Vladimir McTavish: Lib Dems make elections fun – but I won’t be voting for them

To say that we’re approaching fever pitch would be far-fetched, these are elections to the Scottish Parliament after all. Even after over 20 years, quite a lot of voters still don’t know how to use their second vote.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton making a splash

The starting pistol has been fired and the party leaders have been out on the road. And so far it’s the usual mundane stuff. John Swinney doing some photo opportunity wearing a hard hat, John Swinney doing a photo opportunity at a tapestry workshop somewhere, John Swinney doing a photo opportunity where he appears to be working a loom making tartan.

Anas Sarwar doing a photo opportunity in a hospital, pledging money for the NHS in Scotland that his own party down south would laugh at.

Russell Findlay visiting farms in the North-East to do a photo opportunity about farming in the north-east. So far, so predictable.

Thank goodness for Alex Cole-Hamilton. Trust the Scottish Lib-Dem leader to add some much-needed slapstick into a previously dull campaign. Very much like his Westminster leader Ed Davey, he would appear to be ambivalent about coming across to the public as an utter tit.

His opening gambit of the campaign was to fall off a surfboard. Fair enough, it turns out he is a keen surfer but nonetheless successive Lib Dem leaders have indulged in daft stunts, like Ed Davey falling off a paddle board into a polluted lake to draw our attention to pollution. That is what Lib Dem leaders do.

Cast your vote votes wisely in May. And in particular your second vote. I won’t be putting my cross to them on either ballot, but let’s applaud the Lib Dems for bringing humour back into politics.

Without them, we’d have to vote on trivial matters like policies. Make your own mind up. Let’s hope there’s enough Lib Dems left to make the next election fun!