Hold Your Nose

As you may remember when I discovered that our beloved Conservative Government had decided to make it a criminal offence, punishable by a £5000 fine or six months in prison, to own one or more unregistered hens, I said that I could not support the Conservative party in the forthcoming election. At one point I determined to stand as an independent or more recently for Reform. Neither of these came about, in part because the election was called much earlier than I expected, and in part because I have had my hands full with another matter. 

So here I am, fast approaching the coming election without an idea of who I will vote for. Having said that, I do not intend to vote tactically. However, there seems to be more reasons not to vote for a party than for it, and I suspect that I am far from alone.

In my seat of Paisley and Renfrewshire North there are six candidates. There have been some small boundary changes, but the incumbent is an SNP MP with whom I have had no contact; in all fairness though, he has been a pretty good constituency MP. In addition to him for the SNP, we have Green, Conservative, Labour, Reform and Lib Dem candidates.

I have not read the manifestos for each one, and the leaflets sent round tend to dwell on issues like the NHS which is a devolved matter over which the Westminster MP up for election has virtually no input. This is a common thread in Scotland. I have not seen anything in any of the leaflets about defence, foreign policy, energy, or social security which are Westminster policy areas. Almost all the campaigning seems to be on topics that are bread and butter issues devolved to Holyrood. So, once again the premise upon which the campaign is being conducted is at best diversionary and at worst dishonest.

Starting from the top then, we have:

Jen Bell from the Greens. The Scottish Greens are separate from the Greens in England and Wales. Whilst they are called the Green Party, they have an extremely left-wing outlook and have been pushing the equality, diversity, net zero, anti-fossil fuel extraction agendas. They are strongly anti-growth, anti-wealth creation but have a long list of things they want to tax and spend on, so not dissimilar to policies advocated by the Greens in the rest of the country. They are anti-business as well as naïve,  and will definitely not be getting my vote.

We then have David McGonigle for the Conservatives. As I am still a member I actually went to his selection meeting, which was interesting in that he was the only candidate and there were very few of us there to make the choice. I asked him why he was a Conservative and he seemed a bit non-plussed, but said it was for him about loyalty to his country (UK) and unity. I asked him about the hen issue and he said he was unaware of it, but that it seemed extraordinary. I may be a member, but the Conservatives just don’t deserve to win the election. They have been incoherent, lacking in strategic vision and policy innovation, and have managed to lose control of public spending.

Gavin Newlands the SNP candidate is up next. Decent local MP or not, I could never bring myself to vote for a man who seeks the destruction of my country, so he will not be getting my X.

Then we come to Andrew Scott for Reform. I was going to give him my support and then Nigel Farage came out with his comments about Putin and Ukraine. Whilst I think there is much in what Reform says it wants to do that has great merit, the Ukraine war is probably going to have a much greater impact on our lives than any politician in this election knows or admits to. I am not going to support a party lead by a man who shows admiration for the way Vladimir Putin runs Russian, and believes that NATO expansion has caused the invasion of Ukraine. So, sorry Andrew you will definitely not be getting my vote.

Next on the ballot is Alison Suzanne Watt Taylor for Labour. We know little about this candidate as the only leaflets we have received have been generic: one of which just had ‘Change’ on one side with no specific policies mentioned. A party which proposes to attack freedom of choice in education by adding VAT to school fees, thereby seeking to destroy the independent sector, clearly cares more about the extension of state control than children’s education. This is an insidious and vindictive policy, and on that alone my pencil will not be lingering over her box.

Finally, we get to Grant Toghill the Lib Dem, who would appear to be a perfectly reasonable sort of chap. However, the Lib Dems, led by would-be stunt man Sir Ed Davey, have a bit of a hodgepodge of policies. They are wedded to the green agenda, but have not spelt out how they are going to get there without making our lives a misery. They want to spend more on all sorts of public services, but are vague on tax – repeatedly reminding us how they were the first to propose a windfall tax, which was and is a bad idea with serious long term consequences. They seem to believe they can squeeze that goose even more, but will probably discover even BP will relocate out of the UK – thereby costing the Exchequer a considerable amount of money. I am afraid that I have always found the Lib Dem offering to be the most dishonest of the main parties, as they try to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

I have ruled everyone out, so whomever I do finally vote for will be on the basis of the least worse option. Either that, or I spoil my ballot paper which might be the most honest approach in a way. I have been telling everyone who asks that I will not be voting Conservative, and whilst they obviously don’t deserve to win I really don’t want Labour to be handed a supermajority. The Conservatives do deserve to be wiped out, but we need a credible opposition to hold Labour to account. I do have the luxury that the chance of David McGonigle winning is pretty tiny, so not having my vote is not going to have much impact – but equally, the total number of votes cast for a party does matter. I have spoilt my ballot paper before in a Scottish election but suspect this time I will probably hold my nose, swallow my pride and vote Conservative.

Alastair MacMillan runs White House Products Ltd, a manufacturer, distributor and exporter of hydraulic components to over 100 countries. He is a supporter of the Jobs Foundation.

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