General Election 2015

I'm pleased to hear the Conservative Party have opened a campaign shop in Stornoway, and that the former leader of the party at Holyrood, Annabel Goldie, will call round in the isles during the current election campaign. The previous candidate, in the 2010 campaign, made complete fool of herself by suggesting that her top priority when elected would be the refurbishment of the pier at Achmore. Local people will immediately recognise the joke and breathtaking idiocy of the statement.

I'm not a natural Tory supporter (my leanings tend to be rather left of centre), but my attitude towards them during this campaign is different. I feel it is important that the emphasis is shifted from the previous Labour / Conservative dichotomy and focused on what I perceive to be the present and continuing danger to the United Kingdom posed by the Scottish National Party. There is no sincerity in the SNP's assertion that they're willing to go into a coalition with Labour. Labour is the SNP's adversary at Holyrood and was referred to as "dying" by the latter party's leader, Nicola Sturgeon. Labour's leadership is weak and stuck in the past. As with the 2007 Holyrood election, the party is bedeviled by complacency, assuming that their natural support in Scotland will rally round. Really? What happened during the Scottish Independence referendum poll in September last year? Glasgow, Red Clydeside, was one of the few districts to return a Yes vote.

I am not at all sure of the abiding support for our SNP MP, Angus Macneil. He has recently been severely criticised on several local issues - some would say he is not very interested in any matter pertaining to the islands north of the Sound of Barra. Anything to diminish support for the SNP should, in my perspective, be welcomed and encouraged. If that includes a strong Tory candidate in the Western Isles (and other places in Scotland), so be it. We cannot permit any active involvement of the SNP, whether it be overtly or covertly, in the government of the United Kingdom. They are, after all, only interested in breaking up the UK.
 
Did I say I am not eligible to vote in the election on 7 May? I'm still entitled to an opinion, and you now have it.