Mike Mackenzie and Gary Mulvaney have been going head-to-head for six months now, with a series of articles on common topics in the For Argyll Political Challenge.

The rules we set prevented them from mentioning their own or any other party during these debates. We wanted to know – and we wanted our audiences to know – what their individual thinking was on issues that matter to Argyll and to Scotland. We didn’t want to be a vehicle for boring old political points scoring. Life’s far too short to waste in yawning.

The debates did what we hoped they would. They gave these two highly able and articulate candidates room to explore issues from teenagers to Trident and from marketing Argyll to energy policy.

Then we thought it would be both interesting and fair to do an interview with each of them at the end of the debating series. This would be an opportunity to find out about their individual politics alongside something about the sort of people they are and the lives they lead outside politics. Nothing is so death-dealing as the scripted parrots that are the machine politicians churned out like hydras under Blair and Brown.

In the pieces Mackenzie and Mulvaney wrote and in conversation with them, we discovered two men as far from machine politicians as you can get. Each is coming to politics with relevant experience in the world outside politics. Each is independent in thinking. Each demonstrates a complete absence of the spin that fools nobody and is ruining what vitality remains in British politics. Judge for yourselves – and enjoy the straight talking that is rare and invigorating.

At the foot of each interview is a linked list of the six articles each wrote during the challenge.

An interesting fact emerged from the two interviews. Neither of their parties – nor to the best of their knowledge, any other party – prepares its candidates for the work in Westminster prior to their arrival there. So neither candidate has any idea how, for example, to put down an Early Day Motion.

This says much for the amateurishness of the political parties. If they want to be effective in the House of Commons, they need their new MPs arriving well briefed, keen and ready to roll.

Yes, some candidates will not win because they are contesting seats safe for the parties of the incumbent MPs. But if a candidate is worth running, that candidate is worth investing in to give her or him confidence in their ability to get down to work without loss of time if they win. And in the next Westminster parliament there will an unusually large number of newcomers, in the fallout from the public outrage on MPs’ attitude to their expenses.

At the end of this series, which has provided ideas, provocations and insights in large measure to voters in Argyll, we would like publicly to thank Mike Mackenzie and Gary Mulvaney for the integrity with which they approached everything they did over this seven month challenge period.

We look forward to an election in Argyll & Bute which promises to be one of the most thrilling in Scotland and we look forward to seeing these two candidates bring to their campaigns the calibre they have shown in this series.

In this coming campaign every voter in Argyll & Bute will have strategic choices to make. The criteria they apply in making that choice will start with an evaluation of the individual calibre of the three serious contenders: Mike Mackenzie, Gary Mulvaney and the sitting MP, Alan Reid. All three candidates will work hard – if differently – for Argyll.

After that, the decision will be influenced by strategy. Alan Reid has been a hard working and honourable MP but he is a Liberal Democrat, a party making no headway south of the border and waning north of it.

The choice here will be between old loyalties (to a party and/or a person) and the wish for Argyll to have an additional voice where it counts – influence. Each voter will decide where they want that voice – that influence – to be heard and felt.

As an SNP member, Mike Mackenzie offers a voice and influence in the Scottish Government at Holyrood. As a Conservative, Gary Mulvaney offers a voice and influence in the British Government, at Westminster because there can be little doubt that the Conervatives will be in power. Alan Reid is now in the unenviable position of being unable to offer influence in either Government.

All bets are off. This is why Argyll & Bute will be the most ineresting campaign in Scotland. We’ve never had such simultaneous options before.

The photographs above – of Mike Mackenzie and Gary Mulvaney – are by copyright holder Rebecca Martin and may not be reproduced wthout permission.

Related Posts

• Gary Mulvaney – no standard Tory (11)
• Round 6: For Argyll Political Challenge (0)
• Last round of the For Argyll Political Challenge on Monday (0)
• Round 5 of the For Argyll Political Challenge (1)
• Gary Mulvaney: developing Argyll’s economy (2)

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