Dave Thompson MSP

A host of Nationalists congregated in Beauly at the weekend (Sat  Feb 26) to hear the country's rural affairs minister help launch a campaign to have Highlands and Islands MSP Dave Thompson returned to parliament as a constituency MSP for a huge area of the central Highlands.

In his four years as a regional MSP for the whole Highlands and Islands region, Mr Thompson, a former director of protective services at The Highland Council, has become recognised as one of the hardest-working parliamentarians in the Highlands (representing almost 600 constituents who approached him for assistance with a wide variety of problems last year alone).

However many members of the public know Mr Thompson for his high-profile media presence in connection with a series of well publicised campaigns, such as his successful initiative to protect Fort William's Invernevis House care home when it was threatened with privatisation by Highland Council and also his long-running campaign for public safety to be improved through the addition of barriers at unprotected railway level crossings.

The gathering, which filled the Dining Room at the Lovat Arms Hotel, included people from throughout the huge Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch constituency, which despite its name includes Loch Ness and the Black Isle. Representatives from as far as Uig, Sleat and Portree on Skye to Glenfinnan and Kingussie joined others from the local Easter Ross area for speeches a meal and music.

Before this the gathering was addressed by the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Richard Lochhead, who spoke of the high regard in which Mr Thompson is held at Holyrood and the respect his tireless efforts to cover the entire Highlands and Islands region have earned.

Mr Thompson thanked the minister, who was in the area for an informal face to face meeting with local members of the National Farmers Union, for his part in the meeting before a raffle and auction was held to help boost funds for the campaign for the forthcoming Scottish Parliament election on May 5th.