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The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
7th May 2009


Quiet and contemplative

It’s been quite a quiet week, and it marks two years since the election in 2007 which made the SNP the largest party in Scotland, so I’ve been thinking back over the first half of the first term of the first SNP Government.  It’s been quite a time.

We’ve made a few changes to the body politic in Scotland, a few major changes, and we’ve made Scotland better.  As a result of our time in office the major party after every future election will have to consider trying to govern on its own – whether or not they have a majority.  The idea that we would always have coalition administrations in Scotland has been laid to rest by this Government – not only have we governed from the position of a minority, we’ve made a fair success of it.

From the Council Tax freeze through Business Rates cuts and a lowering of the cost of prescriptions to the lowest ever class sizes and the Saltire Prize, we’ve changed the way people view government and we’ve changed the way in which government is done here.

With the imagination and creativity of our Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries bolstered by the excellence of our backbenchers (obviously), we’ve made Scotland better.  We’re halfway through our first term and we’ve still got bundles and bundles of energy to pile into government.  In contrast, our opposition look tired and unimaginative, grey around the gills and struggling to keep up.  We’re in fine fettle and we’re setting ourselves up to make even more of an impact over the next two years.

We’ve got a couple of tests of public opinion coming up soon, so we’ll have a chance to see whether the people agree with my judgement.  There’s the European election on June 4th and there’s the Westminster election sometime before June next year.  I was at my friend’s adoption meeting on Saturday – Claire Adamson is one of our Westminster candidates and she’ll shake them up when she gets elected – she’s a strong and determined woman and she’ll make a difference.  Aileen McLeod, one of our Euro candidates was also there, supporting her colleague while she has her own campaign to run.  It’ll be good to see both of these women elected.

Last night we had a wee party to thank our staff for all the hard work they do for us.  They’re great people and work very hard, without them we’d be unable to do our jobs.

Something I omitted last week was the visit to Hamilton Rugby Club for the sevens – what a game that is, the speed it’s played at, the fact it never seems to pause, the skill of all the players, fantastic!  I’d recommend to anyone that they go watch sevens if they have a chance.

I’ve also been sent some photos of Summerlee, so I’ve added them.  It’s a bit of a short diary this week, so I hope the photos make up for it a bit.  I’m off home now to nurse my wee sore throat.

The RAF were in Parliament yesterday and were offering details of their careers.


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