Ayr by-election 2000

'Frustration with Dewar among back-bench MSPs is evident in every whispered conversation in the parliamentary complex. Insiders believe backbenchers will cool off when the administration starts making headlines for tackling poverty, housing, hospital waiting lists and unemployment, instead of kerb-crawling for sex with prostitutes.'
Kenny Farquharson in the Sunday Times, 30 th January 2000.

Election fever takes hold in Ayr

BBC Scotland political correspondent Elizabeth Quigley looks at the battle to win the Scottish Parliament's first by-election

From BBC News

With their rosettes pinned on proudly, the activists tramp round the streets of Ayr, Troon and Prestwick.

They're all out there - almost regardless of party. Behind the scenes, the latest technology is being used to work out who to target and where to concentrate their resources.

But the traditional methods are definitely to the fore in the fight for Ayr.

It doesn't matter how much a candidate has been coached in media communication or soundbites, he or she has to know how to speak to the public.

Press conferences and staged walkabouts are still happening - but the parties seem to have realised that journalists from outside the constituency don't have votes and it is probably more worthwhile to concentrate on meeting the local people.

Traditional hustings are also alive and well. In Troon, one of the local churches staged such a meeting.

The undecided

More than 100 people turned up to hear eight of the candidates speak and there did seem to be a large number of the audience who genuinely had not yet decided who to vote for.

Labour has a majority of just 25, the Tories held the seat for many years before 1997 and the SNP is fighting hard - and it looks like there are voters out there ready and willing to be wooed.

So what are the issues on which this seat will be won and lost? With the emphasis in the Press recently on the planned repeal of Section 28, that matter would surely figure high in the voters' minds?

Well, apparently not, if the Troon hustings was anything to go by. The only person keen to highlight this was William Botcherby.

Standing as the Scottish Independent "The Radio Vet", he has based his campaign on keeping Section 28 - section 2a in Scotland - which prohibits the promotion of homosexuality in schools.

Instead the audience wanted their views on jobs in the area, the future of air traffic control at Prestwick Airport and Scottish bank notes.

'What about the beach?'

One member of the audience wanted to know what the members of the panel would do about improving the state of Troon beach if elected.

Stuart Ritchie, for the Lib Dems, said councils should really be getting more money from central government - pointing out that some Lib Dem MSPs planned to vote against the governmentÀs financial settlement for local government because it wasn't enough.

The Tory candidate John Scott blithely said the money would have been available if South Ayrshire Council had been under Conservative control before trying to move on to attack the government for the rising cost of the new parliament building.

The audience, however, wasn't having any of it - they wanted him to concentrate on local issues.

Labour's Rita Miller, a councillor, found herself having to defend the local authority's decisions face to face with the people who used its services.

And the SNP's Jim Mather had to explain his party's public trust proposals for Prestwick to an audience not of political journalists but to the people directly involved - air traffic controllers.

Public transport was also a popular theme. In a rare reference to Section 28, the Greens' Gavin Corbett quipped that it might have been better if Brian Souter of Stagecoach had spent the £1m he used for the Keep the Clause campaign, on buses.

He then earned the respect of the audience if not their votes, by excusing himself and leaving before the end of the discussion - because, as the chairman explained, he was heavily dependent on public transport!

With several more hustings and public debates to go, the battle for Ayr looks like being fought equally in local ways and on local concerns as much as on the national stage.

3 rd March 2000

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