Labour candidate, Kathleen Walker Shaw, who was later forced to admit that she was born in Staffordshire, and not Aberdeen as she initially claimed.
| 'Printfield Terrace was where we were originally and then we moved south after I was born.' Labour candidate, Kathleen Walker Shaw, who was later forced to admit that she was born in Staffordshire, and not Aberdeen as she initially claimed. | |
Kathleen Walker Shaw, 37, said she regarded herself as Scottish, but added: "I regret I went over the top in my answers to repeated questioning by a reporter following a press conference. I should not have said what I did and I apologise."
A copy of Ms Walker's birth certificate, published in a Sunday newspaper, records that she was born in Wordsley, Staffordshire. The newspaper said that she told a reporter she was born in Aberdeen. She is reported to have said: "Printfield Terrace was where we were originally and then we moved south after I was born." She then told the reporter she left Aberdeen at an early age, but that her family still lived in north-east Scotland.
She said yesterday: "I have never sought to mislead the people of North East Scotland. My campaign literature has been very clear, stating that I am 'from a north-east family', 'from an Aberdonian family', and that I and my husband both have 'our roots in the north-east'."
She went on: "Like many Scottish families who are spread far and wide, we regard Scotland and Aberdeen as our home. There has been a great deal of debate about who is a Scot during this campaign. I am a Scot. Born of Scottish parents. Made in Scotland."
She continued: "Perhaps it was my pride in being a Scot that led me to give an inaccurate account of my birthplace on that one hurried occasion."
A Scottish National Party spokesman said: "We are not really interested in the personal background of the Labour candidate. However, it does seem bizarre that any candidate in any election should be less than open about basic biographical details."
The issue has provided the campaign with much-needed interest. As the candidates move into the run-up to Thursday's poll, public reaction is ranging from the depths of apathy to mere disinterest.
Throughout Britain's largest Euro constituency, the general attitude to the fight is straightforward - "The SNP will stroll it - so can we just get this silly charade over with, please?"
The SNP leader, Alex Salmond, described the election at its outset as a "a two-way contest" between the Nationalists and Labour or, as he put it: "It is a straight choice between London Labour and Scotland's party."
The by-election was touted as the litmus test for next year's Holyrood poll, but it appears to have failed to engage the Scottish political debate.
The SNP is defending a near-impenetrable majority of 30,000 won by the late Allan Macartney, whose sudden death triggered the by-election.
Its candidate, Ian Hudghton has been ferried around the constituency in a new bus.
The SNP's press office decamped to Aberdeen to promote Mr Hudghton while supervising a press conference in a different location every day. The 47-year-old leader of Angus Council has shown a remarkable ability to be rather nice, but precious little else.
That made it all the more surprising when Ms Walker Shaw, first burst on to the scene to call the policies Mr Hudghton stands for "racist".
Bravely, or perhaps naively, Ms Walker Shaw, 37, attempted to light the touchpaper of the campaign.
Everyone stood back to watch the explosion and gleefully await the fallout.
Predictably, the result of the decidedly off-message outburst was not so much a big bang, as a small pop.
Despite the presence of such senior Labour figures as Marjorie Mowlam, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, the campaign has yet to generate significant interest.
Away from the predictable fight between Labour and the Nationalists, the Liberal Democrat and the Conservative candidates have, at least, provided a little local colour.
Keith Raffan, for the Lib Dems, deserves a few votes for being the most flamboyant of all the contestants. Throughout the Eighties, he was the Tory MP for a Welsh constituency. He was one of the MPs immortalised as the Dirty Dozen for campaigning for Michael Heseltine in the 1990 leadership race. Mr Raffan resigned as an MP and took up a career in public relations in the United States before returning to Britain and a new political party.
The Scottish Conservatives' candidate is Struan Stevenson, who hopes to revive the fortunes of the party once considered the natural representative of large swathes of rural north-east Scotland. However, he has been hard to find. He abandoned a walk-about in Aberdeen after 20 minutes last week when the city's wind finally got to him.
The contest for North East Scotland involves one in eight of Scottish voters and, six months before the election for Holyrood, the outcome cannot be ignored.
However, it seems the parties may be ready to do just that. "It's so close to Christmas and the weather's terrible. We're expecting a low turnout," is a mantra being heard from the mouths of them all.
The election is being fought by Harvey Duke (Scottish Socialist Party), Robin Harper (Green), Ian Hudghton (SNP), Keith Raffan (Scottish Liberal Democrat), Kathleen Walker Shaw (Labour) and Struan Stevenson (Conservative).
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