Our candidate

I've just been looking at an election leaflet from one of our candidates.

Here are some of the things he's been doing to persuade us to elect him as our MP:

Fighting hard against proposals to reduce respite care
Fighting hard for the armed forces
Opposing budget cuts at Edinburgh University
Saving Oxgangs Post Office
Retaining the number 18 bus
Campaigning for better youth facilities
Campaigning for better community services
Supporting a soldier's fight with the city council
Supporting pensioners
Supporting the NHS

Yes, it's our Conservative candidate, Jason Rust.

Now some of these may be worthy causes but what have they got to do with being Member of Parliament for Edinburgh Southwest? Many of these concerns are the business of Holyrood or even the City of Edinburgh Council. Actually, most of them are properly the concerns of civil society and not any business of the political class whatsoever.

And here's the thing: Mr Rust's main opponent is none other than the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling.

So what does our Conservative have to say about the economy? To be fair, in his second leaflet Mr Rust does mention Tory opposition to the planned NI increases and he wants to cut government waste. Good. But then he wants to "protect" the NHS budget. Ah, the NHS: the envy of the world. LOL.

Mr Rust also wants interest rates to be low. But interest rates are a measure of a society's time preference. They aren't something to be decided by governments, but by people acting in the free market.

I have a horrible feeling that Labour's Mr Darling may well know more about economics than does our Tory hopeful.

Not that I'm going to vote Labour of course!