CHARLIE WHELAN: Many more answers needed on 'pleasure wagon'
Many of us living in the Highlands hate motorhomes because of the way they block all our single track roads every summer and are a general blight on the landscape.
I recently purchased a small camper van not to be confused with a motorhome, though regrettably many have, and this is generally used as a car.
Like most such vans we have the very basics with the only luxury being a porta potty! We soon discovered that using the van to venture north from May to September is not wise. Not only are all the campsites permanently fully booked but driving becomes a total nightmare.
We once spent nearly an hour driving a few miles on a back road on Skye clogged up with giant motorhomes. We now keep our visits north to the winter months and early spring for fishing in Sutherland. All this would have been lost on the SNP who have concentrated most of their resources in the central belt challenging Scottish Labour.
Here in the Highlands the Nationalists have become more and more out of touch with even their own MSPs and supporters complaining about the ferry fiasco and failure to keep their promise on the A9 dualling.
The £110,000 luxury German Niesmann Bischof motorhome that the SNP purchased and lay untouched on the driveway of Nicola Sturgeon’s mother in law’s driveway has come to symbolise the failings now being exposed at the top of their party.
No one has explained why the Nationalists needed a ‘pleasure wagon’ complete with a fully fitted kitchen, a spacious bright bathroom and sumptuous beds with felt walls and mood lighting!
A battle bus? Do they think we are all idiots? I’ve seen many election buses in my time and they are hired and fitted out for a few weeks of the campaign.
In any case a quick look on the Niesmann website would have seen that they could have bought this motorhome second hand for half the price!
Is it any wonder that the SNP’s auditors resigned from the job months ago and that they still haven’t been able to find anyone else willing to do the job?
Many people won’t realise that the taxpayer subsidises the SNP in Westminster, yes that’s the Westminster the Nats so love to hate, to the tune of £1.2 million a year to fund their offices.
It looks likely that they will lose all that unless they very quickly show where the money has gone.
No one doubts that the SNP is in meltdown saddled with a leader who is even called ‘Useless Yousaf’ by his own supporters.
They are divided, mired in sleaze and have manifestly failed to run the country competently and yet despite all this the latest polls I saw said that 38 per cent of the Scottish voters were still willing to support them! How is that possible, you may ask?
It could be that unlike other political parties a massive 50 per cent of SNP supporters see an attack on the SNP as a personal attack. It’s called identity politics and the Nationalists have been very clever at making identity with them as identity with Scotland. So an attack on them is an attack on Scotland.
Remember just how many times the SNP’s opponents have been told by Nicola Sturgeon that they were ‘talking Scotland down’ if they dare to criticise?
All total rubbish but that’s where Nationalism leads us.
Perhaps if the ex-First Minister has her own collar felt the people of Scotland might wake up and we can all return to real proper politics.
• Charlie Whelan (Labour) is ex-spokesman for Gordon Brown.
