In the latest in our series, Niki Stark looks at the Scottish Liberal Democrat’s manifesto and Willie Rennie’s campaign so far:
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie certainly seems to be thoroughly enjoying this election campaign. He’s been churning out eye-catching campaign images – we’ve seen him on a zip wire, canoeing with his son, lunching with thera-pets and mucking out pigs (!) – and launched his party’s manifesto at a soft play where he spent the morning playing on the slides.
This upbeat approach reflects the party’s hope that the worst is now behind it following a series of disastrous election results since 2010. With the UK coalition now a fading memory, and the Lib Dems given a hammering across the UK last May, the hope is that the low point has been passed. Indeed Mr Rennie is confident that the Lib Dems have now turned a corner and can capitalise on what he sees as a weak SNP record in government.
The theme of the manifesto is “Be the best again” and centres around the assertion that Scotland’s once great services have been allowed to stagnate under the SNP. The party’s flagship policy is a massive investment in education in order to “make Scottish education the best again after it slipped to just average.” The Lib Dems want to make use of Scotland’s new tax powers to raise income tax by 1p across all tax bands. This “penny for education” will raise around £500 million annually to plough back into education – particularly into early years childcare, a pupil premium and college education. Similar to Labour, the party has challenged the SNP to be bolder with Scotland’s new tax powers and criticised its “timid” approach.
The manifesto’s other top lines centre around issues on which the Lib Dems have a strong track record. There is a focus on mental health, with a pledge to invest £500 million in mental health services, and their housing commitments include a target to prioritise new homes for social rent. They plan to restore traditional Scottish policing, by ending top down targets, and reverse the centralisation of public services by giving power back to local authorities and communities. There is also a strong focus on civil liberties as well as the promise of radical drug policy reform.
There isn’t a huge amount relating to business although the party does pledge to restrict future business development funding to companies that pay the Living Wage, support Scottish regional deals (similar to the city deal model) and carry out a full scale review of business rates.
While Mr Rennie is confident that the party has turned a corner, many will be very relieved if the party maintains its current five seats. The polls haven’t been particularly useful for predicting the fate of the party as some suggest they may do slightly better, others suggest they’ll hold steady while others suggest they’ll lose seats. It is clear that the party is in a fight for fourth place with the Greens. Mr Rennie’s pitch is that the five Lib Dems elected in 2011 “punched above their weight” during this parliamentary term and that electing more this time would allow the party to do “so much more”. By setting out an agenda that focuses on good old liberal issues, the party is doing the best it can to start to win back some of the support that it has lost over the last six years.
