UK Parties: UKIP and the English Democrats

[Denzil_DC]

9. Re Europe, it's much the same everywhere in the UK, I think.

We may be marginally more concerned about/kindly disposed to Europe in Scotland because European Structural Funds feature quite prominently in a number of our infrastructure and social projects - historically, yet another source of friction with Westminster under both Labour and the Tories/Lib Dems over the years (as is also the case with many regions in the rest of the UK).

In Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon (https://twitter.com/nicolasturgeon) appears to operate her own Twitter account (in the past she's made appointments to meet young fans etc. via contact on it, and she not infrequently quite classily smacks down hotheads she feels aren't reflecting well on the SNP, and has been known to quite quickly correct journalists' misprepresentations, which startles some of them), as do Kezia Dugdale (Labour Deputy Leader/acting leader at Holyrood as Jim Murphy doesn't have a seat there - https://twitter.com/kdugdalemsp), the Conservatives' leader Ruth Davidson (https://twitter.com/ruthdavidsonmsp) and the Lib Dems' Willie Rennie (https://twitter.com/willie_rennie).

There's been some quite funny Twitter banter between them at times (this from when Andy Murray was playing in the Australian Open semi-final back in January):



They seem to steer clear of fights most of the time, though there's the usual trolling by cyberneds of some of them, and the occasional embarrassing/very funny interjection from Kezia Dugdale's dad Jeff (https://twitter.com/jefforbited), who's an enthusiastic SNP member!

A number of other MPs, MSPs and candidates have fairly personal Twitter presences, not always to their benefit.

So does George (Lord) Foulkes (https://twitter.com/georgefoulkes), which is disastrous on a near daily basis.

Jim Murphy's feed (https://twitter.com/jimforscotland) appears to be mainly run by staffers, though I think he finally twigged that the personal touch may have some marginal impact in the extreme circumstances he's under, and chips in personally from time to time.