MAYBE it’s the dark nights, or the dreich, winter weather, but it felt like a very, very long election campaign.
It was only just over a month and a half ago that MPs finally backed an early vote – the first winter General Election since 1923 – and in that short space of time we had Boris Johnson hiding in a fridge, a debate on climate change where the Tories were represented by some melting ice, and men dressed as bees gluing themselves to Jo Swinson’s bus.
It was also an unedifying campaign – five candidates in Scotland were suspended by their parties for past comments. That apart, here’s what we think have been some of the most pivotal moments of this year’s General Election.
Boris Johnson refuses to look at a picture of a four-year-old boy
The trickiest moment of the campaign for the Tory leader came just this week, when he was asked about a sick child forced to sleep on a hospital floor. In an interview with ITV the Prime Minister was asked if he’d seen the photo of the child. When he said no, the journalist took out his phone to show him the picture. Bizarrely, Johnson’s response to this was to refuse to look and he then pocketed the reporter’s mobile.
READ MORE: Boris couldn’t bear to look at photo of sick child for all the wrong reasons
Even the most loyal of Tories struggled to defend Johnson’s behaviour. “I will admit that he could have done better,” MSP Annie Wells told the BBC. “I don’t understand his way of thinking.”
The incident escalates
Incredibly, what was a bad situation became much, much worse. Health Secretary Matt Hancock was sent out to Leeds General Infirmary in a bid to show that something was being done.
But a senior party source then briefed a select group of journalists that Labour had organised a protest outside the hospital and that one Tory adviser had been “punched” by a left-wing thug. This was reported by a number of journalists, including the BBC and ITN’s political editors. But within minutes, the claim was proved to be false, with video footage showing that the Tory staffer had accidentally walked into the hand of a gesticulating protester.
Andrew Neil
The BBC’s Paisley born bruiser-in-chief was responsible for some of the biggest ooft moments of this campaign. Nicola Sturgeon was left looking decidedly uncomfortable when Neil questioned her government’s record on the NHS.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon slams claim rejoining EU will take Scotland a decade
Jeremy Corbyn was left looking decidedly uncomfortable when Neil questioned his party’s record on dealing with complaints of antisemitism.
Jo Swinson was left looking decidedly uncomfortable when Neil questioned her over her party’s record in the coalition. Boris Johnson however didn’t look decidedly uncomfortable. He just didn’t bother turning up. Neil called Johnson out: “The Prime Minister of our nation will at times have to stand up to President Trump, President Putin, President Xi of China. So we’re surely not expecting too much that he spend half an hour standing up to me.”
Readers, we were expecting too much.
The Squirrels
Fake news and disinformation were something of a hallmark of the campaign. From the Tories rebranding their Twitter account to make it look like a fact check website, or the video of a Labour minister umming and ahhing when asked about Brexit after he’d actually fairly straightforwardly answered the question.
READ MORE: Jo Swinson drafts in LibDem Hull North candidate to lead her East Dunbartonshire campaign
One of the most bizarre moments came when LibDem leader Jo Swinson was forced to deny using a slingshot to fire pebbles at squirrels in her back garden. Swinson said the report was “very fake news story”.
The Brexit Party’s implosion
In May’s European election Nigel Farage’s party were, by some considerable distance, the winners.
And yet just seven months later they look as if they’ve been consigned to the green wheelie bin of history. Farage’s decision not to stand against incumbent Tory MPs left them deflated.
And in Scotland, Farage wasn’t bringing us his best. There was the candidate in Glenrothes who launched a war against jezebels and homosexuals. There was the candidate in Glasgow who shared Islamophobic material. Their lead candidate was an aristocrat councillor thrown out of the Tories for failing to pay his council tax.
No wonder their only Scottish MEP quit.
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