DOUGLAS Ross visited the Borders this week ahead of the Scottish Parliament election on May 6. The leader of the Scottish Conservatives was in Coldstream yesterday (April 29) as part of the party’s campaign trail. Mr Ross was joined by fellow Conservative Rachael Hamilton, who is hoping to be re-elected as the Holyrood representative for Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire next week.
READ MORE: Mr Ross said: “Voters here in the Borders can send the SNP a clear message on May 6 that they don’t want another divisive referendum. “All our focus should be on our recovery and rebuilding our communities. Instead, Nicola Sturgeon wants to drag this area back to the politics of division and through another independence referendum during our recovery phase.
Douglas Ross: Borders has visit from Scottish Tory leader peeblesshirenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from peeblesshirenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Setting rules about visiting Scotland or England borders on the stupid
If they win independence and re-join the EU a hard border with customs posts and immigration checks would be necessary
The safest Conservative seat in Scotland is Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire
In the Asda supermarket in Carlisle the aisles regularly echo to the sound of Scottish accents, as couples do their weekly shop. It is, after all, a much bigger store than most in their neighbourhood.
In the Gretna Gateway Outlets Village, only a few miles away, it was almost impossible this week to get into one of the massive car parks as English shoppers arrived in their droves to pick up the many M&S, Ralph Lauren, Nike and other bargains that are not available at home. It’s far from a great trek, after all, as the centre is only a few hundred yards from the border with their homeland.
Winner of 2017 by-election: Rachael Hamilton (Conservative) OF the many extraordinary victories in the SNP’s Westminster landslide, arguably the most impressive of all was Calum Kerr’s win in the normally unfavourable territory of Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, right on the Border. But to achieve that required a considerable slice of luck – he took just 37% of the vote, and that was only sufficient due to the Liberal Democrats retaining a big enough minority of the Unionist vote to keep the Tories down to 36%. Essentially Kerr caught a sweet spot as the LibDems were on their way down and the Tories were on their way up. The window of opportunity soon closed – in 2019 Kerr took a bigger 39% vote share but still lost to the Conservatives’ John Lamont by a significant margin.
Blame game: Row over who is responsible as shocking rise in Scots food bank use is laid bare
Blame game: Row over who is responsible as shocking rise in Scots food bank use is laid bare The SNP has and the Scottish Conservatives are at loggerheads over who is to blame as a charity said it had been handing out the equivalent of nearly one emergency food parcel ever seven minutes to Scots children during the pandemic. Some 220,000 emergency food parcels have gone out at Scots food banks run by the Trussell Trust charity between April 2020 and March 2021 - a 63% rise on this time five years ago. That s a parcel every two-and-a-half minutes.