What a weekend! With all the excitement of the solar eclipse on Friday followed by our party Spring conference, delegates may be battle-weary, but we’re certainly not beat. Aberdeenshire has hard-working liberals in all three tiers of government, from Woodhill House to Westminster with Holyrood in between; working in our communities, for our communities. Liberal Democrats worked hard to keep Scotland part of the UK last September and it’s hard to see why any No voter would want to send SNP representatives, hell-bent on breaking up the UK, to Westminster.
Following the ramblings of Alex Salmond in Saturday’s P&J, I wanted to share a letter written by a colleague, in response.
“I see the MSP for Aberdeenshire East has been chatting, in his hail-fellow-well-met way, about ‘the total eclipse of the Liberal Democrats’.
“Let me suggest that Mr Salmond casts his eyes skywards; a marked absence of eclipses today – or indeed at any time since about 10.00am on Friday last.
“Liberalism will be around long after his narrow-minded nationalism is gone and forgotten.
“In Scotland, the country of the Enlightenment, the day will come when the centralising tendencies of Scottish Nationalism are understood, when people see the reality of the SNP’s usurpation of power over policing, the planning system and council finances and see how the SNP’s stifling control of our parliament is damaging our democracy.
“Even our Saltire has been commandeered for their own political ends.
“And when power is usurped to such poor effect, the alarm bells should be deafening.
“The Scottish NHS in crisis, Scottish farming in chaos, armed police routinely on the streets, rampant stop-and-search of children, covert plans for a national ID database linked to an ‘entitlement card’ and vast windfarms marching across Scotland’s most iconic landscapes as Scotland is poised to become a net importer of electricity.
“Scottish Nationalists show as little respect for civil liberties as they do for local democracy; these nationalist values are not those which Scotland holds dear.
“The MSP for Aberdeenshire East must take full responsibility for all of this. Perhaps that is why he is now seeking to take the road back to London”.