After all the
excitement
Just in case you’ve seen her on the
telly, our friend Linda
Fabiani has her arm in a sling and is taking painkillers. She was
apparently in serious pain earlier in the week and had to go to
hospital but she assures me that it’s not as bad as it was and that
she’s getting better. I have told her not to play on the circus
trapeze, but she never listens…
Cracking result for the SNP in the
European election – SNP wins in
South Lanarkshire – including
winning Hamilton – showed that we had made the breakthrough in areas
that would never have been described in the past as our traditional
heartlands. We won the popular vote in Edinburgh, winning in three
Westminster seats out of five – Kenny MacAskill’s Edinburgh East
performing well again, closely followed by Edinburgh North & Leith
and Edinburgh South West – Alistair Darling’s constituency. We were
close in Glasgow as well, winning two of the Westminster seats
there, and we won in 22 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. We are
a party of government, delivering well and being rewarded for that
delivery with an incredible performance in the middle of our first
term. Mid term boosts for Scotland’s Government and Scotland’s
Party. I suppose that means that there’s everything to play for in
the coming Westminster election.
Anyway, it was back to auld claes
and parritch after all that excitement and enjoyment and I was off
to Dublin with the SNP Trade Union Group (I’m a member) to look at
the way that the Irish Government and trade unions work together in
the best interests of Ireland and the Irish people. There are some
very interesting differences between the way we do things and the
way they do them, some things we can learn from and some things we
might think about copying. I’m keeping it all under my hat just now
while I think it through a bit, of course, but all will out in due
course! All of the TUG members who made the trip paid for it
themselves, showing a level of commitment that should stand us all
in good stead in the years to come. This supplements the work that
we’re doing in the TUG to connect the SNP group in Parliament to the
trade unions around Scotland
to make sure that our work properly engages the unions wherever
possible. Good Government is about trying to take everyone down the
same road at the same time as much as it is about creating a vision
and delivering on the promises we made in our election campaign.
Changing Scotland for the better is done bit-by-bit and day-by-day;
there is no magic bullet and no quantum leap.
Back into Parliament this week and
Wednesday saw the passing of a very important piece of legislation –
the Sexual Offences Bill. I think we should stop referring to these
crimes as sexual offences since they have little or no relationship
to sex – they’re about power, mistreatment, disregard for our fellow
human beings. They’re offences of violence whether that violence is
physical, psychological or emotional. We should call them for what
they are.
Leaving aside the terminology that
should be changed, the actual passing of this legislation was
excellent, tidying up and tightening up the law relating to rape and
clandestine injury, introducing new categories of offence which
should help to protect vulnerable groups in our society, new
measures to make clear how offences against children are
unacceptable. I think that we may have put some of these offences
in statute for the first time – but I don’t know. It’s sad that we
need laws like this but I’m more than happy to play my part in
making sure that the laws we do have are adequate and I pay some
tribute to the work done on that legislation by the Justice team
under Kenny MacAskill, but especially to Eilish Angiolini and her
team; separate from Kenny’s beat but parallel. It’s been a long and
hard slog to bring these changes right through the system but we’ve
reached the point at which it passes from the legislators to the
police and the courts. We’ll have to wait and watch and see what
the results are.
Thursday we heard about reforming
the school qualifications framework. Under
Fiona Hyslop’s leadership, we’re
bringing forward improvements in our qualifications, changing the
ways in which pupils can challenge themselves, making it possible
for pupils to raise their sights to whatever level they choose.
There are some serious changes here, Fiona seeking to make sure that
Scotland has the best possible system, the best possible choice of
qualification for all of our pupils. Keeping that system under
review is the only way to make sure that we are always offering the
best choices to our children – the people who will have the
responsibility for the next part of building a better Scotland.
There will be more on that in the next wee while as we continue to
press forward, looking to realise the ambitions of Scotland
professional educationalists to have the very best education system
possible.
Last Saturday had a fun bit in the
middle of it – I was invited to the Oliver Brown Awards, a lunch
hosted by the Scots Independent every year to honour someone who has
made a valuable contribution to Scots life and culture. This year
it was Phil Cunningham who
was honoured – one of the few people these days who can admit to
being close friends with a fiddler and no-one thinks he’s an MP.
With Aly Bain Phil Cunningham has carved an impressive swathe
through Scottish cultural life, adding flair and swagger in a style
that has given fresh life to our traditional music. It’s
interesting to see that people with real talent like Phil Cunningham
can act with an impressive degree of grace – he encourages new
talent, reminisces with those who remember earlier times, laughs
with honesty, applauds others and always keeps a healthy dose of
humility in his armoury. I remember him at the Traditional Music
awards wearing a pink shirt that almost glowed in the dark and being
genuinely surprised to be given one of the awards but accepting it
with the memorable line “if I’d known I was going to be getting an
award I wouldn’t be wearing this shirt.”
The award was presented by
Mike Russell as Culture Minister
and the toast to Oliver Brown and the Scots Independent was given by
Linda Fabiani – in sparkling form as always. A good lunch and a
good laugh and an excellent cultural ambassador for Scotland
honoured in memory of a fine Scottish humourist and nationalist.
I missed telling you a few things
last week because I was desperate to get off and get campaigning in
the European election. One of them was the relaunch and tenth
anniversary of the North Lanarkshire Handyperson service at
Summerlee where I met Ruby Campbell who, at 81 years old, is still a
member of the Board of CVS North Lanarkshire. A fine and
inspirational woman and with buckets and buckets of energy.
Craig
Pringle was in my office that week as well. He’s not famous yet but
he might be soon, he was in doing some work experience and seemed to
be pretty good at just getting down to work and getting something
out of it. There’s a picture of Craig hard at work attached to this
week’s diary, I look forward to seeing him make waves in whatever
career he chooses in the future.
John
Ogilvie High School ran a citizenship week, teaching the pupils a
bit about how their country and their world works. I had the
privilege of going to the school on the 1st of June to
see how it was going and I was fascinated by how the teachers and
the pupils had integrated citizenship into every subject and every
class for the week. They studied Peace Education and Restorative
Justice; Global Citizenship and Fair Trade; and Child Labour in
South America. They looked at Active Citizenship with their twin
school in Sierra Leone; they studied rainforest destruction,
citizenship during WWII, and Human Rights; they did a workshop based
on The Apprentice TV programme; they looked at responsible
cyber-citizenship and staying safe on the internet, drama workshops,
poetry an short stories.
From the effects of science to
foods of the world, sports to photography, composing music to
construction techniques in different countries, this school covered
an enormous amount of ground in just one week. I’m impressed, and I
was impressed by the passion they showed for the way in which
Scotland once led the world in
promoting individuals’ rights and how they believed that Scotland
can, should and will go back to that leading position. I left John
Ogilvie’s feeling inspired – I think the pupils will have got a huge
amount out of it and I congratulate the staff on their imagination,
talent and dedication in creating that week.
It’s been a busy wee time, and
there’s more to come. I’m off to another meeting and there’s a
rally for the 1820 society in Strathaven on Saturday.
Interestingly, one of the American interns we have in Parliament
just now is a direct descendant of one of the Strathaven weavers – I
wonder if she’s going on Saturday?
