37 days to go

I spoke at a big public meeting in Campbeltown tonight on a platform with Donald MacPherson, a sixth year pupil in the town who was my debating partner at the Campbeltown Grammar School event in March , and Jim Sillars.

When I was a young candidate, just starting out in politics, I appeared on a lot of platforms with him particularly during the steel campaigns of the late 1980s , when I was living in Lanarkshire. I always wanted to speak in public as effectively as he does , usually with only a couple of words written down beforehand and I will never forget the impact his searingly honest book "Scotland , the case for optimism" had on me some years before that. He paid the price for his political journey.

So it was a great privilege to welcome him to my constituency, to be alongside him at this event , to listen to his eloquent and forceful exposition of the case for independence and to be able to snatch this little portrait of him as he warmed to his theme.

He richly deserved the standing ovation he got when he finished.