By John Mowat

It is a well known fact that during an Election Campaign, we should be discussing and debating the main issues. Elections are stressful times for Candidates of all Parties. The need to stay relaxed and focussed are of the utmost importance. Candidates do not wish to put their wives, husbands, partners and families into the  goldfish bowl. Partners and their families have a right to privacy. It is not unusual for partners to support a different Party so mutual respect of the others views is crucial in any mature relationship.

Today we find the Tories in Scotland in meltdown as their  Scottish Leader, Douglas Ross, becomes the news at the start of all bulletins. His performance and arrogance at Scottish First Minister’s Questions, on a weekly basis should have given us a clue.

The public also read between the lines on any story. Clearly Douglas Ross has a poor to non-existent relationship with his Tory MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. His Scottish colleagues clearly have little respect for him.

3 jobs Ross brought matters to a head by his involvement in a plot to oust his neighbouring Tory Candidate, the affable, likeable and popular colleague, David Duguid MP. 

David Duguid has had serious spine related health issues in recent weeks.

He was in hospital in Aberdeen and was later transferred to Glasgow where he is currently making a good recovery.

The public are both forgiving and understanding when health issues are involved. David Duguid’s Tory team has been open and honest with Constituents. The had organised the Campaign in a manner that meant he was not expected to be knocking on doors daily, but his Team Members were.

There is no doubt that this has happened many times in the past.

There is no such thing as certainty in Politics. The SNP would be close challengers , if not winners, in any case in this new seat.

The Tories know that Moray and Nairn constituents have been poorly served, in Westminster by an MP who rarely went to Westminster, having to concentrate instead on the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood. [Ed. correction, Drew Hendry was the for MP Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Douglas Ross was MP for Moray]

Douglas Ross’s contempt of the Scottish Parliament is well known. He does not enjoy the scrutiny that this has involved. On the other hand he feels like a much bigger fish in the Westminster Pond where extremism and yaboo politics of disrespect prevail.

Effectively Douglas Ross was pushed before he was shoved.  David Duguid struck back from his hospital bed debunking the Douglas Ross story that he was incapable of recovering and continuing as an MP in Westminster, subject to winning. There is no doubt many furious Tories will stay at home on General Election Day in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East. The SNP suddenly finds its campaign receiving a huge boost and are likely to benefit from tactical voting too. 

Meanwhile the wheels have also come off Labour’s Election Campaign in the North East of Scotland,

Keir Starmer’s poorly thought out flagship energy policy does not make any sense. His state owned investment company risks a premature and permanent exodus from the UK Energy sector. Oil and gas from waters surrounding Scotland have allowed billions of pounds of oil and gas revenues to flow to Westminster, totally bypassing Scotland, the goose which has kept laying the Golden Eggs since the 1970s. 

Scotland has been told that having oil and gas in its waters has been a huge disadvantage over many years given that Scots are portrayed as being too poor and too stupid” to manage their oil and gas resources.

Try telling that to Norway with its huge Oil & Gas Fund to help Norway through the years ahead.

One would have expected Starmer to have asked economic experts and advisors before visiting the North East with his damaging proposals.

The SNP have seen Scotland’s resources ruthlessly exploited with little benefit to Scotland, apart from the well paid jobs over the past 55 years. Mutual respect of Scotland, the Scottish and three other Devolved Parliaments from both Westminster Tories and Labour have annoyed Scots of all Parties and none since the late 1990s.

There is no doubt that the safe pairs of hands now leading the SNP has been making a huge difference. John Swinney has proved a safe and competent pair of hands in Scottish Politics for the past forty years. He is widely respected as  an honest and genuine guy who has not allowed his own ego to dominate. 

He genuinely did not expect to come back as SNO Leader and lead a SNP Westminster campaign a few weeks later. Kate Forbes as Deputy Leader has given the SNP a degree of financial and economic expertise not present since Alex Salmond resigned as Leader back in 2014.

The SNP have a lot of talent both in its leading Cabinet secretaries and on its back benches.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP Westminster Leader surprised many people in England, last week by outperforming other Westminster Leaders,Tory Rishi Sunak, Labour’s Keir Strarmer, Libdem Ed Davey and the odious Nigel Farage who lead the disastrous Tory Brexit which has trashed both the UK’s economy and its international reputation.

Scotland’s Labour Leader, the multi millionaire Anas Sarwar is not a run of the mill Leader of that Party either. Like Douglas Ross, he comes across as a fairly arrogant non consensual guy who at times disrespects both colleagues and opponents. He has little or no knowledge of Highlands and Islands and the rest of rural Scotland .Meanwhile the Greens, in Scotland, took their eyes off the ball, obsessing on divisive gender issues rather than its core policies on climate, global warming and the lowering of carbon footprints leaving this to the SNP on a plate. This brought their cooperation with the SNP in the Scottish Government to an end.

The elephant in the room at this election is Hard Tory Brexit, outside everything.

The SNP and some Northern Irish parties have realized this from day one, as the most divisive issue in UK Politics since the end of World War 2 back in 1945.

Westminster’s OBR has estimated the negative Brexit hit to the overall UK economy at around 6%. In export orientated Scotland it is much worse at minus 8 or 9%. 

Scotland benefited greatly from  seamless access to European Markets for around 50 years. Small food and drink, textile, engineering sectors plus the universities have been particularly disadvantaged.

Meanwhile neighbouring Ireland’s economy has been growing at 5.5 % annually, while Scotland’s economy is forced to flatline with 0 % growth.

John Swinney is right to observe that only by reaccessing seamless access to the Mainstream European Markets of 27 EU and 4 more EEA Countries would make economic growth ,in Scotland, possible again. 

In this context Independence should be seen as a good thing for outward looking Scotland.

A few Lib Dems are also backing the SNP line on rebuilding trading and a friendship relationship with Europe but do not yet have the confidence to tell it as it really is.

Brexit also had the effect of politically destabilising Northern Ireland, although, ironically, its economy remains buoyant due its continued close relationship to the EU, thanks to the Good Friday Agreement.

What has been good enough for Northern Ireland, could be good enough for Scotland too, in economic terms.

It is also the case that our European neighbours have been perplexed by Hard Tory Brexit and the Boris, Gove, Faragist resulting red  tape and new trading hurdles which have badly damaged trading and business.

While Keir Starmer promises change he has made no effort to listen to his pro European majority of existing MPs. No UK economic growth is possible until

 Brexit is either binned or drastically moderated. 

Restoring seamless access to European Markets through the EEA Membership like Norway or Iceland presently enjoy could be a first step to economic growth and rebuilding relationships with Europe.

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