Insulting

I just read an article on the BBC’s news website (“Tavish Scott says Alistair Carmichael faces ‘long road to recovery’”) in which the opinion of the local MSP Tavish Scott has left me feeling somewhat amused and bemused!

He is quoted in this article as stating, quite clearly, that there is, ‘political motivation’ behind the attempts to oust Alistair Carmichael from his seat – i.e. that the SNP and the Shetland ‘mob’ known as ‘We the people of Shetland’ are only SNP and Yes Scotland supporters.

I find Tavish’s words to be somewhat odd. Surely the reason Alistair Carmichael chose to leak the infamous memo was a prime example of ‘political motivation’ – no?

What other reason could there have been other than to smear Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP – from whom he was facing tough competition in his own very safe seat and with whom himself, and the rest of the Scottish Liberal Democrats (Tavish Scott most infamously perhaps), have always had an obvious political dislike and hatred towards the SNP.

So to suggest, as Tavish has done, that this whole campaign to remove Alistair Carmichael is nothing other than undermined by a sinister ‘political motivation’ is downright insulting to the people of Orkney and Shetland.

The Scottish Liberal Democrats would do well to confront their own blatant political motivation first before lording the politics bible over everyone else.

James Johnson
Aberdeen