{"id":918321,"date":"2026-04-25T20:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T20:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/918321\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T20:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T20:45:17","slug":"edinburgh-lib-dem-candidate-people-feel-let-down-by-labour-and-the-snp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/918321\/","title":{"rendered":"Edinburgh Lib Dem candidate – people feel “let down” by Labour and the SNP"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHARLES Dundas, a former City of Edinburgh councillor<\/a> and current Liberal Democrat<\/a> candidate for the redrawn Edinburgh Central seat has described the positive response from people in the constituency to Lib Dem campaigners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He says that people on the doorstep feel let down by both Labour and the\u00a0SNP, and\u00a0are pleased to see the Lib Dems offering an alternative.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite this, however, he did not express much confidence about winning Edinburgh Central outright, which is being contested by former Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater <\/a>and SNP stalwart, Culture Secretary Angus Robertson<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Instead, Dundas, 47, is focusing much of his attention on Edinburgh Northern, which is a high-priority target seat for the Liberal Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"CharlesCharles Dundas is a veteran of multiple election campaigns, and ran for the Edinburgh East and Musselburgh seat in 2024<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI\u2019m splitting my time between Edinburgh Northern and Edinburgh Central.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes the doorsteps blend into one and I can\u2019t remember which side of the boundary I\u2019m on, but I get a good response no matter which constituency I\u2019m in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNo matter what election it is, people are genuinely pleased to hear from and engage with politicians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people, when you explain why you\u2019re there on their doorstep, don\u2019t want anything to do with it, but the vast majority want to get something off their chest and want to talk about what\u2019s happening with the election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re pleased to see a Liberal Democrat. I\u2019ve been doing this for years, and the last decade has not been especially strong for the Liberal Democrats, but I think we are on an upward trajectory now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said the main feeling he\u00a0encounters\u00a0on the doorstep is disappointment and frustration with the established parties in Holyrood and Westminster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are always keen to talk about the other parties and how much they dislike them,\u201d he explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople that voted in the General election in 2024 feel very let down by the Starmer government, and people who voted for the SNP over the last 20 years feel very similar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAlex [Cole-Hamilton] gives the party line that they feel they\u2019ve run out of steam, but that\u2019s not just propaganda, that\u2019s not just spin, that is something you genuinely hear from people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter 20 years, it\u2019s time for someone else to have a chance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dundas is also third on this list for the Edinburgh and Lothians East region, meaning he has an outside chance of being elected through the proportional additional member system.<\/p>\n

Dundas was a City Centre ward councillor in Edinburgh from 2007 until 2012. He says the Liberal Democrats\u00a0track record\u00a0of being an influential force on the council is providing a boost in Edinburgh.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe Liberal Democrat group on the council is incredibly strong and influential, and the influence they\u2019ve been able to have on budget-setting has been very effective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy colleagues on the council have been able to focus on these bread-and-butter policies like potholes and street lighting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the big issues in the city centre and city-wide that I\u2019m particularly interested in are the tourist economy and the entertainment sector, and how we can balance that with making the city centre a place where people live.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that we have a lot of residential people right in the heart of the city is one of the things that makes Edinburgh so attractive \u2013 you can live in the city centre and not be disturbed too much.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s always a tension between the activities of a busy city centre and the tourist economy, and people that just want to live their lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019re incompatible, but I think that\u2019s something that we need to address.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He says he wants to see Edinburgh\u2019s funding shortfall, which makes it the lowest funded local authority in Scotland per head, addressed so additional funding levers, like the recently introduced visitor levy, can be used to directly benefit people and businesses affected by tourism in the city centre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dundas grew up in West Lothian and went to university in Glasgow, where he became involved in Liberal Democrat politics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He is a veteran of election campaigns, having stood in\u00a0almost every\u00a0major election campaign for the Liberal Democrats since 2001, and has ambitions, should he\u00a0fail to\u00a0gain a seat this time around, to return to Edinburgh Council during next year\u2019s local elections.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He worked in nature conservation for many years for both the Woodland Trust and the Borders Forest Trust, where he eventually served as Chief Executive, planting trees to bring areas back into ecological health.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He now works in corporate governance of the higher education sector. Despite the career change, he said \u201cI\u2019m still very much an environmentalist and conservationist\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scots will go to the polls on May 7 and will elect a new set of MSPs to the Scottish Parliament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dundas said his chances are slim, but he was still confident of leaving his mark on this election:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not especially confident about making a dent, because of just how competitive this race is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve\u00a0got,\u00a0you\u2019ve got two big beasts [Slater and Robertson] fighting it out.\u00a0You\u2019ve\u00a0got Labour still pushing to\u00a0possibly even\u00a0come through the middle\u00a0as those two split themselves off.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not getting big reform numbers on the doorsteps, but you look at what\u2019s happening nationally, who knows what would happen?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On a more hopeful note, he added: \u201cEverywhere I go, I find people are warmer to the Liberal Democrats than they were five years ago, so I think we can increase what we\u2019ve got, but I\u2019m under no illusions that we\u2019re going to sweep to victory.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like this:<\/p>\n

Like Loading…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHARLES Dundas, a former City of Edinburgh councillor and current Liberal Democrat candidate for the redrawn Edinburgh Central…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":918322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,257580,4884,210591,39740,11518,712,249815,107941,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-918321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-edinburgh-central","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-holyrood-election","13":"tag-lib-dems","14":"tag-liberal-democrats","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-scottish-election","17":"tag-scottish-liberal-democrats","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116467304190843555","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=918321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/918321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/918322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=918321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=918321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=918321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}