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SCP to field candidate in General Election
The Scottish Christian Party is hoping to field a candidate in the forthcoming general election and a contest is to held in the early new year to select a candidate.
 A £30,000 campaign war chest has been promised to the Scottish Christian Party (SCP) candidate fighting the Western Isles constituency in the forthcoming general election. The party’s political candidate will be chosen in February after a US-style Open Primary contest open to all islanders.
This is thought to be just the second time the American system of allow all voters in an area to select a prospective candidate for an election in the UK. The first was in August when the Sarah Wollaston was picked to fight the Totnes seat for the 2010 general election for the Conservatives.
The candidate selection will be conducted by a secure internet vote and via a computerised telephone poll. The primary will be organised and controlled by the Electoral Reform Service though its £30,000 cost will be borne by the party.
Voting in the Primary will be between Thursday 21 January and Thursday 11 February 2010.
 Christian Party leader Rev. George Hargreaves who stood in the Western Isles as a SCP candidate for the Western Isles at the last general election pledged the campaign cash saying: “We are in it to win it. “Whoever wins the prize will be well resourced.”
“The £30,000 campaign fund is the maximum allowed under the law and we are spending a similar amount on the Primary."
The successful candidate will have a rented campaign office at his disposal in a prime spot in Cromwell Street in Stornoway town centre. The party plans to fight the SNP after blaming the Nationalists for launching a controversial Sabbath ferry into Lewis this summer while Sabbath trading is another issue troubling the party. Rev. Hargreaves has stated:
“In 2010 and 2011 the Scottish Christian Party shall run election campaigns based on building on the strengths of the Western Isles, not destroying them. We intend to see the people of the Western Isles united behind it uniqueness, not divided by its diversity.”
Mr. Hargreaves also believes that the Calman report could benefit the Scottish islands. He said that the 10 pence (income) tax should be used to advantage for the Western Isles and peripheral islands to attract new business and attract population to the islands
The presence of the Scottish Christian Party in the Western Isles election fight could well upset the two-horse race between the SNP and Labour. It will also impact on any opportunity or desire that there might be for a local Christian to stand as an independent.
 In the 2007 elections for the Scottish Parliament Mr. Murdo Murray, a former Technical Director with Western Isles Council stood as a List Candidate for the SCP.
Mr. Murray participated in a recent on-line discussion regarding the Sunday sailing issue and the wider subject of Christian representation in the political process.
 In the course of the discussion Christians Together interviewed Mr. Murray on a range of issues affecting the Western Isles. It is understood that Mr. Murray was not present at a recent public meeting in Stornoway hosted by Rev. Hargreaves.
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Christians Together, 24/12/2009
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Rosemary Cameron |
13/01/2010 21:59 |
The party put up the deposit when I stood in the 2007 election.
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Peter Carr |
14/01/2010 11:14 |
Wow! How much is a deposit these days?
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Rosemary Cameron |
14/01/2010 21:21 |
£500. You lose it if you don't get at least 5% of the vote.
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Peter Carr |
15/01/2010 08:41 |
Double wow! That's a lot of potential lost deposits, maybe as much as £60000, and that's not including previous lost deposits by SCP, and CP!
And then on top of that there are the campaign costs!!
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Alec (Guest) |
18/01/2010 14:43 |
Peter
Democracy would appear to be a pretty expensive business! I was once told that the idea behind the deposits was to stop loads of fringe parties jumping in who werent serious about it.
Mind you Screaming Lord Sutch managed quite well. Remember his Monster Raving Loonies beat the SDP in a Bootle bye-election..... there was a serious side to that - it finished off the Owenite SDP.
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Andrea Mac |
18/01/2010 14:56 |
And thank goodness there are ways to try to dissuade everyone and their granny from standing for election. Remember the debacle of two(?) years ago when we were handed what resembled two outsize toilet rolls on which to place our X?
Most of the names on them I hadn't even heard of and knew nothing about what they stood for, other than slight clues in the name of the party.
We really need one established and respected Christian party, who have gained our respect and confidence well before they get to the level of running for election. Sadly, there doesn't appear to be one on the horizon yet.
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Peter Carr |
19/01/2010 17:37 |
"We really need one established and respected Christian party...Sadly, there doesn't appear to be one on the horizon yet."
Agreed, the question is; how much more money, time and effort will bring them to their senses?
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Donald Boyd |
23/01/2010 20:07 |
The Lib-Dem leader wants to coerce conscience.
Nick Clegg, the Liberal-Democratic Party leader, wants to force faith schools to teach that homosexuality is "normal and harmless", and he wants gay civil partnerships to be replaced by true marriage.
What does this mean for the Highlands of Scotland? The Highlands and Islands have five constituencies held by the Lib-Dems: Ross, Skye and Lochaber(Charles Kennedy, former leader of the Lib-Dems), Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander), Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), Orkney and Shetland (Alistair Carmichael) and Argyll and Bute (Alan Reid).
Since Dec 2007 Danny Alexander has been Chief of Staff to Nick Clegg, and he is responsibile for leading the preparation of the Party's manifesto. In other words, this part of the Lib-Dem’s Manifesto is being driven through by the MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
The Scottish Christian Party will fight the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey seat at the next General Election as well as Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the Western Isles constituency seat, where the Party came third in the 2007 Holyrood Election with 12.5% of the vote, ahead of the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
Do Christians in the Highlands and Islands want to vote for Lib-Dem MPs with such an agenda? What can they do? Will they turn to the Labour Party which won the Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber seat in 2001? The problem is that Labour have no better record on this topic. The Lib-Dem leader went so far as to compliment Labour "for its track record on gay rights".
It is time for a change - to the Scottish Christian Party to have a clear Christian Voice which will speak against such folly.
See http://highlandsandislandschristianparty.co.uk/ for the references and Five Points which point to change.
Times are a-changing, as Barack Obama discovered this week when the Democrats lost former Teddy Kennedy’s ‘safe’ seat.
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Peter Carr |
24/01/2010 15:37 |
Sadly none of the mainstream parties are innocent when it comes to immoral legislation! Who was it that said that a nation gets the govt it deserves?!!
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Rosemary Cameron |
14/03/2010 21:28 |
I see from the SCP website that at close of nominations for the proposed SCP Western Isles primary, only one candidate had put his name forward - George Hargreaves. Is this because christians in the Western Isles are so happy to have George Hargreaves represent them that they did not want to oppose him, or do other would-be christian candidates think that they would be better standing for one of the other parties or as independents? Or are there no local christian candidates?
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