It’s been an eventful week. We’ve had floods in Largs, Fairlie, Irvine and many other parts of North Ayrshire. We’ve had a flurry of snow and freezing conditions. We’ve had Jeremy Corbyn reveal that we should perhaps keep Trident, but just renew the subs and send them out to sea with no warheads on them (the military equivalent of playing poker with see-through cards). Another scandal hits the SNP with one of their councillors being suspended for sending Islamophobic texts, the latest of many scandals to rock the party – bearing in mind two of their MPs have already resigned the party whip since May.
I was therefore quite bemused by reading Patricia Gibson MP’s recent column in the Herald. She talks of the UK being "dragged into another military conflict in the Middle East". Instead, I presume, that she would rather sit by and do nothing whilst we watch the devastating scenes on TV of ISIL taking over towns in Syria creating misery for innocent civilians. A majority in Westminster voted to take decisive action against specific targets, extending the campaign which previously had to stop at the border with Iraq. Were I the MP for North Ayrshire and Arran I would have voted for this action to ensure we disable these despicable tyrants.
If you think that bemused me, I was quite taken with the statement from our local MP that we should back the SNP "to ensure we continue to protect our NHS, keep education free and ensure crime remains low".
Would that be the same SNP which, after nine years of power in Holyrood, has presided over catastrophic failures in our NHS, education system and policing?
An NHS which is seeing a rise in waiting times for appointments, consistent missed targets in A+E and a new West Scotland super hospital where ambulances are queueing for half an hour just to get into casualty. A real-term reduction in spending on the NHS (compared to an increase in England). A ‘health check for the over 40’s’ policy abandoned.
An education system where college numbers have plummeted to their lowest level since the SNP took power, increased pupil: teacher ratios and a drop in people from poorer backgrounds going to university.
Or perhaps Police Scotland. A doomed obsession with centralisation which has led to call centre disasters, voluntary redundancies to try balance its books and morale at an all-time low.
Let’s not even venture into its Transport failures. We learn this week of an abandonment of a plan to better connect Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Patricia Gibson is entirely correct about one thing. We should think about the SNP when we go to the polls this May. We should think beyond their "only we stand for Scotland" war cries and instead judge them on their record. The political landscape may have changed in 2015, but it is still changing and the Scottish Government should be ready for a credible opposition from me and my colleagues in the Scottish Conservatives.