CHARLIE WHELAN: I fully expect blood on the carpet at next week’s SNP conference
With the Nationalists having been nearly wiped out in the General Election it comes as no surprise that civil war has broken out amongst the former comrades in arms.
In fact if it hadn’t been for the Reform party getting nearly twice as many votes as the so called Scottish Greens and taking Tory votes then the SNP would have had no MPs left representing the Highlands.
As it is it’s only because Badenoch and Strathspey was bizarrely put in with Moray that the Nats still have a presence here at all.
In the Western Isles Labour romped home where it was not so much ‘stop the boats’ rather give us some boats!
The SNP even got completely wiped out in the Central Belt too.
So here come the recriminations.
First casualty was veteran SNP member John Mason, the Glasgow MSP who has had the whip at Holyrood suspended for some comments he made about the conflict in Gaza.
Some SNP members have been trying to get rid of Mason for years because he is a devout Baptist who has very weird views about same sex marriage and abortion.
No doubt these same people will be gunning for Highlander Kate Forbes who as a member of the Wee Free has similar views.
Even more bonkers is the demand by one SNP branch for Angus Robertson, the external affairs secretary, to be censured because he met up with the deputy Israeli ambassador.
He was actually meeting her to explain the Scottish Government’s position on the conflict as requested by the First Minister!
I haven’t got a ticket for the upcoming Nationalist conference but I do expect it will be fun to watch for the First Minister in waiting, Labour leader Anas Sarwar.
I fully expect blood on the carpet.
• Fergus Ewing was Tourism Minister in charge when repairs to the funicular railway on the Cairngorm Mountain were approved.
He won’t take any responsibility for the fact that after nearly six years out of action we still don’t know when, if ever, it will run again.
All Fergus has to say on the subject is “this takes time. It is after all, located on the most difficult construction site in the UK”.
How is it that nearly every big project the SNP is involved in turns into a disaster? I had a pal who went for a week’s holiday on Uist that only lasted four days because there was no ferry to get them home on time.
Building a railway that works on a mountain is something that has been done all over the world but seems impossible for us to achieve.
Surely it’s time to close the whole project down and demand the money back from the construction firms who built it.
A proper ski lift was always a better option and a good deal cheaper too.
• After a few years missing the Highland Games I put on my kilt and took our summer visitors to Abernethy to watch the Scottish dancing and tossing the caber.
A good time was had by all and although the queue for the venison burgers was a bit long they were well worth the wait.
It’s a great pity that we no longer have the Grantown games especially because they were actually older than the Nethy ones.
Maybe one day we will have an Aviemore games again, after all that’s where the largest number of tourists stay and I’m sure like this weekend’s Thunder in the Glens it would bring even more visitors to Strathspey.
Charlie Whelan (Labour) was spokesman for Gordon Brown when Prime Minister and Chancellor.
