Who will you be voting for on the 3rd May 2007?

[Bobbie En Tejas]

Organic carrots keep my hare healthy. Of COURSE its organic! Sheesh!

[Hadrians hiring!]

Organic carrots keep my hare healthy. Of COURSE its organic! Sheesh!

Funny ha ha - then how come your roots are showing and they are green ? Roots dinae grow oot the top do they?

[Bobbie En Tejas]

Lets leave my roots out of this...

Okay, back to the thread, before the grumpy one complains about the thread going to hell in a handbasket.

Good luck to all those running, hope the best person wins.

[bubbly jock]

Lets leave my roots out of this...

Okay, back to the thread, before the grumpy one complains about the thread going to hell in a handbasket.

Good luck to all those running, hope the best person wins.

Only Grumpy when the bossy one controls the thread.

On you go now Hadrians hiring back to the thread, bossy boots has given you an order.

bubbly

[Bobbie En Tejas]

hahahhahaha .. that made my day.

Whatever made you think I meant you? lol

[John S]

I hope that is the only head on thing you will avoid "head on" then John as if your sucessful i think youll be expected to take all challenges " head on"!

Working on the assumption that the recent polls are within a few percent correct it looks as if John won't be a lone gunman at Kilmory. He should have a team to back him up with his list of demands.

What will you go for first John? More tar for the potholes? A revamp for the toon hall? Toilets at Wesport?

First, we need to shore up the foundations - education, transport, jobs are all long term, essential improvements, but work on them must start now. The questions you mention above all come under these headings, but as a priority we need to ensure that sufficient resources are in place to make a difference. The Council can nolonger go on robbing Peter to pay Paul, as has happened in recent years.

Getting a fair settlement from the Executive for Argyll & Bute (and from Argyll & Bute for S Kintyre) will be essential, working towards this will be my first priority. If we have an SNP led council, an SNP led executive and Jim Mather as our MSP that will be a heck of a lot easier.

With this combination of representation, trunking of the A83 to Campbeltown, an enhanced road improvement program, The Ferry, new school buildings, would all be possible through the policy agenda we have nationally and my efforts locally.

Personally, my first priority would be putting in place mechanisms on the ground through which education, transport and employment issues can be effectively addressed, (not very sexy, I know) the council alone can effect change in these areas, and a councillors mandate is to act on the behalf of the electorate, but when proposals have the backing of mix of community interests they become much more powerful. The existing tools for doing this, such as the Kintyre Initiative Working Group, are stale and limited in their effectiveness.

[Trapper]

Just a question john, if we do have the above situation, SNP across the board, will projects such as the new school buildings still be carried out using P.F.I. ?

[John S]

Authorities will have the option of using PFI/PPP or the Scottish Futures Trust, which we will introduce in our first term. The futures trust will be not-for-profit and able to offer loans at a much lower level than PFI currently does. The option for PFI will still exist, but we would expect the Scottish Futures Trust to crowd out PFI as it develops.

[The Hitman]

Not read the whole of this thread due to the lack of time on my hands so apologies in advance if this has been asked and answered already but here goes,

How importantly do all the prospective council candidates feel about getting the road from Kennacraig to Campbeltown upgraded to Trunk Road Status.

I genuinely believe that would be a major achievement if that were to happen, don't know a lot on that subject but I think it is something well worth doing.

Regards

The Hitman

[Trapper]

John,

Will the buildings which are built using the scottish futures trust be owned by the trust , or will they be owned by the relevant public authority? Is the scottish futures trust going to be wholly owned by the scottish ministers?

Thanks

[John S]

John,

Will the buildings which are built using the scottish futures trust be owned by the trust , or will they be owned by the relevant public authority? Is the scottish futures trust going to be wholly owned by the scottish ministers?

Thanks

This press release has a .PDF at the foot of the page which should have the detail you require.

http://www.snp.org/press-releases/2005/ ... 414398218/

[John S]

Not read the whole of this thread due to the lack of time on my hands so apologies in advance if this has been asked and answered already but here goes,

How importantly do all the prospective council candidates feel about getting the road from Kennacraig to Campbeltown upgraded to Trunk Road Status.

I genuinely believe that would be a major achievement if that were to happen, don't know a lot on that subject but I think it is something well worth doing.

Regards

The Hitman

All the road surfaces in Kintyre, trunked and otherwise suffer from under investment. Trunking the A83 from Kennacraig would be a start but increased investment would have to follow. What I've seen of some of the other Trunk Roads in Argyll still leaves a lot to be desired.

An SNP led Council, having the power to influence an SNP Executive, will be a benefit in bringing that investment and action forward.

[Trapper]

This press release has a .PDF at the foot of the page which should have the detail you require.

I read the PDF john and it has answered a few of my questions, although I can't seem to find who is ultimately responsible for the scottish future trust. The other thing I can fathom is that it is essemtially the same as P.F.I. except with lower interest rates and tax free. My worry is I can see this being very open to corruption from big business. It's slightly better than P.F.I. but still seems to be robbing peter to paul, public authorities borrowingfrom government, then paying it back with interest. Whatever happened to taxayers money getting used directly to pay for public projects?

[John S]

What happened - an expectation for lower personal taxation and greater public spending of the back of a workforce who's ability to meet the tax spend is being continually eroded by downward pressure as a result of competition from more competitive countries and a public sector which continues to grow on a diet of red tape and political, target driven management. Rant over.

The interest changed for finance through Scottish Futures however should be significantly lower than the profit margins and asset loss that can come with PFI.

[deirdreh]

[quote="deirdreh I am Chair of the Kintyre Cultural Forum, and I worked with other Fairtrade groups in other areas pushing the Fairtrade agenda with the Council and trying to promote it locally. I had even suggested to the NFU that they work with the Fairtrade foundation to try and get fairtrade for the local farmers.

Only slightly off track but still relevant as all the perties are trying to ootdo one another on issues like this.

''Fairtrade'' is jeest another one of these cons to salve the publics consience, in the same boat as ''neutral carbon footprint'', ''minimum wage'', ''right to buy'', ''low emission vehicles'' , ''carbon emmision'' , ''organic produce'' etc etc etc.

I for one will never ever ever ever purchase any fairtrade tripe if I can help it. The food chains pushing it are the ones making money out of it, along with maybe the vineyard owners in Tibet or wherever.

Rule of thumb for buying wine should be------------- if its a country with a history of fascism = buy it.

Think on it - The Great Satan, Chile, Agentina, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, South Africa, + Australia make descent plonk.
Bulgaria, Latvia, UK, Russia etc etc dont.
Not one of the first lot deserve any fairtrade status so it is irrelevant for the wine.

For all the other food groups it seems to be ''tie a ribbon roon it and stick £2 on the price''. I dont think so.



ps fermers do have a tough life but I aint seen too many poor uns.[/quote]

It would be my understanding that certain ethical standards of trade would have to be met before a company would be able to get Fairtrade status for a product. It seems to me that this system is not just window dressing but affects whole communities where the current trade deals disadvantage them. It is also a useful way for producers to have some level of safety from corporations whose main function is to make ever increasing profit. I think that more consumers would choose UK fairtrade products here and support producers who have no protection to get a fair pay for their hard work as supermakets fund some of the main political parties and those parties have no interest in protecting these producers.

Have you ever seen the film 'The Corporation'? If you haven't I can lend my DVD to you. It is very interseting, disturbing and funny all at the same time.

In term of farmers here. I have seen some really struggling dairy farmers in Kintyre. When the Tories took away the Milk Marketing Boards 13 years ago they also took away the power of farmers to set a price as regionalised groups. Recently supermakets have been making more profit on milk whilst getting it for cheaper than it can be produced, in some cases. Five years ago the Scottish Executive's Rural Affairs Committee met in Lochgilphead to hear local issues. I took up two dairy farmers with me to give evidence of what was happening to the price of milk and the profits being made by supermarkets. I was pleased to see that this piece of evidence was included on the political programme that night but five years on not much has changed.

I think being a dairy farmer is a vocation as how many of us would be up at 4.30am every day and work until the evening seven days a week?