Writing in the Herald, Kathleen Nutt says the Liberal Democrats is seeking to take back Charles Kennedy's old seat of Ross, Skye and Lochaber.
Kennedy lost the seat to the SNP's Ian Blackford in 2015 after a bitter local campaign. Blackford has recently announced he will be standing down as an MP at the next election.
Lib Dem ambitions are boosted by the strength of the candidate they have in place, the prominent entrepreneur and local councillor Angus MacDonald:
The businessman opened Fort William’s first cinema in 15 as a gift to his home town and also runs a bookstore while his son, Archie MacDonald jointly runs The Highland Soap Company, which opened a multi-million base in 2020.
Cllr MacDonald was named Scottish and UK Entrepreneur of the year in 2017 and founded The Caledonian Challenge endurance walk, which has raised £13million for local charities. He is also a published author.
And there is plenty for the Lib Dems to campaign on. The SNP's centralising tendencies - Scotland now has a single national police force, for instance - look less benign when viewed from the Highlands than when viewed in Edinburgh:
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton will be campaigning in Fort William today with Highland councillor Angus MacDonald.
Ahead of the visit to the town Mr Cole-Hamilton accused the SNP of overseeing "a complete dearth of infrastructure spend" and making do with an ageing ferry fleet.
"For years, the SNP have removed autonomy from Highland communities, cut council budgets and singularly failed to stand up for rural issues," Mr Cole-Hamilton said.
"Ian Blackford and the SNP have overseen a complete dearth of infrastructure spend and the north and west Highlands have had to make do with an ageing, creaking ferry fleet while new vessels fall ever further behind schedule and budget. ...
""Angus will protect jobs, create opportunities and secure a better deal for people right across the region.
"He is already campaigning tirelessly on the issues that matter, such as replacing the Belford Hospital, rejuvenating local high streets and improving the A82.
"The residents of Ross, Skye and Lochaber deserve so much better than a centralising SNP and years of nationalist neglect."
After all, it was the Tories who promised to 'Stop the Boats' and not the SNP.
2 comments:
This seat, and the neighbouring seat of Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey have seen a lot of electoral volatility in the last 15 years, and both have been held by the Lib Dems in recent memory - by Charles Kennedy and Danny Alexander.
I note that Alex Cole-Hamilton's twitter feed mentions campaigning for Angus MacDonald in Inverness yesterday so this seat is subject to a substantial boundary change (the transference of territory in Highland Scotland is always big). This means essentially if a party is strong in Fort William and Inverness they'll win the new seat. I'd be cautiously optimistic on the basis of Highland Council election results last year where the Lib Dems topped the poll in two out of the four seats in Inverness and the Fort William seat.
All to play for!
My delight in seeing the Lib Dems regain this seat will be somewhat diminished by not seeing Mr Blackford losing.
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