Even the psychic can’t predict the impact of a Brexit backlash
IT’S a dreich afternoon on Dalry Road. Folk pop from trendy cafes and a Polish deli; in and out of the Co-op. Despite election uncertainties and its offers of psychic readings and ‘Tea and Tarot – £15,’ demand at The Shining Light isn’t brisk.
The first young Nationalists are mustering. Press photographers huddle like wildebeest by a waterhole. Someone asks: ‘Whom are we all waiting for?’
‘Angus Robertson,’ I confide. ‘The SNP candidate…’ Gorgie and Dalry are the gritty western end of Edinburgh Central, a constituency on whose recapture almost certainly hinges Nicola Sturgeon’s hope of an overall majority. The division has been fickle.
It was safely Labour until 2011, and then sensationally fell to the Nats, before Ruth Davidson unexpectedly won it in 2016. As the appointed hour nears, I look up and down the road for Angus Robertson, whom I first met in 19 7 when he was still at school.
Even then he was in with the SNP bricks and in due time, in 2001, Robertson became MP for Moray – until four years ago he was unexpectedly ousted by Douglas Ross. So I expect a heavy man in suit and topcoat complete with the rich jowls of someone in his sixth decade.
It takes a few moments before
we realise the lithe figure padding towards us with a vast box of SNP leaflets is, in fact, the candidate. Bejeaned, tieless, in trainers and jacket, already mugging for the photographers, there is notably less of Angus Robertson than there used to be.
‘Are you going to win?’ I call. He grimaces, doubtless recalling yon dark night in Elgin. ‘I’ve been in politics too long to make predictions, but we’re fighting it very hard.’ There is Nationalist bitterness at being blindsided five years ago.
‘We were complacent,’ murmurs one activist, ‘and got humped in the postal vote…’ By the time Robertson, pictured, has posed for snaps, several passers-by have brushed his jacket to wish him well or declare they have voted for him. But in this gritty redoubt, one would expect the Nationalists to do well, and still more with so experienced and formidably briefed a candidate.
‘To understand Edinburgh Central, you’ve got to remember the railway,’ he says. ‘North of the railway is Stockbridge, Comely Bank, Inverleith, Broughton – affluent, educated, nice houses, inclined to vote Tory.
‘South of the track is the Dumbiedykes, the Old Town, the south side, Haymarket, Gorgie and Dalry, where the mass of our support is. Studenty, ethnic, traditional working class. We’ve got to get our vote out there, then eat into the northern vote – and the Conservatives have to do the opposite. If there is a high turnout, we’ll win.’ Has Brexit made a difference? ‘Huge. Do you know how many EU nationals are here? Over 7,700 – that’s over a tenth of the electoral roll. And we’ve written to them all. Nobody else has.’ He adds: ‘We’re marking known supporters with door-hangers’ – Robertson proffers a sort of leaflet-hook in the party’s waspish livery – ‘and from later on my teams will be knocking them out, as we say, making sure they go to the polls.
‘There are so many tenements in this seat. It’s amazing how much fitter I’ve got.’ ‘You’ve visibly lost weight,’ I say. ‘Yes. Stairs – and the baby. We’ve a 22-month-old at home…’
With so disciplined a campaign and the Tories hamstrung on Brexit it would be a brave man who would bet against his victory, or his excellent prospects of the SNP leadership some day, if he romps home.