We had the Euro Elections on 4th June 2009, to elect national Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), and this time Scotland only merited 7 MEPs instead of the 8 it had previously. As the Liberal Democrats had only one MEP for Scotland under the old system, retaining that one was the first priority, in a period when the Scottish National Party was currently in the ascendency.

The results confirmed what our doorstep opinion was: The Highlands - Liberal Democrat territory for MPs and MSPs - produced results showing that the Lib-Dems were top of the poll in the Highlands once again. However, the low voting figures for Lib-Dems in the central belt of Scotland (where most of the population live) dragged down our position, and it was tense waiting for the final results. Of the 7 MEPs, the Lib-Dems retained one MEP, which was a good showing in the prevailing national mood; in fact the Lib-Dem vote increased slightly. This bodes well for the UK general election, which has to take place within the next 12 months. This gives the SNP at Holyrood (Edinburgh) a year to trip over their feet, much as Labour has done at Westminster.

Our local UK constituency is the largest in the UK, geographically, but one of the smaller ones population-wise.

The UK body that makes recommendations on constituency boundaries has declared an intention to make all constituencies similar in population, which would produce the daft situation of the Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency  becoming even larger, to bring the voting population up towards the average size. It is a crazy proposal, as it is already nearly a three-hour drive to go from north to south of the constituency, and that is on the better roads - we don't have a single motorway in the Highlands, and some of the roads on the west coast of the constituency are single track with passing places, so you daren't drive fast there.

We shall see if the boundary commission see sense........