Viking Festival

28th March

The new Viking Festival Committee met with supporters and the Swords of Dalriada re-enactment group for a celebratory photo.

An Enthusiastic group in support of the Viking Festival

Teacher Numbers Fall – Another SNP Failure

24 March 2009

Scottish Teacher Numbers Fall!!!

It’s just been announced that there are 1000 fewer teachers in employment in Scotland than a year ago.

What a disaster.

What now for the SNP’s “promise” to reduce class sizes in P1-P3 to just 18?

That always was pie-in-the-sky, like so many of the SNP’s other key promises, because you need so many more teachers to deliver it. But who would have thought that the SNP would actually reduce the number of teachers in our schools?

You have to ask: is there a level of incompetence to which the SNP cannot fall?

Labour Ahead of SNP in Latest Poll

YouGov latest poll shows that the Scottish Nationalists have made a mistake by ploughing forward in pursuit of independence.  The poll shows a clear majority of Scots believe that Alex Salmond has misjudged the mood of Scots by planning a vote on separatism at the height of a recession.

The report in the Sunday Times reports that Alex Salmond’s determination to press ahead with the referendum, and his failure to push through manifesto commitments, have led to a slump in support for his government.

The poll of 1,380 adults last week put the SNP on 35% in the constituency vote, with Labour on 34%, but on the regional vote Labour is on 32% and the SNP 30%.

It would give Labour 49 seats (+3), the SNP 44 (-3), the Tories 18 (+1), Lib Dems 15 (-1) and Greens three (+1).

Tory Logo

The Conservatives have very kindly put up a screen to allow re-design of their logo. Here: http://www.mporcheron.com/torylogo/ 

Try it. It’s fun.

 My attempt is here..

The New Tory Logo. Truthful.

New Tenants and Residents Association

10th March 2009

A new Upper Skelmorlie Tenants and Residents Association was formed tonight at the Community Centre. Peter Price is the Chairman of the new committee, Helen Boyle Vice-Chair, Billie Walker Secretary and Sandra McKinnon Treasurer.

The meeting was well-attended and enthusiastic and the new group is up and running with every chance of success.

Good luck to them.

Kelburn Castle

A bit of local news: it seems that Kelburn Castle had a fire in the middle of Monday night. It is not clear from reports how much damage was done, but thankfully no injuries were sustained.

Fire Engine at Kelburn Monday 16th Feb 2009

full story here

http://www.theherald.co.uk/search/display.var.2489692.0.earl_and_son_tackle_fire_at_700yearold_castle_home.php

SNP Finally Drops its “Local” Income Tax

John Swinney has finally abandoned all pretence that he can produce a Local Income Tax as promised in the SNP manifesto. This is a surprise to no-one: there never was a detailed, thought-through, workable Local Income Tax Policy in the first place. The LIT was a line in the SNP manifesto designed, not as real policy in itself, but as slogan to replace the Council Tax. The reasoning being that “the Council Tax is unpopular, let’s get a few votes by opposing it”.  Which is all very well, but if you oppose the current tax, and you are in power, you need a working alternative. And LIT has so many faults and contradictions that it just exploded in the face of John Swinney and Alex Salmond.

To date the SNP dropped the abolition of student debt, starter packs for first-time-buyers, 1000 extra police, matching Labour’s school building programme “brick-for-brick” and the Local Income Tax. Next in line is the Scottish Futures Trust, another empty slogan masquerading as a policy. That will make almost the full house of abandoned SNP policies. 

What price the referendum as the next candidate for the “oot the windae” treatment?

Linda Fabiana Sacked

The SNP administration has sacked three middle ranking ministers, among them Culture Minister Linda Fabiani. I was sorry to see the demise of Ms Fabiani, who gave the Largs Viking Festival sterling support last years, spending a whole day at the opening ceremony and going through the Viking Village and other attractions. She struck me as an approachable person, with a good sense of humour and an easy manner. Let’s hope the new minister, Michael Russell, will be as supportive of the festival this year and in the following years.

Sandi Thom digs a trap for “Sir” Alex Salmond

Oh dear. Sandi Thom invites “Sir” Alex Salmond to display his musical skills. Or something…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqXM614itRU

Watch and cringe.

Linda Fabiani is Culture Minister at Holyrood. Has she been informed of this outrageous attack on the Scottish identity by her own leader?

PS and OOPS!  Even as I typed, the great Eck was evicting Linda Fabiani from office and replacing her with the considerably less fragrant Mike Russell. So all comments and complaints to Mr Russell please.

To Linda, who showed great taste and discriminantion by supporting Largs Viking Festival,  enjoy your spare time.

SNP Returns to Disruptive Ways

15th January 2009

After the SNP decided, belatedly, to take some part in the Service Review Groups, we were promised, and to some extent got, a more adult and cooperative response from them.  For a time.

However, at yesterday’s full council meeting, the barrack-room lawyers of the SNP returned to waste the time and effort of the council meeting and to even weaken the Council’s representation on the Community Planning partnership. All for pleasure of playing a few party political games.

First we had Councillor Gurney asking a number of questions. First, why had officers, in his opinion, offered incomplete and misleading information? When it was pointed out that he had raised this question before, and that, when he was invited to give specifics to the officers concerned and to the Leader of the Council, he had failed to do so. So seven months later, having provided no such detail and done nothing to clarify what he meant by his accusations, he brought it back to Council. To get the same answer and the same request: please furnish the details of your complaint.

He then gave some quotes from the Ombudsman’s report into the issue of Wardens at sheltered housing complexes. To be fair, he was on more sold ground here. The Ombudsman did make valid criticisms of the consultation and communication process, but the decision to replace the Wardens with a more comprehensive elderly care service was not criticised, nor did the Ombudsman recommend that it be rescinded.  

Then he asked about Labour MSP Andy Kerr’s quote that “NAC is one of the Councils in financial meltdown”. It was pointed out that Any Kerr had said no such thing.

The, most astonishingly of all, in the discussion on the Community Planning Partnership, on which the Council has two representatives, Allan Hill insisted on replacing an existing delegate with himself. The proposal was put that we could ask to have three Council reps, but the SNP/Tory coalition decided that the possibility of increasing NAC’s influence on the CPP was not acceptable to them. It was more important to play party politics than to consider improving the Council’s strength on the committee.

Most disappointingly, Councillor Elizabeth McLardy supported the Tory/SNP group on this prime example of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

So. Where are the interests of the people of North Ayrshire  the or North Ayrshire Council in all of this? Pretty well down the list of SNP/Tory priorities it would seem. There’s a very tight budget round in progress. Difficult decisions will have to be made. If we have mature and responsible behaviour from the various parties there is a possibility that we will reach better decisions… better for the people of North Ayrshire and better for the good governance of the Council.

But if the SNP and their Tory partners are intent on being disruptive and negative, then the way ahead looks bleak for the possibility of ever reaching sensible decisions in difficult times.