Motherwell and Western Isles constituency previews

I've written previews of the constituency races in Motherwell, Wishaw & Carluke and Na h-Eileanan an Iar for The National - you can read them HERE and HERE.

One point I was half-toying with making in the Na h-Eileanan an Iar piece, but it would have been too much of a digression, was that we've heard a great deal of talk in this election about "change", mostly from politicians who love the status quo, but the Western Isles really are undergoing a profound and negative change.  I saw a YouTube video two or three years ago in which an American travels to Lewis to try to track down some genuine Gaelic speakers, but is disappointed to discover that young people who know the language don't actually use it in their day-to-day lives. "But my granny does!" one of them explains.

However, he then spends the evening in a pub, where the youngsters eventually start singing traditional songs in fluent Gaelic.  At that point he concludes the language is safe for the future - apparently oblivious to the fact that he's just observed precisely the way in which a language dies, ie. when only the elderly use it as a fully-fledged social language and the young relegate it to a few peripheral spheres.

As far I know Gaelic is still a majority language in places like Uist and Barra, so it still has a toehold and therefore a chance, but it really is in the last chance saloon now and urgent protective action needs to be taken.

On the subject of Motherwell, you might be interested to read this Glasgow Herald article about the Motherwell by-election of April 1945, which was won by the SNP.  Even though war was still raging, the two main campaign issues seem to have been Prestwick Airport and the Forth Road Bridge!  Jarringly modern...