Making themselves 'heard'
- 26 Mar 07, 01:00 PM
As surreal photocalls go, it was up there with the tank.
I sense instantly that I may have to back-pedal a little for new readers. In 2001, the Scottish Conservatives launched their Holyrood election campaign with a poster that failed to stick to its target.
(Said target being a lorry that had to jostle for space on the Mound in Edinburgh with a tank which was, as I recall, part of an army recruitment campaign.)
As Malcolm Rifkind joshed "get your tanks off my lawn", party officials looked on in a mixture of alarm and dull resignation.
Today, David Cameron was in Edinburgh to help the Scots Tories launch their theme for the May 3 contest.
And the photocall? Well, how to put this? Around 70 Tories, mostly youthful, stood behind Dave and his "favourite Scottish auntie" Annabel Goldie, aiming megaphones at the Holyrood building.
If it hadn't been banned, you'd have thought it was a bunch of hunt saboteurs.
But not a sound emerged. Not a whistle, not a wheep. No batteries inside, apparently.
It was entirely visual, you see, not aural. The aim was to depict the Tories theme of "your voice in parliament". It looked more like a 1970s album cover from Pink Floyd. Those MSPs who were there stood, carefully, towards the rear of the crowd.
Still and all, the news conference launch itself was pretty good. Annabel Goldie talked of sticking to real issues - drugs, housing, families. David Cameron said voters wanted to hear "bread and butter" politics, not abstruse debates about the constitution.
Hang on, though. Aren't the Tories meant to be the big defenders of the Union? Take that as read, said Annabel and Dave. But Labour, they suggested, were over-egging the Unionist pudding, frightening the horses with independence when they should be talking about - you guessed it - drugs, housing and families.
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When are supporters of the Union going to realise that independence is about bread and butter issues. You can buy quite a basket of bread and a mountain of butter on an EU scale with the 拢79,000,000,000 to be wasted on Trident by unionists. 拢200 billion has come out the north sea revenues alone, but you would never know it at the evident lack of bread and butter in Larkhall, Drumchapel and Shettleston etc (all represented by 'Bread and Butter' Labour councillors, MPs,MSPs and MEPs for generations).
The poverty and inequality that riddles this country is all about the proverbial bread and butter, that is what other small independent countries show us independence can go a long way to solve. If the Tories try to come at us with Labour speak, then it truly is the real end for thier party. Another electoral pasting or two and either the scots or english tories will dump the other in hope of better results; in England through a majority that already exists and in Scotland, from a new Scottish centre right conservative independence party.
Very good point Irene and one that is wasted on Unionists alike.
Well if the Tories were the dogs that don't bark, McConnell is definitely feeling like a pussy tonight after his awful performance in London today: yes the SNP can win! What an admission to make. First Plonker of Scotland, and soon to be made redundant from Bute House.
Can't you just smell it on the wind? There has been a faint yet deeply significant sea change in the psyche of the Scottish electorate. Scots who lived through the Great Poll Tax Guinea Pig Insult already know what to expect under a Tory government - and now they know what to expect under a Labour government - the selling out of the working man while party grandees fill their pockets. Many thousands of Scots have finally realised their only hope of being heard is to wipe the slate clean and start politics afresh in a newly independent Scotland. The political elite of both "major" parties have lied themselves into oblivion and the people have had enough.
Surely 2001 was a strange time to launch a Holyrood election campaign? Given that it was 2 years until polling day?
One can only hope that all parties can look a wee bit into the future for their own future. Once Bonnie Davey and his Redcoats win the next General Election, Middle England will demand revenge on the impertinent Scots who dare to show resistance to God's chosen people. No big blood letting a la Culloden, of course, but perhaps a tightening of the purse just to show who's boss. And just as Stinking Billie's Redcoats were composed of Scots so too are Davey's Redcoats. Better get on the road to independence asap or you'll be doffing your caps to the english toffs into the next century.
The tories are unlikely to make a breakthrough in Scotland any time soon. Too many people still have bitter memories of their time in power. New "Labour" has dissapointed people who were expecting an answer to the problems of poverty and inequality that Scotland faces. As other posters have said, the only true way to properly address these is with a government not tied to a London administration. Our problems will not be solved by politicians who spend their time telling us we are too small and stupid to run ourselves properly. I have to say that it is refreshing reading the more and more frequent positive comments on sites like this showing that our country is slowly getting its confidence back.