After his train pulled back into East Kilbride the First Minister was over by supporters as he returned to his hometown on the final Sunday before Election Day. Having represented the town and the rest of Central Scotland at Holyrood throughout the last term, missing not a single vote, he has built up a reputation for being a diligent local MSP. This has gathered a large public gathering who admire the way that their communities are always championed.

Emerging from the crowd, with selfies snapped and manifestos signed, the First Minister made his way to the Constituency Green Party’s stall outside the town’s main bus station. Despite the heavy media presence, the First Minister was still able to talk to some of his constituents.

Louise: Whilst I’m sure the whole town appreciates your defence of jobs at the International Development Offices, What Support can you offer for other businesses experiencing hard times, in order to save jobs?

The FM: Thanks for the question. I totally get your concern and government should not be focusing only on one establishment, that breeds inequality, resentment and ultimately harms the economy. Unfortunately it is harder to keep businesses afloat in the private sector once they reach a critical stage so the task of government must be ensuring that they do not reach this stage. Furthermore, in East Kilbride, Coca-Cola remains a significant employer in the way that Rolls-Royce and Motorola were in years gone past. The effort must be made to keep them in the town on a local basis to ensure that large enterprises see there home here. Certainly, however, should there be a crisis in the main industry of any town then we must support in whatever way we can, desolate towns very rarely recover without concerted effort. Ravenscraig told us that much.

Andrew: Many specialist services, even maternity, aren’t provided at Hairmyres Hospital. Can you commit to a more local NHS in the future?

The FM: You’ll be pleased to know that I can commit to exactly that. Starting off the the care of the elderly and the disabled as much care as possible should take place within the community. This allows for crucial links with family and friends not to be broken by an unnecessary spell in hospital and this takes on a whole new meaning with those who have mental health conditions. As for specialist hospital services, centralisation in Glasgow and Edinburgh can allow us to build some of the most efficient and advanced treatment centres on the planet, this is of importance for conditions such as cancer were a hospital needs several machines for treatment so unfortunately that probably won’t be possible at Hairmyres. Maternity again would require NHS Lanarkshire to reallocate some of its children’s services from Wishaw up to here, this seems more plausible and could realistically make a difference in the early stages of life. Expansion would be needed at Hairmyres but it’s something I’ll certainly look at over the next term.

Peter: This town, as you’ll know, was originally almost entirely built through council housing. Whilst I welcome your ending of the Right to Buy scheme, will you use the example of history to end the housing crisis?

The FM: Of course, we’ve increased the funding available to our new local council to build more publicly owned, affordable housing here and in towns just like here up and down the country. Over the next term I will continue to encourage this sensible investment, as well as continued restrictions on exploitative landlords to ensure that everyone has an affordable, safe and hygienic home. This is undeniably the most basic of human rights and homelessness is the national embarrassment of nation developed nation. We will do all that we can do to address and eliminate it in Scotland.

Following his pit stop at the campaign stall, the First Minister headed up to Hairmyres Hospital himself, to give the briefest of statements.

I knew that the local health board had transformed this into a university hospital so I had to talk to some of the students themselves. Whilst Glasgow Caledonian and West of Scotland deal only with the allied professions it’s still important for students to have practical experiences. This will improve patient care long into their careers and it is wonderful to see this particular partnership in full swing in the three NHS Lanarkshire hospitals. This has my full support and I would like to see This extended to all universities offering these degrees throughout the country.