tailed by SNP supporters (led by Christine Grahame). A stunt in Stow, parading over the pedestrian crossing to hold up traffic on the A7, to delay the bus, was one thing, but it didn’t end there. It might be the SNP don’t [...]