No helicopter for this year’s election campaign, says Nicola Sturgeon
By Andrew Picken
May 1, 2016, 12:01 amUpdated: May 1, 2016, 10:24 am
But for the final throes of the Holyrood campaign, Nicola Sturgeon has decided to keep her feet firmly on the ground.
The £35,000 rental cost is not the issue for the cash rich SNP, it is more Miss Sturgeon was never overly comfortable flying in the helicopter.
She explained: “It’s not that I didn’t want do it last year it but you know that way when you’re nervous about something and I wasn’t overly comfortable up in the air in this tiny metal box.
“Especially when we were coming back from I think the Western Isles and there was a storm.
“So we’ve got our vans and that will do us fine.”
The burgundy Eurocopter A5365 Dauphin chopper used in last year’s campaign was emblazoned with pictures of the First Minister and was a campaign tactic favoured by her predecessor Alex Salmond.
The SNP now has a fleet of six vans which will ferry its top people around for the next few days.