Soundbites. They are like midge bites in the Highlands at this time of year.

They are everywhere, you can’t avoid them and they are the most irritating, skin crawling phenomena that ruin an otherwise pleasant summer.

Also like midges, we would all be so much better off without them.

The Tories seem to have the most this time round. It started with Brexit means Brexit, which means absolutely nothing.

The big one know from the lips of Theresa May is like a reflex, used as often as she blinks or swallows.

‘Strong and stable’ she warbles. ‘Strong and stable, strong and stable’. She says it so often and at times randomly that she appears anything but.

It looks like she is trying to convince herself rather than anyone else.

The Tories also like to use ‘coalition of chaos’ to brand all the opposition parties as a useless ragbag bunch would lead the country to rack and ruin.

This from the party that descended into a backstabbing mess after the EU referendum itself brought about by division over Europe and has David Davis and Boris Johnson in charge of Brexit.

‘There’s no magic money tree’ is a Tory trick to make Labour look childish on the economy.

Then there is Labours ‘For the many not the few’.

Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t use soundbites as often as some other Labour leaders. Tony Blair had a different soundbite for each day of the week.

‘Education, education, education’ was his early mantra until it turned into subordination, subordination, subordination when George Bush demanded his support for the war in Iraq.

Corbyn’s is to cement his man of the people image. It could also be a dig at his most bitter opponents, and I don’t mean the Tories.

For the principled, comrade members who elected me, not the traitorous, scheming, conniving, bourgeois MPs who want to boot me out.

And by the way you’ll never get rid of me, no matter what happens at the election.

The SNP are not immune. The nationalists seem to have been implanted with a chip that programmes them to blurt out ‘A Strong Voice for Scotland’ on the hour every hour.

Who knows what this means. Are we being encouraged to vote for the late Kenneth McKeller? (Ask your granny under 30s).

Is it a General Election or the Eurovision Song Contest? I can see Nicola Sturgeon belting out the Andy Stewart classic ‘There was a soldier. A Scottish soldier’.

Soundbites however, are effective.

Who can argue with them? Who doesn’t want strong and stable leadership, who wouldn’t want a strong voice for Scotland and who in the many would favour the few, who are largely tax exiles and probably not even registered to vote here.

The trick is to get yourself associated with a sentiment that is agreeable to people so you become the personification of that sentiment.

It is a trick, like so much of what politicians do, to get us to vote for them on superficial grounds.

Look deeper.