Thursday April 23rd 2026
The Midlothian View hustings took place at Saint John's & Kings Park Church in Dalkeith.
This View has been written by Midlothian Reader Bill Kerr-Smith
First I’d like to thank Midlothian View for organising and promoting the event last night, which will be the only public meeting with the candidates in Midlothian. I’d also like to express my appreciation of Malcolm McGregor’s moderation and for his good-natured and skilful management of the process.
I attended the Hustings last night without already having decided which party was going to get my Constituency vote and considering voting SNP for the first time (simply to ensure the biggest possible vote for Independence). In that frame of mind the statements made by the various candidates were of real significance in helping to shape my thinking and I’d like to offer my personal feedback.
For the benefit of people who didn’t attend the event, taking part as candidates were: Colin Beattie (SNP), Jenny Claire Marr Butler (Scottish Liberal Democrats), Pal Chidambaram (Reform UK), Phil Doggart (Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party), Caitlin Stott, (Scottish Labour and Cooperative Party) and list candidate Jo Philips (Scottish Greens).
The candidates all introduced themselves briefly, which yielded the first interesting fact from the evening, which was that only Colin Beattie actually lives in Midlothian. The ongoing decline in politician’s popularity may explain it, but I find it disappointing that so many parties are unable to field a local candidate for such an important job.
[CORRECTION: 23/04/30 23:00. Jenny Butler, Scottish Liberal Democrats, has lived in Eskbank, Midlothian for 5 years.]
It would have been impossible to get through many questions in the time available, but the Moderator skilfully segmented the debate into three major areas, which dealt with issues in Health, Education and Public Transport.
In the Health discussion, almost all the time was spent discussing the difficulties in obtaining GP appointments and the perceived shortage of doctors. With the exception of the Green candidate, all of the participants focused on the funding problems in the NHS, with Ms. Philips being the only one to suggest that it was necessary to look more closely at resolving the underlying causes of poor health.
Mr. Beattie chose to suggest that GP contracts should be renegotiated and they should become fully integrated with the NHS (while saying this was not SNP policy), while Mr. Chibandaram proposed that the solution was in providing GPs with better incentives (more money) and Mr. Doggart suggesting that trained Doctors should be compelled to work wherever the NHS needed them.
Full disclosure; I can’t recall if the Labour and LibDem candidates highlighted any approach other than more money. If any other of your readers can fill in the blanks, please let me know.
In the Education segment the highlight was Mr. Beattie claiming that Scotland had not slipped down the league table of international comparisons (this is easily and quickly shown to be untrue after a brief web search). As a consequence he appeared to think that the SNP government did not need to be taking a different approach in future.
Every other candidate recognised the decline in Scottish performance but most put forward a similar approach as to how to reverse this trend (more teachers and more money) with smaller class sizes being proposed by the Greens. The standout divergence from this approach was proposed by Reform, who wanted to limit the numbers of university places, so that only those that would lead to well-paid jobs would be available and that they should only be available through competition. Goodbye Arts and Crafts or any pursuit of knowledge as a stand-alone objective.
The discussion was then diverted into how to best provide for children with Additional Support Needs (ASN). Most startling was the Reform view that segregation of pupils was necessary, which met with audible gasps from the audience. Slightly more predictable was the Conservative view that definitions of ASN had become too wide and needed to be scaled back, but also some indication that the most disruptive pupils needed separate facilities and that there needed to be a restoration of discipline in the classroom.
All parties appeared to agree with the notion that more teachers and support staff were needed.
In the Transport discussion there was again a variety of responses. For Reform, Mr. Chibandaram had no specific knowledge of the situations in Midlothian but stated that Bus companies were commercial ventures and entitled to make commercial decisions about scrapping loss-making routes. It was then up to Local Authorities to subsidise the routes they wanted for social purposes.
Ms. Stott made the only unique contribution to this discussion by proposing the establishment of community-owned services on the unprofitable routes. She also claimed that Labour would hold Lothian Buses “to account” but gave no indication of how that would be achieved. Mr. Beattie said that he had written letters to various people seeking better outcomes for Midlothian, but seemed of the view that, as Edinburgh owned 97% of Lothian Buses there was little that could be done about their decisions.
Ms. Stott countered by claiming that she had done more in her few weeks of campaigning than Mr. Beattie had achieved in 15 years in power. Ms. Philip said the Greens intended to extend free bus travel to all Scots, but didn’t actually address the issue of inadequate route provision. (I’m afraid I don’t recall what the Conservative or LibDem position was).
Finally, on the issue of “How will you pay for it”, almost all candidates fell back on the argument that growing the economy is the only way to afford any necessary investments. One exception was the Reform candidate, who insisted that cutting taxes on businesses and the wealthy would result in attracting more investment in Scotland, which would deliver a higher tax revenue.
The other exception was the Green candidate, who was willing to endorse taxing the very wealthy, to reduce the effects of inequality.
In terms of performance as a candidate, I offer the following:
– Phil Doggart (Con.): probably the most confident performer and a reliable
proponent of Tory austerity policies, but lacking significant insight or convincing
solutions to Midlothian issues.
– Caitlin Stott (Lab.): an impressive grasp of the Labour manifesto and delivered
the best line of the evening when she told Colin Beattie that she had achieved
more (on the bus issues) in her short time of campaigning than he had in 15 years
of being in power.
– Jenny Butler (LibDem): a strong performance given that there is nothing
remarkable in the manifesto, but the first LibDem candidate I’ve seen who
convinced me they understood the issues and would be a credible MSP.
– Colin Beattie (SNP): For a politician who has been part of government for the
last 15 years, this was a disappointing performance. A poor grasp of detail, very
limited vision for the future and no individual track record of achievement in
government.
– Pal Chidambaram (Reform UK): A poorly-prepared candidate with no insight into
Midlothian issues and a one-size-fits-all approach to all problems. I’m afraid I
conclude that Mr. Chidambaram is only a paper candidate, put forward to make
up numbers.
– Jo Philips (Scottish Greens): A strong performance and a nuanced approach to
complex issues, Ms Philips was the surprise of the event. It was encouraging to
hear some original approaches to some of our entrenched problems.
