Dear Scottish Conservative & Unionist candidate for East Lothian,

As a Conservative party member, my son recently received a flyer through the door concerning your standing as the candidate for East Lothian, plus another letter from the local party chairman, seeking donations to the electoral fighting fund.

As you are seeking election on 6th May to represent us both in the forthcoming Holyrood elections, I thought I would write to you to explain why my son has emotionally ‘left’ the party and why I cannot vote for you, or indeed have the will to vote for anyone else in the forthcoming elections. I can’t speak on behalf of my son but watching his lifelong love of politics extinguished over the past 12 months has been a great sadness for me.

I come from a background of conservative politics, my father was a Scottish politician and my son fell in love with politics at a young age. As you know he joined the Scottish Conservatives and got involved in local campaigning with you in the run-up to the last election. It was thrilling for him to be so involved and polling night was the icing on the cake when the party he had campaigned for and with won, albeit you didn’t become our locally elected MP.

Since that evening at the count centre in East Lothian, watching the results coming through and the rejoicing when the Conservative Party was officially the winning party in the UK the Conservative party has been the biggest disappointment thus far in my son’s life. From around 8 years of age, he was fascinated by politics and as he matured so did his enthusiasm, leading him to apply to study politics and philosophy at a Russell Group University in Scotland. Now in his second year, the devastation wrecked on the UK by the Conservative government has extinguished all remaining light he had inside him for a future career in politics. I see it in his eyes and indeed the saddest thing to witness as a mother is the disillusionment of something he once valued as worthy and worth dedicating his working life to, become but sand slipping through his fingers. The one silver lining in this is that he embarked on a joint honours degree and can continue his degree as a single honours in philosophy. Indeed, there is a lot to think about.

He has witnessed his mother’s business of 17 years in health and wellbeing extinguished too by the policies of lockdown and restrictions. The business that once sustained our family is no more. Unfortunately for that reason alone, donations won’t be forthcoming. There isn’t any spare money in this household. He grew up surrounded by knowledge of health and nutrition and all he has witnessed over the last year is an obsession with disease by the government. Not one nutritionist has been involved in giving health advice, yet the value of taking vitamin D and C in tackling viruses is well known. Why is there no health advice? He has seen his 95-year-old grandmother be admitted to hospital over Christmas with no access for visitors. He has seen his own University experience reduced to pre-recorded zoom lectures and the crazy, lazy, carefree days of his first year at university a distant memory. It’s not just the future that looks bleak for the young, but the present is a living bleakness.

I could list the many ways in which I think the government has grossly mishandled the COVID crisis, lied about the severity of the threat, scared people witless, caused a massive crisis in mental health, neglected the care of people with any other physical illness, let down ALL the young, destroyed livelihoods, how it has become tyrannical, draconian and abusive at the deepest and most cruel level but if you are not already aware of the trampling of our freedoms and the abuse of political power then you are not someone I can vote for. If you cannot already see what has happened and is happening, I will not be able to persuade you.

If my son had become a politician, I know my late father would have been proud of his integrity, honesty, and compassion, like his grandfather had and politicians used to have in greater supply. I think he would have been very much in the mould of Sir Charles Walker MP, a compassionate and deeply caring MP, with morals rooted in truth and concern for people over politics. Indeed, is that not the idea of being an MP, representing the people you serve and their core needs?

Your own background in journalism and business should have alerted you to everything I have said in this letter. I too have both professions in my background. Journalism is no longer an honest, free-speaking or investigative profession; businesses and livelihoods have been trampled upon while following the money trail leads to pharmaceutical corporations being the big gainers.

It’s a stinking mess, wreaks of something rotten at the very core of government and to sum up, I met a youngish, unmasked man in the co-op last week, we had a chat together, both unmasked, bravery in numbers, but what struck me about him, and our conversation was that although he appeared to have only a basic education, he was more intelligent and informed than anyone currently in government. He said he knew something wasn’t right with all this COVID-19 thing and the masks, but everyone seems to be going along with it, but he knows we’re being lied to. We had a hug, a tiny moment of shared humanity, it was deeply moving to connect to a stranger in such intimacy of mutual understanding.

The political lies are no longer hidden and one of the current TV adverts citing that THE ‘vaccine’ has gone through the same safety checked as any other vaccine is 100% untrue. The British people have been lied to from the outset and I hope you and others still in politics will find a place inside of yourself to join with the likes of Charles Walker and Desmond Swayne and call it out. The Emperor is wearing no clothes. It’s that simple. I can’t vote for you unless I know you have integrity.

UPDATE: Since the posting of this letter, the Conservative candidate in question replied swiftly and agreed to have a Zoom chat with the author of the letter and a separate meeting with her son. Showing once again the power of the peoples’ voice and how it can be heard.