A critical, if cynical, election

Like the first cuckoo of spring, the start to general election season in Scotland is never quite complete without the call of the Tories that they’re going to take Perth and North Perthshire.

Where the call of the Tories is oftrepeated and grating, it is at least predictable.

In fact I’d almost feel disappointed if the discordant song of the Tories in full voice wasn’t forthcoming as it is the perfect noise to ensure that the opposition to them is galvanised once again in Perthshire.

It, probably more than anything else, helped me treble, then double my majority in the last two elections.

The Tories may have been buoyed by recent opinion polls and projections but when it comes to defending their record, we have seen the damage they have done with no majority of their own and then with a small majority.

We should be in no doubt what a strengthened Conservative government would mean – more austerity, further cuts and real damage to our public services.

Where the recent Tory rise in opinion polls may indeed appear dramatic, it seems to be almost all at the expense of what is left of the Labour unionist vote across Scotland.

The SNP vote remains pretty much unchanged and we go into this election with opinion poll ratings in the mid40s, pretty much the same as they were in advance of the election in 2015.

What is different about this election is the Tory campaign.

Their one and only tactic this time around appears to be to shout as loudly as possible “no second referendum” – completely ignoring the unequivocal mandate the Scottish Parliament has already given the Scottish Government on this and hoping to distract attention from the fact that this election has been called in the narrow self-interests of the party.

They also seem to believe this will detract from their appalling austerity agenda and how they are prosecuting the hardest and most destructive of Tory Brexits.

Where this may rally and rouse a bit more of the unionist core vote across Scotland, it will not get them off the hook that this is a general election where this Tory Government will be judged. I have sat almost in horror as I have witnessed this party descend into a nasty right wing collective, something approaching Ukip with ministerial cars.

Contemporary innovations of nastiness, such as the obscene rape clause and capping benefits to third children, now defines them.

This week the assault moves on to pensioners, as they become the next vulnerable group to be targeted with a potential U-turn on the triple lock.

I am also immensely proud to stand on my local record of 16 years of service.

Everyone in Perth and North Perthshire will know someone I have assisted and they will also see how I have stood up for the area, from helping secure city status for Perth to saving rural phone boxes in Glen Lyon.

All this faux outrage over a misrepresentation of a “retweet” on social media is simply counter productively annoying the voters of Perth and North Perthshire, especially when this outrage is manufactured by a list Tory MSP who regularly embarrasses himself on Twitter.

This is an election that has been called for the most cynical of purposes.

It has nothing to do with “uniting” behind the Tory’s hard Brexit but everything to do with taking advantage of the chaos in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

Voters across Scotland – tired of four elections in a year – should make sure they get out to punish this Tory Government for so blatantly trying to destroy all opposition to them in Parliament.

Added to that, there are also 26 Conservative MPs under police investigation, with decisions about convictions due in the next few weeks.

Now, call me cynical but the prospect of losing a Parliamentary majority of 18 in these circumstances must at least be a factor in this election being called now.

This is an important and critical election and in Perth and North Perthshire it will be either a Tory or an SNP MP.

A vote for the SNP is a vote to end austerity and for investment in our public services.

And it is a vote to ensure that the future of Scotland – the kind of country we are – will be decided not at Westminster but in Scotland, by the Scottish people.

I have watched the Tories descend into a nasty, right wing collective

Picture: PA. Theresa May campaigning in South Wales in an election Pete believes has been called only to serve the Tories’ narrow self-interests.