Lib Dems set to gain Caithness, Sutherland and Ross

Willie Rennie, leader of the Scottish Liberals Democrats, has said the party is set to gain the Cathiness, Sutherland and Ross seat in next month's Holyrood election.

The John O'Groat Journal and Caithness Courier quotes "party polling" from the Lib Dems that shows their candidate Molly Nolan is just three points behind the sitting SNP member. The figures are SCP 37.2 per cent, Lib Dems 34.2 per cent.

Rennie told the paper:

"We know we can win this, we can take out a Scottish Government minister – who I don’t think has served the community particularly well on the list – and we can bring in Molly Nolan."

Caithness, Sutherland and Ross covers much the same territory as the Westminster seat held for the Lib Dems by Jamie Stone.

The photo above shows Thurso Castle. Now ruined, it was the boyhood home of Sir Archibald Sinclair, who led the Liberal Party between 1935 and 1945.

Lord Bonkers 30 years ago: Christmas Eve at St Asquith's

Liberator used to appear eight times a year, which meant that some months saw an issue and others did not. As there was no January Liberator in 1991, it was February that saw Lord Bonkers looking back on Christmas at the Hall.

Incidentally, Liberator is now a free online publication, appearing every two months.

Christmas Eve

To St Asquith's for the Festival of Lessons and Carols. I am sure that I speak for many when I say that I do not regard the festive season as truly having begun until I have heard the tremulous voice of a choirboy singing the opening verse of "Lloyd George Knew My Father".

With the afternoon sunshine illuminating the window depicting The Annunciation of Sir Archibald Sinclair, the old place has never looked finer, but the expense of maintaining the fabric remains a fearful burden.

Once we would meet the cost by the occasional sale of a stalwart member of the Church Ladies' Circle in the slave markets of the Levant; it is a mark of the success of Liberal social legislation that today we must rely upon the humble round of rummage sales and beetle drives.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

The earliest-born person to cut a record was the grandfather of a Liberal Party leader

Sir Tollemache Sinclair has featured on this blog before. Writing of his grandson, the Liberal leader Sir Archibald Sinclair, I said:

Sinclair was orphaned at an early age and lived at Thurso Castle, the home of his grandfather Sir Tollemache Sinclair. The castle was a gothic pile which had been reconstructed by Sir Tollemache to his own design and was notable for its orchestrion - a sort of mechanical organ which he loved to play.

Thurso Castle was damaged by a sea mine during the second world war and largely demolished in the 1950s as a result. Some claim that it was never particularly structurally sound in the first place.

Sir Tollemache, who was a Liberal MP himself, has another claim to fame. He is the earliest-born person whose voice is preserved on a disc (as opposed to a wax cylinder).

Born in 1825, he cut a number of records in 1906. You can hear him above giving Byron both barrels.

Sir Archibald Sinclair's grandson is John Thurso, who was Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross between 2001 and 2015. He was a member of the House of Lords before that and is now one again, having won one of those strange by-elections for hereditary peers.

Thanks to a reader on Twitter for putting me on to this.

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"Lib Dem Glee Club is without a doubt, the weirdest event in British politics." Mikey Smith of the Daily Mirror ventures into the belly of the beast.

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Lord Bonkers' Diary: He was never one to resort to underhand methods

Lord Bonkers continues his survey of Liberal Democrat prospects at the next general election, perhaps becoming a little sidetracked in the process.

Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross

Caithness, the most northerly part of this most northerly of mainland Scottish constituencies, was once the seat of Sir Archibald Sinclair. It is an area best known in recent decades for the Dounreay atom plant, with its habit of spilling nuclear waste on to the neighbouring beaches.

Sir Archibald, the grandfather of the current member, was a gentleman, a fine leader of our party and a friend of mine; certainly, he was never one to resort to underhand methods to deprive the bookies’ favourite for Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Party Moustache of the Year 2014 of his rightful prize.

I am not saying that John Thurso used atomic waste to make his moustache grow so luxuriantly, but shouldn't he come forward and clear the matter up once and for all?

That said, I have no doubt that he will win again this time.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West, 1906-10.

Earlier this week in Lord Bonkers' Diary

"Top Secret: Burn Before Reading"

The mint cake workers of Kendal

There can be no doubt that he was Terribly Sorry

The Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey Railway

Armed with pitchforks and flaming brands

Sir Archibald Sinclair departs Sheffield Park

Not the former Liberal Party leader and grandfather of John Thurso, but the Battle of Britain class locomotive. Sir Archibald had a locomotive in this class named after him because he served as  secretary of state for air during World War II.

The Bluebell Railway site says Sir Archibald Sinclair was rescued from Barry scrapyard in 1979. Again, I suspect that are talking about the locomotive rather than the Liberal leader.

John Thurso remembers his grandfather Sir Archibald Sinclair

The BBC News website has an interview with John Thurso, the Liberal Democrat MP for Caithness and Sutherland. In it he recalls his grandfather, Sir Archibald Sinclair, who led the Liberal Party between 1935 and 1945 and served in Churchill's wartime cabinet:

Sir Archibald suffered a stroke in 1952, the year before Mr Thurso was born.

"I remember him getting me to stand on a chair and make a speech after a lunch when I was six or seven. He would sit there in his big armchair and shout 'hear, hear'.

"Then, in '59, he had his second stroke and was largely bedridden after that.

"The tragedy is that, when I left his house he would lean across and hold my arm and try to say something. I remember him listening to the news and quite clearly wanting to say things."

Sir Archibald died in 1970.

An earlier post on Liberal England discussed Sir Archibald's grandfather.