I write this article in the strange knowledge that it is likely to appear on 6 May – polling day for the Westminster elections.  

For the moment, however, I am still on my usual inter-island travels, and am currently making preparations to be in Uist in a day or two’s time. 

Although the Parliament in Westminster is dissolved, the one in Scotland is still very much at work. So I am trying to juggle my time each week between work in the constituency, attending Parliament in Edinburgh and being out knocking on doors with Angus Brendan MacNeil. All of this is being done increasingly without the aid of planes – as I write this, the volcanic cloud shows little sign of lifting!   

One thing about the election campaign that has certainly not been volcanic, or even very enlightening, has been the televised leaders’ debates.  Broadcasting these in Scotland was, I believe, a crass decision by the broadcasters.  Not just because the party that won the last two national elections in Scotland – Holyrood and Europe – was completely excluded from the main debates. Not even because the format was so tedious.  The programmes I believe were just largely irrelevant here, because for huge parts of them, not a word was said about anything that actually applied to Scotland.   

One of the oddities of a Westminster election in Scotland is, of course, that the parties debate health, education and the police, none of which are actually run from Westminster at all as far as Scotland goes. 

However, that is not to say that who represents Scotland, and particularly the islands,  in Westminster is not important.  Until Scotland claims new and substantial powers over her own affairs, Westminster will continue to decide what Scotland gets to spend on our public services.  

With the UK parties already competing to see who can make the deepest cuts to Scotland’s budget, I believe Scotland will need people in Westminster who are prepared to fight our corner.  

By the time this article is published it will be clear whether the islands have elected such a representative.

 Meanwhile, it has not all been electioneering.  Recently I spent a day in South Uist seeing some of the damage which has been caused by flooding and coastal erosion in recent years. 

Oxfam, who have taken an interest in this question, teamed up with a number of Uibhistich concerned about this issue and met with me about the ongoing worries which people in Uist have. 

There is of course no doubt that the coastline of Uist has changed dramatically over recent centuries. However, there is a very real need to have facts on what role, if any, factors like the causeways and rising sea levels have had on the situation in recent years. 

I look forward to seeing the results of the surveys which the Comhairle have received government funding to do on this subject, but I have also raised a number of more immediate practical concerns, such as the clear desire for more public information about what preparations are being made for any future storm like the one of 2005. 

Much work has been done, in terms of repairs to roads and escape routes, but there are specific concerns about the threat of permanent incursion by the sea at Kilphedar. There is also the risk to land at Smeirclate, and the need to ensure that the dam at Strome is in a condition to drain water out quickly after any future flooding.  These are all issues I have been raising with the Comhairle as flood prevention authority and with the Government, and I am very happy to take up specific questions which anyone has on these or other related issues.

Angus MacNeil - a record to be proud of 

By the time Am Paipear is published, we will be in the heat of a Westminster election.  I will doubtless be up a lamppost somewhere in Uist, affixing a yellow poster.  

Whatever the ambitions of the UK parties, we have a parliamentary, not presidential democracy. So this election is ultimately about who represents the Western Isles. 

My impression is that people don’t want to hear the politics of fear and smear – though no doubt we will.  

People want to know what candidates have done, and will do, for the islands. 

And in the Western Isles, Angus MacNeil has, I believe, a record of hard work any candidate could be proud of.

Nationally he has put the islands on the map - and not just for making the BBC alter its weather map!  

It was, after all, Angus who first lifted the lid on the scandalous sale of seats in the House of Lords. 

Among many other things, Angus has: 

-          successfully made the case for RET ferry fares 

-          taken up the cases of thousands of individual constituents who contacted him seeking help  

-          successfully argued for Filipino fishermen – an essential part of many island fishing boat crews– to have the right to work here 

-          helped get dramatic change to the Crofting Reform Bill, and the retention of the bull hire scheme 

-          fought for the retention of jobs at the Hebrides Range 

-          argued relentlessly for a fairer deal on fuel costs in the islands 

-          spoken seven hundred times in Parliament on behalf of his constituents

I am proud to have worked with Angus since I was elected, and pleased he is fighting a positive campaign:

 -          for RET ferry fares to be renewed after the pilot period ends next year

-          for progress on a Lochboisdale to Mallaig ferry service

-          for new jobs in the islands

-          to support communities facing school closures

-          to get BBC Alba onto Freeview

-          for winter weather payments that recognise the windchill factor

-          to persuade opposition parties to support abolition of the unfair Council Tax

-          for a secure economic future for Uist and the Hebrides Range

-          for an end to the ludicrous Common Fisheries Policy 

And its why both he and I want the people of Scotland to have their say on Scotland’s future in an independence referendum. 

Who will fight Scotland’s corner in Westminster?  The obvious answer is a group of MPs dedicated solely to Scotland’s interests – and that means the SNP. 

It’s not all election campaigning though …

Although Westminster may be in the throws of a general election, Holyrood is still working as usual, and I am still back and fore between Edinburgh and the thirteen islands I represent.  

I cannot but be aware of the growing sense of unease in many communities about schools. I recently attended a public meeting in Lochmaddy where the community was very vocal on this issue.   

I accept that not every single school in the islands will be able to continue. However, a number of communities have been in touch with me to express their very strong concerns.  It is very early days, I accept.  However, if the proposed list of schools presently up for consultation were all closed, then we would see the Western Isles in a few years time having only half the number of schools it does now. I am anxious to work with the Comhairle to find a way forward that keeps our rural communities attractive to young families.