Covid should be priority

Tactical voting could be deployed on May 6 by those looking to avoid another independence referendum.

That’s the view of Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Conservatives’candidate for the Perthshire North constituency in the upcoming Scottish Parliament elections.

Mr Fraser told the Blairie he thought the country’s focus should be on recovering from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and not another debate over whether or not to break-up the Union.

He said:“I think the biggest issue for everyone is looking at how we recover from Covid and how we rebuild the economy and public services like the NHS and education.

“I think almost exclusively that’s the number one priority for the voters and it’s our position that it should be absolutely the number one priority in this election and not another divisive independence referendum, which is what the SNP would be offering.

“Most interestingly, I think, is that there is – from the majority of people I’ve been speaking to – a majority of voters in the Perthshire North constituency who want to see Scotland remain as part of the United Kingdom and I think there is a large number of people talking about tactical voting because they don’t want to see another independence referendum.”

Reflecting on conducting an election campaign during the period of coronavirus-related restrictions, Mr Fraser said on Thursday last week:“It’s the most unusual election campaign that I’ve ever encountered.

“Normally the bulk of what we would do would be face-to-face canvassing, but we’ve simply not been able to do that at all.

“We’re still allowed to deliver leaflets door to door – but not in groups of more than two; we’re able to do canvassing by telephone and the third thing we’re doing more of is social media.

“We’re doing regular Facebook updates and Twitter posts but it’s certainly made it a much more challenging campaign than any one I can remember because the way you would normally reach out to voters is through doorstep canvassing or street stalls.

“We’ve often done street stalls in places like Blairgowrie and Coupar Angus on a Saturday morning, but obviously that’s not the case at the moment.

“The hustings that are taking place are all online ones – I’ve got about nine or 10 in my diary – but they’ve all been organised in the main by trade bodies like Perthshire Chamber of Commerce, for example.

“The traditional hustings where you’d be able to turn up to a town hall to grill the candidates just can’t happen this time.

“It’s actually very frustrating to be a candidate and not be able to engage with the public in the way we normally do.”

• The other Perthshire North candidates are John Swinney (SNP), Ryan Smart (Scottish Labour), Peter Barrett (Scottish Liberal Democrats) and Don Marshall (Scottish Family Party).

More pre-election coverage will be included prior to the vote.