Champagne Conservatism from Linlithgow's Candidate

For those of you who don't know, and that is probably most of you, Angela Stephenson the Conservative Candidate in Linlithgow and Falkirk East (pictured right) has a day job as Operations Co-ordinator for the Scottish Conservative Party.

You would expect in such a role that she would have been privy to the Party Chairman Eric Pickles edict about front benchers and PPCs not to be seen drinking champagne at the recent Party Conference in Manchester. After all it is an operational procedure to keep an eye on that and their limit of one unit a night of less upper class alcohol. However, the day after Cameron was snapped quaffing champagne the London Evening Standard had another picture (see below).

In it you will see Andrea seated flute in her left hand, behind her from left to right: Cllr Jason Rust, Conservative candidate for Edinburgh South West an unknown as yet Scottish Tory Boy wasn't giving away the identity; John Lamont, Member of the Scottish Parliament for Roxburgh and Berwickshire; and Cllr Mark McInnes, Director of the Scottish Conservative Party.

Now it would be hypocritical of me if I did not point out that I did enjoy the occasional drink, none of it champagne, at my own Party's Conference whilst relaxing in the evening. However, the Tories made a song and dance about not being seen to be drinking champagne, either to be celebrating too soon, or to be too ostentatious. So it really must have been a bad covert operation for the Operations Co-ordinator to manage to be snapped with two of the target Scottish candidates surrounded by bottles of the bubbly and charged flutes in hand.

There still also has been much change on her dormant website since I last reported it's inactivity. One really does wonder if she know what matters to the people of the constituency.

She Speaks - Tory Candidate Updates Website

Well it only took a year and almost three weeks but Andrea Stephenson has finally found something to talk to the people of Linlithgow and Falkirk East about. She has chosen the supbject of improving your High Street by giving it a makeover.

To highlight this initiative from the conservative concessions on the Nat budget has two pictures. One is at the cross in Linlithgow, possibly the most picturesque stretch of High Street in the constituency. The other looks like a renovation that is being carried out in Bo'ness. The poeple of Bathgate, Armadale and Whitburn with their more egalitarian appearance Main Streets wouldn't have fitted with the appearance of the Conservative PPC's website no matter that these are possibly of greater need of a makeover, with empty shop fronts and rundown, as opposed to historic, appearance of many others.

Judging by the summer clothing worn in the pictures I'd assume that neither of them was taken since the budget was passed either.

Slow News Year According to Tory Candidate

I'd just like to congratulate Andrea Stephenson the Conservative PPC for Linlithgow and Falkirk on not adding any news item to her own website since this day last year. Boy it must have been a really slow news year.

Maybe all the credit crunch stuff is not important to the people she is seeking to represent. The whole situation over HBOS and the RBS are irrelevant. But what about local issues and things that are affecting their everyday lives, don't they warrant any comment whatsoever. What about the fuel crisis and the effect it may have on Grangemouth or the rising cost of food or fuel for everyone stretching to make ends meet. Or anything about the Sun Microsystems pending job losses, or the Springfield development removing the nursing home from their planning application.

Maybe she is too cocooned in her Edinburgh office to find out what is affecting the people of Linlithgow, Grangemouth, Bathgate, Whitburn and elsewhere in Linlithgow and Falkirk East. She clearly is "in a unique position to help residents of Linlithgow and East Falkirk" being unable to find anything newsworthy for the people of the constituency for the last twelve months.

One thing that does appear to be true is that no matter is important to the people of Linlithgow and Falkirk East these last 366 days has not warrented anything new in the Conservatives eye.

West Lothian Labour in a Timewarp

Doing a little keeping up with the opposition I see that Labour in West Lothian are still encouraging people to vote for them on 3rd May....2007.

Sadly this is not the first time Labour websites in the area have been way behind. Mind you seeing as Tam Smith the Linlithgow and Falkirk East SNP Westminster PPC's own site is currently not available which at least is better that not updated since January like that of the Tory candidate Andrea Stephenson.