THE world of politics was so obsessed with the Liam Fox saga last week that you may have missed the really big story of the political battle ahead here in the Highlands.
When the Liberals did their dirty deal with the Tories delivering top jobs with top salaries for Nick Clegg, and our very own Danny Alexander, apart from agreeing with their cuts agenda they also agreed to another less publicised cutback.
They agreed to cutback on our representation in Westminster.
The Tory plan was to make all constituencies the same size in terms of the numbers of voters, which may be fine in the great cities but has left the Highlands with a cut in the number of MPs.
Poor John Thurso, MP in the North, will have to spend most of his time travelling rather than meeting his constituents, which, of course, is if he is re-elected.
The irony of all this is that the person who was key in the negotiations with the Tories to make these changes will probably lose his seat altogether. That is our very own young Danny.
With large tracts of his current seat going into Charlie Kennedy’s area, and his home village of Aviemore disappearing off elsewhere, who in their right mind would bet against Charlie winning the new seat for the Liberals?
The ex-Liberal leader has cleverly positioned himself against the Tory coalition and should have no trouble in ousting the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in a vote of party activists.
What sweet justice that would be for Charlie.
He, remember, was ousted as leader of his party by the secret backstabbing by young the turks like Nick Clegg and some say Danny Alexander too.
They managed to get the ageing Ming Campbell elected in the sure knowledge that he wouldn’t be round for long, thus paving the way for them as new young leaders.
Before you shed a tear or two for young Danny’s career don’t. There is still that other place, the House of Lords (that the Liberals want to abolish) where ex-MP’s can carry on plying their trade without having to bother to face elections.
For the folk in Badenoch and Strathspey, who up until now thought they lived in the Highlands, we are being shipped over to the Moray seat.
The MP there is none other than Angus Robertson the man chosen by Alex Salmond to lead the campaign for the break up of the United Kingdom.
If he gets his way we won’t even have a constituency to represent us in Westminster at all. So it’s out of the Highlands with the Liberals or out of the UK with the Nats.
It is no good the Liberals claiming that this is all the work of an independent boundary commission, because it was their Government who set them to work in the first place. And for the first time the so called consultation comes after they have made their recommendations. Does anyone seriously believe that will make any major changes?
As all the political commentators have pointed out, the unspoken plan was to reduce the number of Labour seats at the next election, but it seems to have backfired.
Although it can’t be right that we have been moved out of the Highlands as a result of the Tory/Liberal coalition plans, there does seem to be some justice in this process.
In the same week that Scottish Tories are voting about abolishing themselves because they realise what a toxic brand they are, the Liberals in Scotland who shamefully joined them in Government, look like being the real losers.
