Dear Mr Alex Cole Hamilton, Lib Dem Candidate,
You recently sent me a personalised leaflet, seeking
my vote later this week.
Now call me an old cynic, but photos of yourself and
the sitting Councillor, Robert Aldridge, didn’t exactly scream empathy or
understanding with myself as an older woman.
Couldn’t you think of portraying
at least one older woman on…. Wait a minute. You did and that was exposed as a
‘untruth’. Remember that older, voting woman leaflet? Discredited? Discarded? Gone to the big shredder in the sky?
Alright, let’s move on. With austerity continuing to
decimate people’s lives and well-being you chose to highlight ‘5 points to
combat pollution’.
Mmmmm, I’m not convinced you’re seeing the bigger picture here:
perhaps some policies to ensure improving education, from nursery upwards; routes into employment; apprenticeships?
OK,
the SNP seems to have stolen a march in certain areas, so how about detailing
how you could build alliances with your MP, and MSPs, working for a better
Scotland?
Hang on. You didn’t even include a picture of your
Scottish leader, your Scottish MP and your national leader. Could that be
something to do with their toxicity and each one, Rennie, Carmichael and
Fallon having received in excess of £35k from the JRR Trust?
Receiving money from
a Trust is one thing, but the process whereby LibDems appear to have managed a
coup on the Board ensuring a pro Lib Dem bias is another. The JRRT continues to
claim its primary activity is ‘fighting for civil liberties, human rights and
justice’. Could your leaflet show us anything the LibDems have done in those
areas? Justice and Carmichael just don't seem to go hand in hand, do they?
OK, I see you would have a problem even if you were to go back just a
few years to propping up the Tories.
No, come to think of it, it was worse than ‘propping up’. You
gave them the route into government via the coalition that saw the beginning of
attacks on the poorest in society, the most vulnerable, but then hey ho. ‘They’
don’t normally vote Tory and they’re not going to vote Lib Dem again, are they?
So what about a policy then? What about that penny for education? No mention of that in my
leaflet. Do you think that perhaps your record on being untruthful, and follow-
through specifically in regards promises and education is so tattered that we
just can’t believe LibDems.
But throughout that leaflet, you make great play of
the 2015 results in this ward: SNP 39%, Lib Dems 33%, Con 12%, Labour12% ; the inference and assumption being that Tories and Labour voters will vote for you, even if just to keep the SNP out. A kind of 'hold your nose' job.
You do voters a great diservice with that
assumption.
You’re assuming that we’ve fallen out of love with Independence,
and that we deny the need for pro Independence parties to pursue policies that
fight for Scotland.
Policies such as land and justice sector reform coupled to
strong negotiating skills that secure the very best from Westminster, a
government of one person, one vote, that has no mandate here.
You are assuming that the
2015 turn out here was a fluke; that the 24% of
Labour Tory unionists have closed minds, and are not able to see broken
promises and vows.
You need to believe that they have not watched with despair
the rise in food banks, the continuing assault on the less well off.
You need
to hope that voters can’t and don’t change their minds.
You are mistaken.
One of the most dynamic outcomes of 2014 has been the politicisation of voters,
Voters who are engaged, thinking and challenging, no longer content with old
parties, old ways.
My vote will not go to the Lib Dems or any unionist party.
It will go to ensuring Independence becomes a
reality, through the democratic process, will of the people,
whilst our elected representatives from across the Independence spectrum
focus on priorities that relate
to Scotland and the Scottish population.
Yours, Selma Rahman
PS....I resist the temptation to provide links to you and other Unionists named in this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment