Ok will give all that a try evil. Cheers for the advices guys hopefully it will fix the problem.

I would ............. (just me I think!) take out plugs, wire the earth parts of them together and cable them to a good earth. Fit caps and spin starter. Should see nice blue sparks across all plugs. Also starter should spin faster as no compression. This proves at least you have sparks but does not prove you have sparkes under compression unfortunately but shows a circuit is in place. If starter is still slow and you have done what Mr EC said about connections I would look at the starter motor next.
Regards
Mark

ARn13 wrote:Had a very similar problem last year at the start of cold season, well just before the big freeze. Batteries dont like this change of temperatures. If i dont catched it first time and kept it running, no chance it will start as it just didnt have enoough battery juice to do it. Replaced it with a new Yuasa, HEY! PRESTO, she fires up frist time all the time. And yeah never needed choke neither even if its toattlly freezing out there.

Yeah the cold is a right pain, I had similar issues to you.

if you've ruled out the battery and the coils/plugs/leads and the carbs are set right
then before you strip the starter motor out i'd check the starter solenoid
if the windings in this are a bit US then it's not going to send the starter motor enough juice to spin it fast enough, no matter how good your battery is