‘The main reason I can’t stand for you again is the failure to deliver better roads’
Dear Strathy readers,
It was with a heavy heart that I announced I could not stand again as a candidate for my party at the Holyrood elections next year.
Having served it for half a century, the bonds of loyalty were strong. Putting out leaflets for my mother Winnie , as a wee boy; working through the eighties with John Swinney Fiona Hyslop and others; supporting my late wife, Margaret when MP for Moray, and then standing as a candidate in my own right, whilst running my legal practice.
The party was so hard up in those days, that they even had me lead of the singing at the close of our annual Party conference, of our anthem, “ Scots Wha Hae!” I hope there are no recordings of that. It was only after I stopped singing, that my party started winning…
But over the past four years, rather like a troubled teenager, my party took up with a bad crowd: the Greens, or as I called them, the wine bar revolutionaries, after Green MSPs were photographed in a wine bar during the Covid restrictions. The consequences have been the loss of most of our MPs, 65000 members quitting and our dropping 15-20% in the polls.
To be fair, I did speak out at that fateful meeting of the SNP MSP group in 2021. Nicola told us we should join up with them. As the lone voice arguing against, I predicted that by joining up with the Greens we would be tarnished, and that we should work with the main parties instead, as we did well in Alex Salmond’s government from 2007 to 2011.
Nicola said that could not work now, because the political mood is more sour than then. Well that is what is happening right now! The Greens’ total hostility to so many sectors of the economy - oil and gas chemicals, farming fishing - would turn people against us. They basically propose to dismantle and destroy our economy . By supporting their mad policies we would lose trust and support. And so it came to pass.
In the early days of the deal, I did privately warn Ministers that policies such as the deposit return scheme would be simply unworkable. I had the luxury they lacked: time. I spoke to hundreds of the businesses that would have to make that scheme work. They all told me it was totally unworkable and would force up costs of many items such as soft drinks, and lager.
It would have forced some smaller drinks producers to close, particularly when many are still under financial pressure paying back Covid loans.
My warnings went unheeded. And similarly on the pie in sky 1,000,000 heat pump target by 2030 when we’ve put in about 2000 a year since 2019; wood stove bans leaving Highland Homes without alternative heat during power cuts; gender reform obsession, with one Green MSP advocating that eight-year-olds should be able to have sexual relations ; banning fishermen from the sea, with the HPMA policy I tore up and shutting down our oil and gas industry, when every other oil producing country would just produce more to replace ours.
The SNP chose, very narrowly, as their new leader, Humza Yousaf over Kate Forbes, arguably the biggest mistake in its history. Humza went on to claim the deal with the Greens was “worth its weight in gold”. That was shortly before sacking the Green ministers and scrapping said golden deal.
But the main reason that I cannot stand for you again next year is the failure to deliver on the promises for better roads for the HIghlands. As long as I have campaigned - and it was in 1990 that I was first chosen as SNP candidate for the Westminster elections in 1992 - I have advocated that we need better safer roads to link the Highlands with the rest of Scotland. My party has promised this faithfully to you all at election after election.
The A9 was to be dualled by 2025 and the A96 by 2030. Both targets failed. Not one centimetre of tarmac has been laid on the A96 despite an astonishing £100 million having been spent on it. The A9 will not be completed till 2035 - even though industry tell me it could be done sooner.
The revised A9 plan says that it is subject to working out how to fund the sections in the Highlands. All the next ones to be dualled are south of Drumochter. If the SNP ditch the commitment to dual the A96 before the election, what’s to stop them from ditching the A9 plan after it, arguing they don’t have the money.
Well that’s wrong. They do have the money - the capital budget in 2024/5 is a massive £6.2 billion. That’s just one year. Each year the budget of that amount means there is hugely more than is needed. Other parts of Scotland have seen big improvements in transport since devolution. New Aberdeen link road; M8 M77 M74 et all in central belt; borders railway; magnificent new Forth Crossing and, yes, Edinburgh chose the trams!
So surely it’s the Highlands turn…but then again maybe not. Quite simply, I concluded that the failure to deliver on the longest standing promises we have as a government ever made could not be justified, far less defended in the heat of an election campaign. Perhaps I wrestled with my conscience for too long.
One cannot defend the indefensible. Blaming others, as Transport Ministers have done simply adds salt to the wounds. Surely self government means accepting responsibility not constantly trying to say, in effect: “Sorry sir, a big boy did it and ran away.”
Therefore, I could not in all conscience at the next election defend the indefensible. It was a matter of honour.
So Strathy readers, I have sent a warning to John Swinney: that with a year to go to the 2026 elections the Scottish Government must now deliver; they must make substantial progress on both projects. I have set out what that may reasonably entail, in meetings and in public. It will take years yes - but not to 2035. It can be completed sooner. I will raise this in Holyrood at every chance that I get.
The hardest thing in life is saying sorry. If the Scottish Government now show contrition and back that up with action - fair play. It is never too late for a sinner to repent, as the good book taught us. But if they do not, and they pretend failure is success, and defend the indefensible, then I may consider standing as an independent voice to continue to press the case for our part of this country.
