Carmichael’s ‘quickie divorce’ from Tories should fool no-one, says Skene
SNP parliamentary candidate Danus Skene has described isles MP Alistair Carmichael’s attempt to distance himself from his Tory UK coalition government partners as “the most opportunistic of quickie divorces”.
Mr Skene said it was a move that was unlikely to fool the Orkney and Shetland voters, who had suffered under the austerity cuts dealt out by the Tories, propped up by the Liberal Democrats in the disastrous UK coalition government since 2010.
He was reacting to Mr Carmichael’s speech on Friday at the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference, where the Scottish Secretary accused the Tories of wanting to create “a right-wing, dogmatic, self-centred, ideologically-driven … dystopia”.
Mr Carmichael said the Tories were “wielding the axe – just because they can”.
However, Mr Skene said: “There is something unpalatable about a man who, as deputy chief whip, ensured that his party helped vote through damaging Tory policies, and who is now attempting to put clear yellow water between himself and his coalition colleagues.
“It has all the appearance of the most opportunistic of quickie divorces – and it should fool not a single one of his constituents.
“Mr Carmichael is doing his best to ignore the opinion polls that leave him, in his own words ‘at best I will be the last man standing’.
“Well there is still plenty of time before voters go to the polls for real, and Mr Carmichael can be assured that the Northern Isles SNP members will be campaigning right up until the last minute to prove him wrong.”
