WATCH: How Jeremy Vine phone-in sparked Wester Ross woman to stand for Westminster
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A Wester Ross-based MP candidate has shared her life experiences which have led her to a new venture in politics.
Lucy Beattie, a farmer in Leckmelm near Ullapool, was recently chosen to run as the SNP candidate in the next election for the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency.
In her video-interview with the Ross-shire Journal, she shares how at 21 years old she took over Leckmelm Farm after the death of both her parents, whilst juggling three children, and starting her PhD in 2020.
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One of the key moments that made Lucy consider a career in politics was when she phoned into the Jeremy Vine radio show a few years ago. She said: "While I was cooking lunch on the farm, I heard Jeremy Vine say on BBC Radio 2 that he had a phone in with Douglas Ross. There was some discussion as to how Scotland was funded, and whether funding in Scotland was over-proportioned given the population density.
"It made me quite angry, that it was even being questioned. Living quite a remote rural area myself, I can see on the ground that there is a real need for this funding. I wanted to just put my opinion forward, and draw the attention to the fact that since 2016, the people of Scotland had democratically chosen to remain in the EU. From an agricultural point of view, I could see that Brexit was really damaging the situation for scottish food and drink producers.
"The Scottish Government had £30m ambition to double the output from that sector, but that wasn't going to happen following Brexit, because they were so many import duties, tariffs, added paperwork and there was a lack of staff. Fruit farms for example in Angus were having to leave fruit dying on the bushes because they couldn't get the staff."
