Rogue otters and vicious letterboxes: on the campaign trail in the Outer Hebrides

By Georgia Banjo

Torcuil Crichton, the Labour candidate hoping to win the Western Isles from the Scottish National Party (SNP), leant against his red Mini and polished off a packet of prawn-cocktail crisps. “Wee red car, big red change”, read a sign on the window. An island boy, he had grown up near Stornoway, the largest town in the Outer Hebrides. His portfolio career had included a spell as a screenwriter – he once wrote a drama for Gaelic TV about a teenager who had hallucinations of Elvis – and more than a decade as a political journalist in London. Now he was back, with a grey quiff and a tweed jacket, trying to convince voters in the far-flung constituency to choose a Labour government “or drift off into the Atlantic”.

On July 4th a resurgent Scottish Labour Party could strike a blow against the SNP, long the dominant force in Scottish politics. Crichton is running against Angus MacNeil, the charismatic MP of the Western Isles, who was expelled from the SNP last year after claiming the party wasn’t serious about independence. He is standing as an independent, and the SNP has selected its own candidate. With the nationalist vote split, Labour are favourites for the seat MacNeil took from them nearly 20 years ago. Winning will not, however, be straightforward.