He is acknowledged as being the First Crofter of the Western Isles. He has been there and he has done it. He is the only Crofting Commissioner from the islands.

Some years ago, Murdo Maclennan was active in the SNP and was widely talked about as a favoured parliamentary candidate. He left the party in 1999 because of his other responsibilities which included being on the health board.

In recent years though, Murdo has become seriously disenchanted with the way the SNP Government is doing things.

His friends tell me Murdo has despaired over what he sees as the cack-handed way the party has handled crofting and land issues and its approach to land reform particularly has been nothing short of shambolic in his view.

While wanting to make clear that he was not actually an SNP member in very recent years, the First Crofter has now confirmed that is now a member of Scottish Labour.

He had no comment to make on friends’ suggestions that he would never have anything to do with Crofters For Independence, the separatist group just launched.