The prequel campaign for Argyll & Bute in the next general election is hotting up.

The Conservative candidate for Westminster, Gary Mulvaney, speaker at a recent meeting in  McColl’s Hotel,  Dunoon,  called on Liberal Democrat voters in the constituency to ‘come home’ to the Conservative.

The call refers to Argyll & Bute’s constituency history. It was a Conservative seat taken by Ray Michie in June 1987 for the then Liberal-SDP Alliance. She defeated the sitting Conservative MP, John Mackay.

Since then, Argyll & Bute has been a Liberal Democrat seat, inherited by Alan Reid after Ray Michie’s retirement before the 2001 General Election.

The Labour party is not a force in Argyll, although the 2001 General Election saw a revival of its fortunes driven by a very able candidate, Hugh Raven with votes by those who had not yet seen through the Blair illusion. Alan Reid said, after the result, that he had been quite nervous going into the Count because he was aware of the surge in the Labour Vote. Progressive popular withdrawal of support from the later Blair administrations and the current Brown one sees Labour unlikely to make it into visibility this time.

The SNP trailed in third place in the 2005 General Election but since then the political colour and performance of Scotland has changed. Argyll went SNP by narrowly voting in Jim Mather as its MSP in the 2007 elections to the Scottish Parliament.

The SNP Government’s strategic and operational capability  – driven centrally by the calibre of John Swinney as Cabinet Secretary for Finance, has strengthened that party’s position in the public’s trust. Mather’s personal performance as Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism has raised Argyll’s ambitions and given it a taste for an unfamiliar influence.

The Argyll & Bute seat is seen as a possible take by both the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives.

Mulvaney’s move now openly nails the specific battleground in Argyll. The fight will be for the Liberal Democrat vote.

Mackenzie will look to the extent to which Jim Mather has justified Argyll’s trust since he was voted its constituency MSP. Beyond mobilising those wishing to see an independent Scotland, Mackenzie will focus on the political advantage to Argyll of strengthening its alliance to the SNP, with influence where it matters, in Scotland.

Mulvaney is now already calling on a proportion of the Liberal Democrat vote to look to its roots and to vote for access to influence where the national power games are played out, at Westminster. It is recognised as probable that the 2010 election will see the nation reject Labour and vote in a Conservative administration for the first time since 1997.

Both of these candidates will challenge voters in Argyll to put Argyll first and vote for the influence which the Liberal Democrat sitting MP cannot offer. The best card the Lib Dems can play is to talk up the possibility of a hung Parliament where they would be king-makers.

For this card to be successful here, Alan Reid is going to have to say which side, in such a situation, his party would put into power. If the Lib Dem support will simply go to the highest bidder, such a stance will cut little ice in its appeal to the post-expenses scandal public. Voters are looking for something other than carpetbaggers, in person or party.

This fight for the Liberal Democrat vote will focus on two key areas:

• the track records in office of the SNP in Holyrood and the Conservatives in Westminster, working through the Scottish office (and we’ve just corrected a typo with SNP resonances  – ‘Westmonster’)
• the unionism versus independence issue, with a referendum on this possibly being put to the Scottish people towards the end of 2010 – after the General Election

Mulvaney is already opening up a position on these matters. At the same meeting in Dunoon he attacked the SNP on its separatism.

‘The SNP have a single objective and that is to break up Britain and Alex Salmond and his nationalist MPs will seek to pick a fight with a British government on every occasion. That won’t do Argyll & Bute any favours and it certainly will not help Scotland recover from Labour’s recession’.

He questioned what relevance the SNP would have in fixing Labour’s recession, how they would be able to tackle Britain’s debt burden and what contribution they would make in reforming the UK’s welfare system. ‘When the choice is between a Labour and Conservative government,  the SNP are simply not relevant to the British debate’.

He also called on Lib Dem voters to back the Conservatives to get Labour out of Downing Street.

Then he laid out the ground shared by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – on progressive politics and liberal democracy, citing the Conservative opposition to ID cards; its belief in social justice and the work done in this area by its former leader,  Iain Duncan Smith. Then he ran up the environmental flag, asserting that in David Cameron the Conservative Party has  a leader personally committed to the climate change agenda.

Then Mulvaney turned his fire on the sitting Lib Dem MP, Alan Reid – as both he and the SNP candidate, Mike Mackenzie, will have to do in their respective battles for gains in this sector of the vote. He said: ‘For 23 years in Argyll & Bute, we have had a Lib Dem MP and been on the political fringes. That’s not good enough, we need to be at the heart of British politics where influence matters.

‘So if you’re a Lib Dem voter asking yourself how Argyll can get influence and which Government will deliver on the things that matter to you, I would ask you to get the change you want and vote for David Cameron and the Conservatives’ – and for Gary Mulvaney, of course.

Alan Reid is going to have the fight of his life. He is certainly not looking at increasing his vote. He is looking to save enough of it to return to Westminster for his party.

It will be a tennis match, with Reid alone at one end of the court defending againt attacks from both Mulvaney and Mackenzie at the other end. But any winning smash each of them puts past him is as likely to benefit the other as themseves. Reid’s best strategy will be to find a way of setting them against each other, at least to dilute their assaults upon himself. If he gets disoriented in a blizzard of defending against simultaneous multi-directional attacks, he will lose – but to whom?

Note: For Argyll has just published 3 simultaneous articles on these two serious challengers for the Argyll & Bute seat at Westminster. These are:

• The For Argyll Political Challenge: the interviews
• Gary Mulvaney – no standard Tory
• Mike Mackenzie – a complex Nationalist
  

Related Posts

• Gary Mulvaney – no standard Tory (11)
• Jim Mather: over to us (20)
• SNP carries the fight to Bute (15)
• Conservatives sprinkle the Goldie dust on Argyll – but are they a team? (11)
• General Election in the offing and the misinformation begins (14)

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