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Happy St Andrew's Day
Did you have a good St
Andrew’s Day? There was another fantastic series of events organised by
the Scottish Government this year, including Linda Fabiani hosting the
St Andrew’s Do in Princes Street Gardens. Anything to get dancing, that
woman!
I was at the Blantyre St
Andrew’s night on Friday, the march in Glasgow on the Saturday, and
Dungavel on the Sunday. A night of celebration followed by an
affirmation of our nationhood and then a welcoming hand to people from
other nations who have found themselves in a difficult situation in our
nation. My assistant tells me that it’s fantastically Scottish – a
hoolie, a “wha’s like us”, and a dose of hospitality.
The St Andrew’s Night do
in St Joseph’s Church raised £1,100 for St Andrew’s hospice, so there
was a benefit from our partying as well – enjoying ourselves and raising
money for a good cause, that’s what I call a good night. Here’s a
photograph of myself with John Fallon (the Lisbon Lion), Father
O’Farrell, and Anne-Marie Lappin of the St Andrew’s Committee.
It was good to see so
many old friends outside Dungavel as well and to hear the Eurydice choir
singing “All Jock Tamson’s Bairns”. I look forward to the day when we
no longer have to gather outside Dungavel to protest at the way that
people are being treated. I have great sympathy for the staff there who
do an excellent job in very trying conditions and who seek to treat the
people in their care with the respect that’s been denied them by the UK
Government, and I respect the tremendous humanity of the staff. My
disgust at Dungavel is a disgust at the way the UK treats asylum
seekers, the staff have my respect.
Monday saw me off to East
Kilbride to Kirlandpark Primary school to speak to the pupils – and to
get the usual tough grilling that primary school pupils seem to have
handy for politicians! Where do they learn how to get right to the
heart of the matter?
Parliament this week was
interesting; we began the process of the Additional Support for Learning
Bill in committee – the SNP Government putting right the mistakes of the
last bunch (not that I’m biased in any way, you understand); and the
financial crisis dominated the proceedings in the chamber. John
Swinney’s continued excellent performance as Cabinet Secretary for
Finance is very reassuring. His command of the portfolio and his depth
of knowledge is apparent whenever he rises to speak and he was in fine
form on Wednesday as he changed the spending plans of the Government to
improve Scotland’s prospects. If he had command of all of the economic
levers he could do even more and Scotland would be in better shape to
face the troubles ahead.
The First Minister was
also on form on Thursday as he addressed the banking crisis, revealing
that the Government had written to the Competition Appeals Tribunal
about the way the takeover is being handled by Darling and Brown. I
hope that the Merger Action Group is successful – we may still be able
to save the Bank of Scotland. You can read more about the Merger Action
Group on the website -
http://www.mergeractiongroup.org.uk/
That’s about all from me
this week – I have to dash off because I’m being treated to dinner by
Howard McKenzie, Principal of Jewel and Esk Valley College to celebrate
the opening of the new campus. Howard is a very entertaining guy and I
believe I’ll be having an excellent evening. I will, of course, spill
all the beans next week.
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