Interview with Blake Sharp, ALBA Party candidate in Monifieth, Angus

 Interview with Blake Sharp, ALBA Party candidate in Monifieth, Angus

• Why an Alba Party candidate in Monifieth?

This is a very SNP area and at the moment I think the SNP are failing to deliver on a lot of fronts, and I think that having an alternative option with a similar viewpoint is good. There’s a lot of people who are not happy with a specific party for various reasons and they have an alternative which is similar to a certain extent, but maybe slightly more family-oriented, for women’s rights, etc. I think having options is always good, having a monopoly is never a great thing.

That area is where I grew up, my family still stays there so I’m still very much involved in the community.

• What are the main issues you want to prioritise?

Because it’s a local council, all the issues are local issues, not national ones. There’s been a big push to expand the population, there’s been a new housing estate put up. It’s one of these areas where people like to live in, so it’s sort of a middle class area, where housing estates have been thrown out to try and offer new houses for people who want to stay there. The only problem with that is they’re not expanding the infrastructure. They’ve expanded the area so much without considering the actual population that lives there, so the schools are beyond capacity, there’s no banks, we’ve got one doctor surgery that was designed for the area prior to the expansion. After the COVID situation there’s been lots of mental health issues, so we have a population that does require health services. For me, it’s about getting infrastructure for the people.

• Why is the Alba Party the best alternative to the other parties in the area?

Well, you obvously have the basic parties: Labour, Conservatives, SNP, Greens and Alba, those are the five big parties. Labour haven’t done very well in Scotland for quite a long time (after Ed Milliband’s leadership), the SNP stepped and filled that void; the Conservatives have done quite well, but they’re not very well received in Scotland to be honest; the Greens generally don’t get a lot of votes, possibly because Scotland is quite a big oil and gas place, so it doesn’t always do very well; the SNP have done very well being the alternative to Labour and the Conservatives, that’s how they came into power and whether you’re a nationalist or not a nationalist that was essentially the alternative.

I think the SNP have a lot of failings now, there’s been a lot of scandals associated with them, they don’t seem to care about women’s rights and education very well. There’s a lot of reasons why I don’t think they’re the best party for the job, so I think the Alba Party being an alternative to that with a maybe more traditional SNP values is required and always a good option.