Leader views: Philip Ashley-Smith

PANEL MEMBER Name: Philip Ashley-Smith Age: 58 Lives: Shetland Job: Educational worker Current voting intention: Scottish Liberal Democrats

The election should be about policies and not the cult of personality.

Unfortunately the image of party presented by the leader dominates the media. This has a big impact on the political views of many.

As a likely supporter of the Scottish LibDems I am frustrated by what appears to me to be the bias of media reporting in favour of the other party leaders.

A difficulty is the reasonableness of the LibDem point of view which so often is less newsworthy than the rabid and misleading outpourings of others.

One aspect of the campaign which concerns me is the dislike of Nicol Stephen by so many amateur correspondents on the web - comments like "fibdems" or "Nicol who?".

The consolation is that for someone to be so disliked, and seemingly feared, by these partisan party supporters he must have made an impact.

Many of his pronouncements have been sensible commitments that are supported by a consensus within the electorate.

What about strong figureheads? If Blair and Westminster Labour were less controlling, McConnell would have been a better First Minister. With devolved matters he does what he thinks is best for Scotland.

The idea that Ms Goldie and the Conservatives in Scotland have actually any original and different ideas from those of Mr Cameron's party is laughable.

But my greatest contempt is reserved for Mr Salmond. "Not interested in devolution - I'll be a Westminster MP."

He must himself believe that had more kudos. "Whoops, Holyrood is doing things - perhaps I should nip back and check out the possibility of being First Minister without having done anything to make a devolved Scotland work."

This is opportunism run riot.

I wish the election was a debate about sensible well-argued policies but I fear we have long lost that opportunity.

I doubt we will ever get it back.