Forget the budget, immigration and the EU, student reporter Megan Kerr, 16, asks our politicians the questions no one else dares to pose as part of a lighthearted series.
Alistair Carmichael, former Scottish secretary and Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland
1. If you were a superhero, what kind of powers would you have?
“If I were a superhero I think I would want some sort of power that would be useful to my constituents in Orkney and Shetland so, while it would be fun to be able to leap buildings in a single bound or fly faster than a speeding bullet, I think my superhero power would be to fix Loganair planes that suffer technical faults. Now that would be really useful.”
2.How do you think your peers would describe you?
“I suppose it would depend if they were describing me to me face or not! If nothing else I hope they might say that I can usually think of some quip to take tension out of difficult situations.”
3.What would a perfect relaxing afternoon be to you?
“Difficult to describe perfection but it would involve a lack of phone or broadband connection (not usually that difficult in the northern isles), time spent with my family and friends and (towards the end of the afternoon) perhaps a dram of a malt from one of the distilleries from my home in Orkney or my birth place, Islay. It would, of course, just be the one dram – wouldn’t want to get too relaxed!”
4.If you weren’t a politician, what would you be doing?
“Tricky one that. I might still be a solicitor as I was before I was elected to parliament. Whatever it was I would want it to be something that would allow me to spend more time at home instead of constantly being on the move.”
5. If you could have lunch with any past or present political leader, who would it be and why?
“My initial thought was to say President Obama but, on reflection, I think it would probably be Martin Luther King. I visited Atlanta a few years ago where he had served as a Baptist minister and where his presence was still felt decades after his death. He drove a movement for change in the USA which made it possible for Obama to be president.”
6.Apart from Nick Clegg, if you had to go to a haunted house with one of the party leaders from the May election, who would you pick and why?
“There is no way I would go with any of them into a haunted house. Happy enough to stay outside and call Ghostbusters if the need arose.”
7.Where do you see Scotland in 5 years?
“Still a country just to the south of Orkney.”
8.How important is it that voting age is lowered to 16?
“I think it is crucial now if we are to capitalise on the great political engagement that we have seen amongst young people in Scotland in the last twelve months or so.”
9.Is it bad for Scotland if the UK government moves towards English votes for English laws?
“Yes. Worse than that it is bad for the whole of the UK.
“For the union to be secured needs a federal system of government – not this sort of English nationalism.”
10.The recent statistics on literacy made for worrying reading. What would you say was behind the fall and what would you say to parents who were concerned about standards in Scottish schools?
“I would say that, as a parent myself, I very much share their concerns.
“As for the cause of it I think that school curriculum is now too crowded and the important basics can be squeezed out.
“I also think that the lack of time given to teaching modern languages now also contributes to the problem.”
