Councillor Robin Currie is the man who sold his constituents for his party. Back on 25th November 2012, the Liberal Democrat Islay councillor changed his promised vote and supported legally non-compliant proposals to close Keills school.
He did so to ensure that his party could become a partner in a disgraced council administration; and so that he might himself become a much better paid senior councillor.
One would have imagined that this was a pretty tricky record on which to fight for re-election – but it seems as if Mr Currie feels that he has a second electoral taint that is very much more damaging,
Just like his fellow LibDem votechanger, Councillor Rory Colville from South Kintyre, Robin Currie makes absolutely no mention of his party affiliation on his election advertisement (above) in the Islay newspaper, The Ileach.
Mr Currie clearly feels that the party to which he belongs and for which he threw away so much is electorally toxic.
Yet, in office, he’s been a good boy and has followed his party line without a trace of rebellion.
He backed a second set of equally unable school closure proposals. He binned social day care provision for the most vulnerable folk in Argyll.
We’d have thought that Ileachs would care a great deal more about these actions than about party affiliations – but Mr Currie must believe that Ileachs don’t care a jotter about rural schools or about the disabled and the troubled.
The vote on 3rd May will show where the values of Ileachs are pitched.
Robin Currie and Rory Colville are not alone in their distancing from the party to which we understand they still belong.
Councillor Alison Hay from Mid Argyll mentions the Scottish LibDems only once in her election leaflet – in very tiny print at the bottom.
All three were nominated and are standing as Liberal Democrat candidates.
One assumes that people belong to a political party because they believe in the way it sees the world and in what it does to see that vision come true. In this case, to be true to the electorate as well as to their party, they should be campaigning on its values and its performance.
There is something profoundly shoddy about disguising a continuing political affiliation for presumed personal advantage.
Surely a bit of reticence on the part of LibDems is understandable after their volte face to get into bed with the Tories at Westminster and the subsequent consequences, where they are carrying the can at every turn.
More remarkable up here in Lorn is the statement that appears in The Oban Times under that doughty independent, Duncan MacIntyre’s picture where he roundly rejects “political” affiliation but proudly proclaims his unionist credentials. That’s our Duncan for you; we may not know what he is for but we do know what he is against -up to a point!
This may to be the start of a new movement -Non Political Independent Unionists. An exciting future beckons.
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Chris Lambert,standing in the Cowal Ward as a independent was LibDem councillor for Kirn for a number of years. I wonder if he is still a LibDem?
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Is Gordon Chalmers, the ‘Independent’ candidate from Tobermory, still an SNP member and office bearer? If so, why does he not stand under the SNP banner?
I believe he was SNP branch treasurer in 2007 and stood as an ‘independent’ back then too.
It happens to virtually all parties. I’d prefer candidates were upfront about affiliations and loyalties. Doesn’t look good to hide.
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Mairi, Gordon is no longer an SNP member and hasn’t been for some years. It’s not possible to stand as an independent and remain a member. Not sure about other parties.
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