Excellent news from East Lothian where Head of Media and blogger extraordinaire James MacKenzie (aka Two Doctors) is due to stand as the Scottish Green Party candidate in the upcoming General Election. I have no doubt James will make a tremendous contribution to the contest.
Indeed, it's shaping up to be quite a showing in that particular constituency.
Incumbent MP Anne Moffat is expected to be deselected in due course after losing the confidence of the local party with a new Labour candidate in place a mere couple of months before the polls open. This is Iain Gray's seat at Holyrood of course so a loss here would be particularly painful for the party.
The SNP 'won' the equivalent area in the European elections and run the local council (not always a good thing in elections to be fair, Glenrothes anyone?). For James there is the added intrigue of a nuclear power station being in the area at Torness, potentially a local hot potato that can be leveraged for extra votes. The Greens weren't too far off beating the Lib Dems here in the European elections in 2009 and the Lib Dems surprisingly lost their candidate Amy Rodger last year which can't help their chances.
SNP candidate Andrew Sharp, an ex-blogger himself, is surely the main challenger here and I've always fancied his chances of pulling off a surprise win to be honest.
Either way, and in many ways more importantly, with more bloggers filling the candidate spaces, I am increasingly hopeful that a few more PPCs will take me up on the Guest Post offer for this blog!
Good luck to James for the campaign!
5 comments:
Excellent news.
Hopefully next year will see him on the Lothians list, in which case I'll certainly be voting for his party.
Jesus, what newspaper did that picture come from? One Green MSP? Party leader Robin Harper? And I really doubt that James Mackenzie is 37...looking bloody good for his age if he is.
Good luck to him. The Greens aren't my party of choice but I have a lot of respect for them and wish him all the best.
I swear I'm 37, and hope I won't need to provide a birth certificate..
Also, Hythlodaeus, thanks for the vote of confidence!
That colourful scarf seems to be assaulting poor James.
As someone who grew up in Dunbar, I suspect that Torness, which is pretty much accepted in the local community, and provides a fair few local jobs, would be a vote loser if the SNP try that particular line.
Post a Comment