Perth, 13 April: George Reid told a packed rally in the Saultation Hotel that the main lines of the election in Scotland were now clear – "An overwhelming wish to get the Tories out, a belief that New Labour will just mean more of the same, and a conviction that only the SNP will always put Scotland first."

In place of the politics of pessimism, the SNP offered hope and – "vision, not division".

At local level, Mr Reid said he was the only candidate pledged to live in Ochil: "I shall not be an invisible MP. As I did before, I shall hold surgeries in every village. When I am not at Westminster, I shall be part of the local community."

At national level, both New Labour and the Tories were "Thatcher’s children". Only the SNP were committed to the Scottish values of Enterprise and Social Justice.

 Speaking in Kinross on Thursday (10/4), Mr Reid said that Tony Blair had abandoned the caring policies of John Smith. "In a desperate search for votes in Middle England, New Labour has scrapped commitments on fair tax, on pensions, on free eye tests, on new money for health and education, and on replacing student loans with grants.

 "I respect many people in the Labour movement. But I suspect many of them are ashamed of their Tory programme."

 In Bridge of Allan on Monday (14/4), Mr Reid claimed that the Conservatives were now reduced to "fomenting fear". "Local folk know me. The Tory suggestion I am to the left of Arthur Scargill will simply produce derision and contempt for their candidate."

In Tullibody (12/4) Mr Reid said that local and national politics came together in the "curious case" of the Clackmannanshire Dinner Ladies. "Martin O’Neill has refused to tell local people what New Labour will do for them.

 "But now that Gordon Brown has accepted Tory financial plans, there will be no more money for them. Until Mr O’Neill ends his silence, he is open to the charge that – while he poses with them for photos – they will get nothing from his party."

 Following reports on the BBC that Ochil is a "neck and neck" contest, Mr Reid commented: "I agree. Only the SNP has 33,000 individual canvass returns and our pledged support is rock solid. There is a steady drift of voters to us from the other parties. We are marginally ahead, but almost one in five voters are still undecided.

 "Most of them are swithering between the SNP and New Labour, and will come to us when it is clear the Tories are finished. We are confident that, within the next week, they will do so and that we shall win."

• THE FLYING SQUAD: The SNP car cavalcade again covered most of Clackmannanshire and East Stirling on Saturday (12/4). "We made 17 stops, during which our volunteers fanned out on the doorsteps and George spoke to individual voters," said agent John Adamson. "We had a terrific response, with many folk saying this was the first time they had seen a politician since George was last MP."

• OCHIL ON INTERNET: Ochil SNP now has its own Internet pages at www.almac.co.uk/ochilsnp/.

• GEORGE AT MENSTRIE: George Reid has accepted an invitation to speak to pupils at Menstrie Primary School on Tuesday 15 April at 10am. "It will be strictly non-political", he says, "as part of the pupils’ community and media studies programme." Mr Reid has family links with Menstrie going back to the 18^th century.

• WINNIE IN OCHIL: "Madame Ecosse", Winnie Ewing MEP – the longest serving member of the European Parliament – will tour Ochil with her former parliamentary colleague, George Reid, for the whole of Friday 18 April.

 Media will receive a detailed schedule, indicating times for interviews and photocalls

• UNIVERSITY OF STIRLING: George Reid is visiting the Students’ Union at Stirling University every three or four nights. The University is only five minutes from his home in Bridge of Allan. "There is great hostility to New Labour’s proposals to continue student loans," he says, "matched by enthusiasm for the SNP’s commitment to reinstate student grants, updated to their 1990 value."

• MEETINGS, MEETINGS: The SNP has organised 28 public meetings during the election campaign. "George will be speaking in even the smallest villages," says press officer Anne Harvey. "Ochil is a series of small communities and everyone deserves to hear and question the candidates. The electorate will draw its own conclusions about the silence and absence of the other parties."

• GE-97 DIARY: George Reid writes a daily campaign diary on Internet at the invitation of GE-97, the main political site sponsored by the Press Association, the Economist and Mori Polls. The diary may be accessed from Ochilsnp’s site (see above), the SNP national pages (www.snp.org.uk) or the GE-97 homepage: www.ge97.co.uk/News.

• DANS LES OCHIL: George Reid did an extended television interview in French for the main national news in France on Sunday 13/4, and for the leading Belgian paper, Het Nieusblad. Interviews are lined up with the Observer, BBC, ITV and a dozen other tv stations and national/international newspapers.