Balloons and bubbly at the street party
THE First Minister did her celebrating at Bute House while the new leader of the Opposition did hers in Edinburgh’s historic Grassmarket.
As for the fifth-placed Lib Dems, they did theirs with a bottle of Prosecco and some balloons on a pavement near a Toby Carvery on the road out of town.
Yet there was genuine delight on the face of leader Willie Rennie over his party’s performance. No doubt he had dared to imagine just how abysmal it could have been.
Perhaps, too, his mood was lightened by his own personal victory over the Nationalists in the part of the country most dear to him.
There had been no doubting the indefatigable Mr Rennie’s commitment to the cause as he gamely remained on message in the most trying of circumstances.
In one infamous TV interview, two large pigs were getting amorous in the background. At the launch of his party’s manifesto, he had to have three goes on a fiery volcano slide which seemed regrettably evocative of the Lib Dems’ own trajectory. And, through a series of live TV debates, he remained chipper in the face of the knowledge he was the one most likely to be speaking when audiences chose to put on the kettle.
Yet through sheer doggedness and self-belief Mr Rennie became a constituency MP yesterday, winning almost 44 per cent of the vote and establishing a comfortable majority over Rod Campbell, the SNP candidate almost everyone said would beat him.
‘I am now the MSP for the street my dad grew up in in Cupar in the Kirkgate,’ said 48-year-old Mr Rennie. ‘I am now the MSP for the church where my grandfather was the minister. I am now the MSP for all my friends and family who live locally.’
And, casting an eye to his left, where former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Campbell of Pittenweem stood, he added: ‘I am now the MSP for the man who is standing next to me here, who was the MP for North East Fife for almost 30 years, so it is just a tremendous thing.’
Mr Rennie added that Menzies Campbell was the first politician he had ever voted for.
Did the likeable Fifer believe he had a prayer of returning to Holyrood as a constituency rather than a list MSP? ‘Yes,’ he says, but no ‘b ***** would believe me. I hope they listen to me next time.’
He added: ‘In politics it’s about the direction of travel. We had people saying, “I was SNP and am now with you”; saying “I was Conservative and I’m now with you” or “I used to be with you, I went away, I’m coming back”.
‘People queued up at the people carrier yesterday to see me. That tells you that you are winning. I’ve also known when I’ve lost.’
The celebration party may have been small – and lacking in pizzazz. Just the one bottle of bubbly, and close inspection showed it was not champagne, but Prosecco.
Even when the party’s UK leader Tim Farron joined them on the pavement, most of the pedestrians on St John’s Road in Corstor- phine were simply interested in getting past.
Mr Farron said of the victorious Alex Cole-Hamilton [Edinburgh Western]: ‘In many ways he’s the poster boy of the Liberal Democrat fightback.’
He added: ‘It really seriously feels like we’ve turned the corner and I think Willie has been an exceptional leader for us here. I think his campaign has been joyful but I also think it’s been on the money in terms of talking up the issues that people are bothered about – education, mental health, good quality police service.’
He added: ‘I’m delighted to be here to give a pat on the back to the whole team who have played a blinder.’
The reality of their ‘blinder’, of course, is the Lib Dems now have fewer MSPs in the Scottish parliament than the Greens. And, for all its success in channelling resources into target seats and winning them, its share of the vote across all 73 of Scotland’s constituencies is a meagre 7.8 per cent.
Yet it is clear that many of those toasting the turning of a corner on the edge of Edinburgh yesterday expected a gloomier result still.
The Lib Dems won four constituency seats to Labour’s three. The party has no fewer MSPs in the new parliament than it had in the last.
With these fig leaves now in place, Scotland’s fifth political force presses on.
‘People queued up to see me’ ‘Poster boy of Lib Dem fightback’