COMMENT: ‘A change in SNP leader will do nothing more than put icing on a burnt cake’
A day is a long time in politics. How often have we heard that quip over recent times? If my prematurely greying hair is anything to go by, too often.
I recall what it was like working in the UK Parliament during those rapidly changing Brexit votes in 2019; long days, moving goalposts, and uncertainty for the country. We were told then by many a nationalist that political conduct at Holyrood is different, how badly that has aged.
The SNP’s Maree Todd will feel that. Just hours before Humza Yousaf unceremoniously booted the Scottish Greens from government she was still defending their coalition. A lesson in what happens when your job is to repeat central party lines, not shape them.
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But on a serious note, all the oxygen in the room is being taken up by the political turmoil in the SNP. People have had enough and want their politicians to focus on the job at hand. That is certainly the feeling I have had shared with me on the doors.
For too many, access to GPs and dental care is next to impossible. For too many, the opportunity to buy an affordable home in their community is all but gone. For too many, their local school that was once the pride of the community is now left crumbling down.
We desperately need a government focused on these priorities.
Some may suggest that a new First Minister will do that. That it will be the long awaited day that the government in Edinburgh fixes its broken relationship with rural Scotland. For the interests of our communities, I genuinely wish I shared that hope.
But a change in SNP leader will do nothing more than put icing on a burnt cake. With 17 years in government, too many in the SNP have for too long chosen to toe the party line and leave rural voices to feel ignored.
The Highlands has endured - and Liberal Democrats have fought against - the hollowing out of community policing with the centralisation of the police force, the ill judged attempt to impose Highly Protected Marine Areas, endless delays with the dualling of the A9 and now plans to seize control of care services.
This catalogue of decisions, that run against the interest of our local communities, only points to a centralising diktat in the SNP that runs deeper than one person. I fear this leopard simply cannot change its spots.
That fear is only reinforced by the SNP’s anointed continuity candidate, John Swinney. He is SNP establishment with a history of threatening councils, ring fencing funding and centralising power. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Salmond, Sturgeon and Yousaf and he cannot hide from their shared failures. Is this Back to the Future? It’s certainly not a break from the past.
The Highlands cannot afford more chaos and more of the same.
People deserve a real alternative. They deserve their say. We need a change of direction and, across the Highlands, it is the Liberal Democrats that offer it.
David Green
Scottish Liberal Democrat candidate for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross.
