Contact:  You can contact John on the following email address john@johnmckendrick.com

Since February, when I was selected as the Labour prospective candidate for the May 2007 Holyrood election, I have been reading, researching, listening and getting around the constituency meeting people.

It has become very clear to me people in the far north are not simply concerned about their economic future, but about their very way of life. Many constituents have told me they feel there is no longer a future for their families and that their children are looking outside of the constituency for jobs, knowing as they do, that good quality jobs may not exist within only a few years

With over two thousand five hundred jobs dependent upon the decommissioning work at Dounreay, the people of Caithness and Sutherland need an energetic, young and driven representative to ensure no opportunity is lost to find replacement employment, to ensure their voice is heard and that the nuclear industry is supported in parliament by a party that supports it. There is little point having a lone voice calling against the tide of their party.

And in Easter Ross, I have heard how people want to see better quality jobs in Nigg and Invergordon, to maximise local engineering talent and the area’s wonderful geographical resources. Employment is a central issue.

My primary campaign issue is to fight to ensure the socio-economic fallout from Dounreay is lessened, that real action is taken to find people good quality jobs and that every effort is made to ensure a wide selection of energy related jobs remain in the far north of Scotland from the top to the bottom of the constituency.

The dangers of job losses were clearly evident six years ago, but local political leadership has allowed the constituency to sleep walk into the biggest disaster for Scottish jobs since Ravenscraig. I am committed to stopping that happen.

Please contact me to discuss how we can prevent this.