This continues to be a most remarkable election. I can’t recall any other contest in which so many parties were speaking to so many different audiences, many of them niche. This, to use a ghastly piece of jargon, has been a narrow-cast election. There is no UK-wide conversation; everything is local and particular.
It’s spawned some notable election literature. I’ve been forwarded one such piece of mail, delivered to lord knows how many voters in Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (the finest constituency in the land, by the way). This is what it looks like:
It reads:
Dear Resident,
I’m writing to thank you for the tremendous support that I have received from across the Borders during the last few weeks and months of this election campaign.
Over the last 6 months, I have knocked on over 20,000 doors and spoken to thousands of people in the Borders. I know that many local residents share my concerns about the need for more local jobs, improved transport links, the potholes in the roads and the possible loss of frontline NHS services, including the community hospitals. From the many letters and emails that I have received, I also know that the council’s decision to rake away the green waste bins still causes much anger.
Many areas still struggle to have adequate broadband and mobile phone connectivity.
I want to continue my work on these and the many other issues that local residents bring to me on a weekly basis.
In the Borders, we have a long tradition of voting to get the right person to represent us. However, with support for Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats collapsing in the Borders, it is now a straight choice between myself and an unknown SNP candidate.
Over the last 8 years I have demonstrated that I am a committed local campaigner for the Borders. I will always put the Borders first. I will always put the Borders people before party politics.
Best wishes,
John
ps: Independent pro-UK groups are advising voters in the Borders to vote for me to stop the SNP.
You will deduce that this missive comes from John Lamont, the Conservative and Unionist candidate in the constituency. You will note that you have to deduce this since the words “Lamont” and “Conservative” do not feature anywhere.
So this is aimed, chiefly, at Liberal Democrat (and, to a lesser extent, Labour) voters who voted No last September. Nothing wrong with that, of course, not least because preventing Lib Dems from flocking to the SNP is Mr Lamont’s second-most important task (the most important being holding on to the 34 percent he won in 2010).
And so, note, that it is Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats not Michael Moore’s Liberal Democrats. It is unfortunate that Mr Moore – dogged, decent, entirely respectable Mr Moore – will be one of this election’s innocent victims but there you have it. He will.
But don’t think Mr Lamont is in cahoots with Dave and George and Teresa and Boris and gods knows which other horrors. He’s not. He’s going to represent Borderers, not the Conservatives. Even if this means waging a one man jihad to get your green waste bins back. We cannot afford a bin gap. Least of all in Hawick.
Of course Mr Lamont could fight for some of these issues from his current perch as a member of the Scottish parliament but we shall let that pass.
And it might be wise to let pass, too, the suggestion that ‘We have a long tradition of voting to get the right person to represent us’ except that, now that I think on it, this seems rather cute. Because it suggests that Borderers were right to select Mr Moore five years ago even though, then as now, his opponent was one John Lamont.
But, hey ho, times change and now the right person – not least because he’s best placed to thwart the SNP surge – is Mr Lamont, not poor, dogged, decent, Mr Moore. If this is what is meant, it’s a neatish trick.
All politics is local, of course, even when it’s also national.
For what it’s worth, Mr Lamont is a good and hard-working candidate and I think he will win and represent the constituency with some distinction. Mr Moore may not deserve to lose but Mr Lamont may yet deserve to win.
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