Rennie accuses rivals of ‘negative and aggressive’ campaigns as he
WILLIE Rennie has accused the SNP of stooping to a new low in the election with “personal, vicious campaigns” directed against Scottish Liberal Democrat candidates.
Launching his party’s General Election manifesto in Edinburgh, Mr Rennie said the fight in the party’s key target of Edinburgh West had become particularly unpleasant.
Accusing others of “pursuing negative and aggressive campaigning”, he said: “I’m afraid the SNP campaign in Edinburgh West has gone very low, but we’ve got a positive campaign.
“Some of my friends in the party have to go through quite a lot of difficulties in their election campaigns so to see them overcome personal, vicious campaigns is a joy.”
The LibDems are hoping to regain Edinburgh West, which was won by the SNP’s Michelle Thomson in 2015 and is now being contested by SNP candidate Toni Giugliano.
One of Mr Giugliano’s activists, Simon Hayter, last week accused LibDem candidate Christine Jardine of campaigning during the truce called after the Manchester terrorist attack.
Ms Jardine was in fact at her husband’s funeral in Clydebank.
Alex Cole-Hamilton, the MSP for the overlapping Holyrood seat of Edinburgh Western, also consulted his lawyers after an SNP leaflet said he was being investigated over expenses. Police have been looking at his 2016 election spending, but not his MSP expenses, as electors might have inferred.
The SNP insisted it was running a “positive campaign” across the country.
Mr Rennie said the election was “the chance to change the direction of the country” by rejecting both a Tory hard Brexit and a second independence referendum with the SNP.
He said his policy of a “modest” penny on income tax would pay for better education and mental health care, with the latter also helped by a penny on income tax on dividends.
He said: “This will get Scottish education back up to the best in the world again so that people have the skills to drive our economy.
“It will get people the mental health treatment they need so they can contribute too.
“With the Scottish economy teetering on the edge of a recession, the performance of Scottish education dropping down the international rankings and mental health services failing to deliver, the last thing our country needs is another divisive and distracting debate.
“Brexit poses real threats to jobs, security and funding for the NHS. That’s why we oppose it.
“The manifesto is a positive programme for Scotland inside the UK. We are clear. No independence referendum. Full stop.”
The manifesto calls for new mental health services in every GP practice, A&E department, police division and school, with a five-point offer on mental health for new mothers.
The party also wants a referendum on the final terms of the Brexit negotiations.
Mr Rennie said the LibDems were the only party campaigning to stay in both the UK and the EU.
He said that in a hung parliament his party would not enter coalition with either Labour or the Tories because both were pursuing a damaging Brexit.
The LibDems won a single Scottish seat in 2015, Orkney