Day 10

Another day of mixing life as leader and life as candidate. 2 meetings with officials, one about garden aid and another about the Science Festival along with a wee bit of fire fighting by phone was interspersed by some classic campaigning;I fought with a photocopies, found I had addressed a whole set of envelopes with the same addresses twice and couldn’t get a letter to a potential voter to print! Norman Murray, our Scottish parliament candidate’s next leaflet arrived. 34,000 of them. I’m told that people spend between 3 and 10 seconds reading leaflets before they end up in the pile with the Chinese takeaway menus and the free quotations for double glazing by the phone or on the kitchen bunker. It seems a waste of time, but folk would also notice if they don’t get the leaflets, even if they don’t read them.We have managed to be co-ordinated enough to be able to do joint leafleting with council candidates. Offers of help are beginning to come in and leafleting is something most folk will do at least a wee bit of. The deadline for candidates has now passed. I have at least 3 protest candidates standing against me. Such are the joys of leadership! I try not to take it personally but sometimes I do wonder...I note however that the SNP candidates, at least for the Scottish parliamentary constituency are registered as “Alex Salmond for first Minister", (SNP) candidates. Now is that the same Salmond who was always complaining about what he called Tony Blair's “presidential style”! Are we electing a party or one man, or is this the confession that this is truly a one man band of a party after all...