Interesting Links for 02-09-2015

[andrewducker]

• Scotland's only Lib-Dem MP is going on trial - on TV!
  • Originally posted as "Scotland's only Lib-Dem is going to trial". Which would be close, but not entirely accurate
  • (tags: politics law Scotland tv )
• I found the person who created the pyramid joke I went viral with! (Or rather, they found me)
  • (tags: viral Twitter )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

The timing of the Carmichael trial is pretty bad for the Liberal Democrats, just at the begining of the long campaign for Holyrood. There's a reasonable prospect they could be forced in to a by-election or that the trial could drag on with Carmichael having to give evidence or both.

My own amateur modelling based on recentish opinion polls puts the Lib Dems on 1 seat in Scotland, Sheltand, and the Carmichael affair, if it drags on either in the courts or through a by-election can only damage their prospects.

The worst case for the Lib Dems coming out of this is that by the summer of 2016 they have no Scottish MP's, MEP's MSP's and start preparing for the 2017 Local elections looking to lose seats. That's pretty grim.

[andrewducker]

This is why I said, when this all came out, that he should have been out of the party - for its own sake, if nothing else.

I am so not interested in helping rebuild a party when the doorstep conversations would revolve around this kind of thing.

[danieldwilliam]

No, it would be hard thing to be part of.

A bit uncomfortable to be campaigning for him in any form and personally wearing to have it come up as an issue on the doorstep all the time and to become personally associated with it.

[andrewducker]

It's remarkably grim, and the sheer awfulness of it, combined with the reaction from both Farron and people I otherwise respect, has entirely put me off any inclination I'd have to go out and try and help the Lib-Dems win any votes.

I just have no time for any organisation that thinks his actions were ok, or that it won't be a massive drag on the party in the run-up to the Holyrood elections. And the thought of dealing with that is enough to make me want to go and hide under the duvet, not go and have hard conversations on the doorsteps.

[gonzo21]

Lovely, that's exactly what the LDs need to rebuild their reputation. Choice snippets of that interrogation will be aired on national television, and the LDs will still be paying for it at the next GE.

Politically, he should have been expelled from the party when the story broke.

[andrewducker]

Yup.

[gonzo21]

You know it just occurred to me that I don't even know who the new leader of the party is, they've been invisible on the news since the election.

[skington]

It's Tim Farron, but it was always going to have been Tim Farron, so maybe that's why he wasn't on the news? Same as why there presumably wasn't much about Kezia Dugdale becoming Labour leader in Scotland.

[cmcmck]

The Carmichael business is bound to create further tensions up in the northern isles too- there has been a real dislike of the games being played by the SNP locally over this matter which I suspect may backfire on them when the by election comes round.

Nobody has yet told the locals that Mr Gladstone is dead.......

That said, he should have had the sense to stand down when this all blew!

[danieldwilliam]

My dad is up there at the moment. In fact, he's an elector. I shall, enquire of his keen political mind what he thinks his fellow Orcadians are thinking.

[cmcmck]

I know not all my friends up there are fans of Carmichael, but then they're not all fans of the Nats either.

It's not altogether surprising that the thought of home to the motherland (ie Norway) is still around as an idea. The design of the local flag is no accident!

[danieldwilliam]

It's a poor choice for the Northern Islanders between a dubious character and a party whose main platform planks have only limited appeal.

I could see an independent winning or someone with a strong local reputation

[nancylebov]

The hazards of a mail-order monad-- philosophy humor.

[octopoid_horror]

Kevin Conroy is by far my favourite Batman.