Scottish anti-independence campaigners buy up ad spots asking voters to vote tactically to beat SNP
Anti-independence campaigners have spent tens of thousands of pounds in the last week calling for tactical voting to prevent the Scottish National party winning a Holyrood majority.
At least five pro-UK groups have bought newspaper adverts, mobile ad vans and electronic billboard sites, and numerous adverts on Facebook, urging voters to support election candidates most likely to beat an SNP candidate.
Scotland Matters, a group co-founded by Prof Hugh Pennington, a bacteriologist in Aberdeen who rose to prominence during E coli food poisoning outbreaks in the 1990s, registered with the Electoral Commission so it can spend up to £75,000 on tactical voting adverts during the election.
Spending by other groups includes £2,000 on an Edinburgh-focused Facebook ad promoting the VoteUnion tactical voting tool, which has been seen at least 125,000 times; at least £1,500 spent on Facebook by ThinkScotland, a blog edited by the former Conservative MSP Brian Monteith, to promote VoteUnion’s guide ; and Young Unionists, a new group with no clear indication of who is behind it, placed a similar ad on Tuesday.
