Forget the stunts, Ed, meet real voters
AFTER many years of following general elections I can’t recall a campaign as stage-managed as the tour of the British Isles by Ed Miliband. How many members of the general voting public has he actually been in contact with, or are all the people he is meeting Labour activists? The latest stunt, which saw a young lady jumping off the Labour bus then taking a selfie with Ed Miliband as if she had never met him, was laughable. The most annoying nature of these actions is the contemptuous way in which the Labour Party views the general public by believing we are taken in by this play-acting. We want to see politicians meeting the people on the streets, not preaching to the converted. Our political leaning to the Americanisation of British campaigning e.g. the TV debates, the rallies in front of party members, seems to be taking hold. We need real campaigning – warts and all.
M. HARRISON, Edinburgh. APPARENTLY some English voters want to vote for Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. Of course this isn’t possible, since not only is the First Minister not standing for a seat in England, she is not even standing in Scotland for election to a Westminster seat. While she is an elected MSP, let us remember that she was not elected by the people of Scotland as First Minister; Alex Salmond was, but decided to resign after his defeat in the independence referendum. Miss Sturgeon was elected solely by the SNP party faithful. So the UK faces a situation whereby the unelected leader of a minority party may decide who will be the next Prime Minister and may plan to dictate a radical policy agenda. Let us never forget that Miss Sturgeon’s over-riding ambition is to destroy the UK.
MARTIN REDFERN, Edinburgh.
WHEN the present First Minister took office I had some hope that the days of her predecessor’s bluster and martinetstyle of rule had gone. But Nicola Sturgeon’s iron-fist control of her party and her delusions of grandeur are little changed from those of her mentor. It is now merely a matter of the empress having no clothes, not the emperor. No makeover or spin can alter the underlying reality. The SNP’s sky-high poll ratings are in great part due to promising Scotland’s desperate have-nots a cornucopia of benefits that somehow or another will cost nothing. Does anyone believe that, if given the opportunity, the SNP will do anything other than try to destroy the UK? ALExANDER McKAY
Edinburgh.