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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 24/05/2026

So many lies.... time to undo the damage. #RejoinEU

Quotes from various Brexit advocates at the time:
- Absolutely nobody is talking about threatening in the single
market
- There is no threat to the Erasmus scheme
- There will be no downside to Brexit only a considerable upside
- The Free Trade Agreement that we will do with the EU should be one of the easiest in human history
- I think we could very easily get a better trade deal than we have a the moment
- The day after we leave, we hold all the cards and we can choose the path we want
- Getting out of the EU can be quick and easy. The UK holds all of the cards

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 08/05/2026

Emma Roddick wins #Inverness and #Nairn for the #SNP despite Fergus Ewing's spoiler tactics. Hurrah!

SNP WIN INVERNESS AND NAIRN

| Emma Roddick (SNP) 11162 30.29%
| Neil Alexander (Lib Dems) 10,735 29.13%
| Fergus Ewing (independent) 7,814 21.22%
| Fred Campbell (Reform) 3,791 10.30%
| Shaun Fraser (Labour) 1723 4.68%
| Ruraidh Stewart (Conservatives) 1372 3.72%
| steve Skerrett (Advance UK 110 0.30%

TURNOUT: 36,867 54.74%

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 17/04/2026

Your MP, Graham Leadbittter, your councillor (me), and your next MSP Emma Roddick out on the campaign trail in Nairn. It must be election time. #VoteSNP #Nairn #Nairnshire

Graham, Emma, and me standing in the road for a photo before we start canvassing.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 17/04/2026

"You are being tricked by billionaires into hating your neighbours"

That text in silver balloons attached to a dark gray wall. A man in a torquise hoody and light brown trousers stands beside it with his arms folder. At the bottom, in smaller gold balloons, is the letters BLCKSMTH

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 13/04/2026

You have until next Monday to register to vote in the upcoming Scottish Parliament election. Don't miss out on your opportunity to elect an SNP Government and secure an independence referendum. Register now at gov.uk/register-to-...

Infographic on a Saltire
REGISTER TO VOTE TODAY
- Ensure you're registered to vote
- Apply for a postal vote
- Remind friends and family to register
To find out more about how to register and apply for a postal vote gov.uk/register-to-vote

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 23/12/2025

Locally I would add to this: • Mikeysline - oursupport.mikeysline.co.uk • James Support Group - jamessupportgroup.com Remember: it's OK not to be OK.

Do not suffer in silence this Christmas period.

Samaritans - 116 123
Age UK - 0800 678 1602
Alcoholics Anonymous - 0800 917 7650
Cruse Bereavement Care - 0808 808 1677
Men’s Adviceline - 0808 801 0327
Narcotics Anonymous - 0300 9991212
National Debt Helpline - 0808 808 4000
NHS 111
Relate Relationship Support - 0300 003 0396
Shelter - 0808 800 4444
Shout (confidential text service) 85258
Women's Adviceline - 0808 200 0247
Emergency Services / Police 999

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 26/11/2025

There are lies, damn lies, and Lib Dem election leaflet bar charts and we got this yesterday to remind me of that. Note the relative heights of Lib Dem and SNP but, far more hilariously, note that both Labour's 13% and the Ref/Con bar of 11.3% are over half the height of the SNP's 33%.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 04/10/2025

Blimey, pretty much the whole of #Nairnshire other than #Nairn itself is currently without power due to #StormAmy Keep track on outages and get advice here powertrack.ssen.co.uk/powertrack

Map showing all the power cuts around Nairn

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 08/09/2025

Our new Secretary of State for Scotland. Previously had to repay £12,600 in false expenses claims and subject to allegations about bullying women. Delightful.

Guardian story from Sep 2020. Headline "Unicef UK chair Douglas Alexander resigns amid bullying allegations. Former Labout MP denies accusations as charity's vice-chair also steps down."

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 09/08/2025

The mail I got said "[the closure] will be in place to allow Scottish Water surveys to be undertaken [...] traffic management with signed diversions will be in place". The map, see attached shows "TIMED ACCESS" signs which suggests some vehicle access will be possible.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 04/08/2025

Power out at location around the ward and beyond including south and west of Nairn. Keep track of cuts here and don't forget you can phone 105 to get through to the SSEN control centre to report issues and get help. powertrack.ssen.co.uk/powertrack#R... #StormFloris #Nairnshire

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 30/06/2025

The SNP are getting on with the day job in spite of what the propaganda services maybe telling you 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

In England and Wales: 320,000 more kids in poverty
In Scotland with the SNP: 21,000 fewer kids in poverty
SNP: Delivering for Scotland

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 26/06/2025

And the award for headline of the day goes to ... #Reform

Headline from the Guardian today:

"Reform Warwickshire council head quits after five weeks, leaving 18-year-old in charge

"Rob Howard says ‘health challenges’ are behind resignation and teenage deputy George Finch will lead until replacement found"

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 19/06/2025

It's byelection day. If you live in Cromarty you know what to do. You've got until 10pm. #voteSNP

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 14/06/2025

There seems to be a problem with postal deliveries, especially in Cawdor but possibly elsewhere in Nairnshire too. Graham Leadbitter MP is meeting with the Royal Mail on Tuesday and would welcome details from anyone who's being affected. My blog has details. pauloldham.substack.com/p/year-4-wee...

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 01/06/2025

Only another 4% with Farage as PM? Blimey, is that all?! Still, 54% is not to be sneezed at. www.thenational.scot/news/2520573...

Screenshot of email from 'The National' says:

Independence support at 58 per cent if Nigel Farage becomes Prime Minister – poll

SUPPORT for independence is at 54% but would rise even further if Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage was to become the next prime minister, a new poll has suggested ...

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 16/05/2025

Congratulations to the SNP's Kevin Crawford on his victory in the Clydebank Waterfront By-election.

Infographic:
"Clydebank Waterfront By-Election"
[photo of our new councillor]
"Congratulations Kevin Crawford
SNP Progress for Scotland"

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 16/05/2025

We have a #HighlandCouncil by-election coming up in Cromarty Firth and Odette is our quite excellent candidate.

Poster with image of woman on the right and on the left black words over yellow saying "Vote Odette on 19th June SNP"

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 07/05/2025

The results are now in on the SNP's selection contest for their candidate to be our next MSP for the Inverness & Nairn constituency and I'm pleased to be able to inform you that Emma Roddick aka @emmaroddicksnp.bsky.social won with a very substantial majority of the first preference votes.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 04/05/2025

Good to know that the #LibDem leader Ed Davey thinks we're part of middle England ...

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 30/04/2025

So apparently you need to look out for something for 4 miles (in either direction). 👁️👁️ I've no idea what mind you but I suppose as the A832 is a #HighlandCouncil road I should report it to someone ... maps.app.goo.gl/2LTE511Z79bg...

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 14/04/2025

Last week the SNP government offered nurses, midwives and healthcare staff across Scotland a pay increase of 8% to ensure they continue to be the best paid in the UK. The offer is designed to guarantee their pay will be one percentage point above inflation over the period.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 14/04/2025

What is going on with the #ScottishLabour leader? He seems to regard Trump as some sort of role model!

Tweet by Scottish Labour: "It’s time for a leader who is ready to be a deal maker for Scotland." with photo of Sarwar with him quote saying "We can use our ties with Trump to make Scotland greater again"

Headline of story in the Daily Record
"Anas Sarwar echoes Donald Trump and Elon Musk by announcing Scottish Labour DOGE plan"

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 07/03/2025

... and here's a chart of the new Council Tax Band D rates where @highland.gov.uk is in the bottom third and you will be paying £1527.09 in 2025/26, up from £1427.19, or just under £2 per week.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 07/03/2025

Here's my final chart of the percentage council tax rises across Scotland ranging from 6% for South Lanarkshire to 15.6% for Falkirk. My own @highland.gov.uk was the second lowest at 7%. It was also a very positive budget, unlike many of the others where they were scrambling around making cuts.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 06/03/2025

I was proud today to be present in the chamber of #HighlandCouncil when the convener, Bill Lobban, brought an additional motion to the council at the start of business. Sadly the recording didn't pick up the huge round of applause from members at the end of this recording. #SlavaUkraini

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 04/03/2025

Confirmed CT rises. To come: • Aberdeen City • East Dunbartonshire • Falkirk proposing 13.7% (decide Thursday) • Inverclyde probably 8.5% (Thursday) • West Dunbartonshire 10-20% but I suspect 10% (Wednesday) We at #HighlandCouncil are proposing 7% on Thursday. That will make us joint second lowest

Graph of confirmed council tax rises, plus Highland's proposed 7%. Most are in the 8-10% range but Clackmannanshire isa on 13% and Orkney on 15%. Lowest is South Lanarkshire on 6%, then North Ayrshire on 7%.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 22/02/2025

Allegedly a #ScottishLabour infographic below. So their "new direction for Scotland" is not getting rid of the good things we've already got due to devolution. Is that really the best they can offer? • What about WASPI women? • What about winter fuel payments? • What about Grangemouth? #YouYesYet

Infographic:
Will Scottish Labour protect the successes of devolution
Scottish Labour will protect bus passes
Scottish Labour will protect free university tuition
Scottish Labour will protect free prescriptions
Scottish Labour will protect the Scottish Child Payment
A NEW DIRECTION FOR SCOTLAND

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 30/01/2025

This is a Scottish Greens meme but I see little to argue with here. I'm appalled that Labour are supporting a third runway at Heathrow. I'd also like to see them ban internal flights where there's fast train services, and stop the implicit subsidies on air travel too, but fat chance of that either.

LABOUR CAN'T BE TRUSTED

Keir Starmer, 2020
"There is no more important challenge than the climate emergency. That is why | voted against Heathrow expansion.”

Keir Starmer, 2025
“We're supporting a third runway at Heathrow.”

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 22/01/2025

There is an emergency road closure of part of Church Street in #Nairn to allow emergency SSE repairs as a result of a fire at Specsavers. The closure may be in place until Friday, but hopefully opened sooner. SSE will do their best to keep the footway open for pedestrians while they are working.

Map marking Church Street close from the high street down to the entrance to The Play House

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 17/01/2025

My letter is in 'The Northern Times' today responding to a Lib Dem councillor who thinks we should treat our loans to fund the Highland Investment Plan like a repayment mortgage. That isn't how local government finance works ... #HighlandCouncil #SNP

Letter headed "Highland Council's financial plan is sound, according to Audit Scotland."

Cllr Richard Gale writes about The Highland Council's financial plans (Northern Times, January 10) and his concerns that we are not paying off the loan, only the loan interest, but he fails to take into account the effect of inflation in his thinking.

To illustrate this let's take an example of a primary school built in 1964. The cost of building one today might be £20,000,000 so if you look this up using the Bank of England Inflation Calculator in 1964 the council would have paid about £1,150,000 to build the school.

The council would normally take out as 60 year interest only loan on this, based on the expected lifetime of the school. So come 2024, as Cllr Gale points out, the loan would come to an end and would need to be repaid or refinanced which is what's worrying him.

However the amount to be paid off would still be £1,150,000 and in today's terms, where the council's revenue budget is over £700,000,000, this would only be 0.16% of its budget so we would just pay it off at that point, not renew it.

The Highland Investment Plan actually calls for us to be taking out loans in the order of £60,000,000 a year but using the same figures I've used above in 60 years time we will only be having to use about 0.5% of our revenue budget to pay off those loans each year, which is very affordable.

Meanwhile we will have had 60 years of new and better schools, better roads, and better infrastructure in general across The Highland Council area because of our bold Highland Investment Plan.

And this is why Audit Scotland believe that The Highland Council has a sound financial plan.

Cllr Paul Oldham
Nairn

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 30/12/2024

'The Orkney News' reports that 'Short Term Lets are “turbocharging local economies” Claims New Report'. There's all sorts of problems with this report and I posted an analysis on Mastodon and FB but posts here are too short so here's a screenshot with alt text. theorkneynews.scot/2024/12/28/s...

'The Orkney News' reports that 'Short Term Lets are “turbocharging local economies” Claims New Report' and they're clearly largely posting from a press release from the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers.

There's all sorts of problems with this report.

The first is the use of GVA, so what they're measuring here is the money coming in from the STL. So that takes no account of the resulting losses elsewhere in the local economy, nor where that money goes.

To take an example we were looking at a big house in Lochinver which had been an STL and the owner lived in Surrey, so most of the GVA on that was going down into England, not staying in Scotland. Sure there would be some local employment created, but again that's in a work market distorted by the STL industry.

There's also the problem that renters will do their big shop for the week in somewhere like Tesco in Inverness before driving on to their west coast hideaway, so again that's GVA spent elsewhere in Scotland, not in the community where the property is located.

Second the statement that "self-catering accounts for less than 1% of the country’s total housing stock". That's Scotland wide, in Highland it's 3.5%, but that's not the problem: the problem is that in some communities, like Plockton for example, the percentage is 50% or higher.

And that in turn leads to distortions of the housing market. So, going back to Plockton, there was a three bed cottage for sale for £525,000 last year.

In Badenoch & Strathspey, where The Highland Council has introduced a Short Term Let Control Area, we are already seeing positive effects and it's been widely welcome by locals.

At a recent seminar of councillors there was a lot of support for rolling this out in other areas, especially on the west coast.

Orkney Council should be talking to The Highland Council about this, not relying on a report funded by the very people who don't want regulation of STLs.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 23/12/2024

Emergency numbers over Christmas. Thanks to #EmmaRoddick for the infographic.

Emergency Numbers

Police Scotland: Emergency - 999, Non-emergency - 101
NHS 24: 111
Samaritans: 116 123
Mind: 0300 1233393
Childline: 0800 1111
Scottish Women's Aid Helpline: 0800 027 1234
Rape Crisis Scotland: 08088 010302
Scottish Water Helpline: 0800 0778 778
Gas Helpline: 0800 111 999
Scottish and Southern Electric Freephone: 0800 300999
SEPA Floodline: 0345 9881188
BEAR Scotland: 0800 5871107

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 08/12/2024

Latest polling from The Times is encouraging. Pro-Indie majority at Holyrood after election and independence currently at 54%. Link here if you have access (I don't) www.thetimes.com/uk/scotland/...

Tweet from Kieran Andrews, Scottish political editor of The Times:
"John Swinney is on course to command a pro-independence majority at Holyrood and lead the SNP into a third decade in power after a popular debut budget as first minister, according to the first poll since tax and spending pland revealed.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 27/11/2024

Ah, the usual dodgy bar chart from the Lib Dems on their latest leaflet. Points to note: • The SNP's 21 is has been shortened, we have 61% more members than them based on their figures, not about 20% 1/

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 18/11/2024

Winter gritting has started in earnest today and you can find full details of what is gritted in our ward and in which priority order here on the council's web site. www.highland.gov.uk/download/dow...

Map of the ward showing primary gritting routes (A roads and main B roads) in red and secondary routes (mainly bus routes and around schools) in blue.

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Cllr Paul Oldham @paul.nairn.scot · 17/11/2024

Now if I don't like a book I give it up (Richard Osman's 'We Solve Murders' - I'm looking at you). I used to feel guilty about doing that but life is too short. PS ramblingreaders.org is an alternative to Goodreads ... oh, and 37/52.

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