Hendry confident local popularity will see him through against Alexander
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DREW Hendry believes arch-rival Danny Alexander’s position on the national stage as Chief Secretary to the Treasury is no match for his own popularity in the Highland constituency.
The council leader says he can “hardly walk through the streets” without people stopping him and wishing him well.
One poll in February predicted the father-of-four will out-run Mr Alexander, leaving him standing with just 21 per cent of the vote.
Mr Hendry said: “I can hardly walk through the streets of Inverness or Nairn or Aviemore just now without people stopping me and going ‘good luck Drew’ just off-the-cuff.
"I think people do know me in this constituency. I think having been council leader for a while has given me a local profile. Of course I don’t get on the telly or the radio as much as Danny, he’s had that for many years, but people here know about my track record and they are enthusiastic about my ability to represent them.”
Mr Alexander believes the poll data for the Inverness, Nairn, Strathspey and Badenoch seat is not reliable and it will be a close win for him.
He said: “I am speaking to a lot of people who say they are going to be voting for me mostly because they recognise that I have been a good local MP but also because they don’t want the SNP in power.
“My own view is that the combination of those two things will see me through. But I am not going to be complacent and I am going to be working every minute of every hour of every day to make sure that happens.”
The seat is also being contested by Scottish Labour candidate Mike Robb, Scottish Green Party candidate Isla O’Reilly, UKIP candidate Les Durance, Edward Mountain for the Scottish Conservatives and Dr Donald Boyd for the Scottish Christian Party.
But many polls are predicting the SNP will hold the majority of Scotland’s 59 seats when the polls close next week.
Some of the other candidates in this constituency have accused the SNP of centralising power to the central belt through the creation of the single police force and fire service.
The SNP’s Named Person scheme has also been attacked by claims it undermines parents and allows the state unlimited access to pry into the privacy of families in their homes.
Mr Hendry insisted the Named Person scheme, which has been operating in Highland since 2009 and involves a health visitor, teacher or someone in a similar position taking on the role of a “named person” to oversee a child’s development from birth to 18, had done “a fantastic job in looking after our young people”.
And he said it was a “brass neck for those wanting to keep powers at Westminster to actually be talking about centralisation”.
