Let's talk about the weather

Let's change the subject. It was a real spring Nairn weekend: Saturday so hot and sunny and glorious for all outdoor activities and then it ****ed it down most of today. Friday had been sunny too but very windy and doing its best to tear the wonderful blossom off the Japanese cherry trees that are dotted around Nairn and generally remain anonymous until this time of year. Runner beans are planted but courgettes will stay under cover at the moment there have been one or two mornings when there has been a sharp frost and the danger is by no means past. It is a race at the mometn to eat all the spring borcolli before it flowers.

Wow what a relief, let's get back to talking about the weather and silly things and leave the politics to the politicians - we know the result anyway! But all the same good luck to Dave Thomson - the ideal man to get rid of Dave Stewart.

Opposition letting Dave Stewart slip through the middle?

Despite a slump in Labour support their candidate in this constituency could slip through the middle and continuing his voting record of supporting Tony Blair. This blog has always thought the Libs’ claim to be ahead in this constituency should be taken with a pinch of salt and the polling done by the P&J in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey indicates that things are quite different.
Canvassers for Dave Thomson, the SNP candidate were reporting a very good response in Nairn and it seems on the P&J figures that they are repeated across the constituency. So it’s neck and neck to the finish with a massive amount of voters undecided.

It is no secret that this blog supports Dave Thomson and urges all who want to see the labour member deposed to support the SNP candidate.

Campaign gets cancerous?

Naughties going on in Inverness as Publican Party posters are changed to read:

'Vote Cancer Party' or

'Vote Don Cancer'

How many votes will this pro-smoking in pubs party get? If they fail to get over a thousand for example will that be a tempting signal for the politicians to go a-head with the ban? It works both ways, you can have an effect on the others but you can damage your own case too! (and your health everytime you light up)

Lochaber to get dumped on with our waste plus Moray's and Aberdeenshire's?

Will there be anymore progress on recycling or will holes in the ground stay the favoured option and of course incineration?
A story worth reading: Anger grows over Highland ‘super dump’

Meeting: Gaelic Medium Primary School Unit in Nairn

OPEN MEETING
Gaelic Medium Primary School Unit In Nairn
Anyone interested in finding out more about this proposal is welcome to attend

Wed 27 April
7:30 pm
Nairn Community Centre
(General Purpose Room)

General Queries : 07717615177

Breaking news Tory posters seen in Nairn

Local election watchers report at least five Scottish Conservative signs in the High Street area. Another party you shouldn’t mention the war to?
All good fun but has anybody got any suggestions to keep spirits up until 2010 under Blair/Brown and perhaps not Stewart? They will probably get in with about 36% of the less than 60% who will bother to vote: Would that be about 20% of the population? wow! what a way to run a democracy!

Signs of the times?

Auldearn sports 3 Lib-Dem signs at the junction for Cawdor and a sprinkling of Labour posters hit Nairn sometime yesterday. It's still a two-way race between the Libs and the SNP as far as the poster wars go, still not even a dash of green recycled cardboard yet? Have the Tories decided to give the posters a miss this time round. A free Vanilla slice to the first person to spot a political poster on a house (or would such a thing be considered so un-cool in this time and age where there is so much contempt for politics of the Westminster kind?).

Also standing are the SSP and the Publicans and maybe strutting their stuff from lamposts somewhere in Nairn quite soon?

20 tonnes of Paper collected

The kerbside collection has got off to a good start with 20 tonnes of paper collected for recycling. Boosted by election literature? No figures were published for composting material but that has been bringing in substantial amounts in the Inverness area. A great start and some sanity coming into the proceedings now after years of perfectly good recyclable material being transported to the Longman Landfill and, more recently, further afield.
The Highland Council hopes to achieve a target of 18% of waste materials being reused by April 2006. That would be a start but we have a long way to go before we make serious inroads into turning around our ‘wasteful’ way of life. Many folk will remember the late Jack Ashford who campaigned for such a service long before the Highland Council was even conceived in the bureaucrats minds: he often would talk about the ecological sense such projects would make and the potential employment prospects.

300 jobs go at Buckie

Some are being so bold as to blame the meat-plant closure on the power of the supermarkets demanding that price margins are cut by suppliers. A sobering reminder of how the food industry is becoming more and more beyond the control of local communities and of how choice is reduced. Employment prospects are certainly taking a knock along the coast in Moray with this and the loss of jobs at the bases but the Gurn doubts if Gordon and Tony will fly up (joined at the hip for the duration) to offer a rescue or aid package.

Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey: six to chose from so far

So far voters have the choice of 6 parliamentry candidates but there could be more, nominations are not closed yet. As far as we know Donnie is the only one that has done time for his beliefs although he is hardly as charasmatic as the former 'political prisoner' Tommy Sheridan (where's he by the way, chained in a cupboard in the SSP's head office?). A lot of people supported the anti-GM movement in the Highlands and yes Mr MacLeod was a prominent figure at the time but will the population outside of the active green lobby remember him and how will the Green vote fare and who will lose out to him if it does well? Another wild card are the SSP: will they have any influence without Tommy at the helm? Is it a three-way marginal for the wooden spoon between the Tories, Greens and the SSP?

This blog still forecasts the SNP as the prime candidates to unseat one of Tony Blair's most loyal foot-soldiers.

Danny Alexander
Liberal Democrat

George MacDonald
Scottish Socialist Party

Donnie MacLeod
Scottish Green Party

Robert Rowantree
Conservative

David Stewart
Labour

David Thompson
SNP

Opppppps! Nearly forgot another wild card that takes the total up to seven.

Don Lawson

Publican Party

And very bullish about his potential support he is too. Donald wants to stop a potential ban on smoking in pubs and with the extended social networks that centre on such establishments it's just possible he might take a few votes off the others. That's democracy for you - the right to stand for the right to ignore the warnings on the packets!

Any UKIP or Veritas to show up yet?