93 days to go

I spent the morning in Oban High School with Alan Reid, my Westminster counterpart who is a Lib Dem. First of all we judged the annual debate, this year on the theme of independence . The competition is sponsored by Oban Speakers Club and supported by Oban Rotary and there is a cup for the best team and a quaich for the best speaker.

The standard on both sides was high but the judges were in no doubt that the best team was the YES team of Lauren Angus, Cailean Wilkinson and Helen Stage with Lauren named best speaker. Lauren is the one behind me and Helen is on the right of the picture.

The pupils of S5 & S6 were in no doubt either. Before the debate the vote was 62 Yes / 55 No / 40 DK. Afterwards it swung to 95 Yes / 50 No / 10 DK, which makes it one of the biggest turn arounds I have yet seen at such an event .

In the afternoon I was at the Scottish Association of Marine Science at Dunstaffnage opening the new Ocean Explorer Centre, meeting with the new Principal of UHI and doing a question and answer session with staff about research funding and the referendum.

Final call of the day was in Dalmally for a surgery and then a well attended and very positive YES meeting with Patrick Harvie and Willie Crossan on the platform as well.

And the sun shone all day too !