Alex Cole-Hamilton names three Highland seats the Lib Dems can win back in Holyrood election

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton says his party can “win back the Highlands” from the SNP at the 2026 election, and such a victory would be the “story of the night”.

That's a report from the website Ireland Live. (I know, me too.) And Alex went on to name three individual seats:

He said Lib Dem analysis of the general election results showed these three seats – Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch; Caithness, Sutherland and Ross, and Inverness and Nairn – all falling to the Lib Dems.

Referring to the incumbent MSPs, he said: “Kate Forbes, Maree Todd, Fergus Ewing. Three current and former SNP ministers.

“We are coming. We can win those seats.

“And conference, that would be the story of the night – Scottish Liberal Democrats winning back the Highlands.”

He also told the conference that other Conservative MSPs are set to follow Jamie Greene in crossing the floor - or "moving around the arc", as Andy Maciver terms it in the Spectator - to join the Lib Dems.

This is a development that wouldn't surprise Maciver either.