THEY seek him here, they seek him there, they seek that candidate everywhere. Yes, the diary hears the SNP’s elusive Fulton ‘No show’ MacGregor struck again this week, ducking yet another hustings in Coatbridge & Chryston, to the fury of a 100-strong audience. No Show, a pawn in a local SNP feud who improbably boasts he’d be a “stronger voice” for the area, claimed a “prior commitment”. It turned out to be a community litter pick. From the mood in the room, it seems many voters think he’s been treating them like trash too.
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Indeed, the night’s biggest applause went to a chap who thundered about the discourtesy and reliability of missing candidates. “If they’re not here for you now, when are they ever going to be there for you?” In the hope of smoking him out, No Show’s critics have now photo-shopped his face onto a Where’s Wally? cartoon called #WheresFulton?
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The Tory hopeful didn’t make it to the hustings either, but at least sent a substitute. Airdrie & Shotts candidate Eric Holford gamely struggled along on his mobility scooter. “You’re a Conservative and you’re taking a lot of flak in this room,” one man told him. “That’s what we’re here for,” the valiant Mr Holford replied.
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Paul McGarry, top of the LibDem list in Central Scotland, is always quick with a quip. Maybe too quick. Telling voters how shopping centres could help small start-ups by leasing them more empty units, he said: “There may be a few BHS ones going cheap.” Too soon? Yeah, too soon.
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Finally, a reader forwards a flyer from Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity, which promises an IndyRef2 bill and Freedom! in 2020, exactly 700 years from the Declaration of Arbroath. The people of Scotland were subjected to “a tsunami of lies, bullying and distortions” in 2014, fumes the great sunbed socialist of yesteryear. Aren’t you getting mixed up with your perjury trial, old chap?
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