Diary Holyrood chat
Future all mapped out
Sir Peter Housden, Scotland’s newly (well, fairly) installed top mandarin arrived at a conference in Edinburgh last week fully loaded with three totally crammed briefcases stuffed with important matters of state and the like. Te said items were taken away and stored securely for safety but not before he whipped out a map of Scotland and cheekily told the stewards “this is the most important thing in there, I still don’t know where anywhere is in Scotland…” As long as he knows where the money is being spent…
Turned on to politics
Tat Andy Kerr is a charmer but when being photographed at the Labour Party conference in
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nearly a year, you would have thought that Ann McKechin would know she is the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and not as billed at the Labour conference last week as the actual Secretary of State for Scotland. Tat would be a coalition way too far.
Brought to his knees
Tere are not many people brave enough to give Alex Salmond a rollicking but after what Whollyrude saw at the SNP conference, we can safely say Moira Salmond certainly is. At the Candidates’ Reception on the Saturday evening, Moira was deep in conversation when she spotted her better- half kneeling on the floor while talking to the diminutive Sandra White. Marching over to the First Minister shouting, “Not in your
Stewart Stevenson might have found his true calling in life – game-show host. Chairing the Centre for Scottish Public Policy Dragons’ Den event at the SNP conference, Stevenson kept the gems coming, telling the crowd that the Chinese Transport Minister had just resigned “and they didn’t even have any snow!” Introducing (a rather perplexed) Keith Brown MSP, the new Transport Minister who was on the panel of dragons, Stevenson said that his successor was bustling with so many ideas that he would wake in the night, note them down and not know where the notes had come from in the morning. Later, when giving Brown his chance to respond to one of the pitches, he informed him: “Keith, you’ve got 42 seconds.”
Personal services
Retiring MSP Robin Harper for starting the trend of elected Green parliamentarians in the UK
Glasgow earlier this month, next to WWF’s giant Earth electrical switch designed to illustrate how our resources are being wasted, he did admit that he didn’t expect to turn anyone on…ahhhh, we are sure that’s just not true.
Juggling briefs
He is a man of many parts but Dr Richard Simpson MSP surpassed himself at Labour conference as he was spied coming out of the gents carrying a large coffee and balancing a filled roll… He was a former associate member of the British Association of Urological Surgeons so we guess he knows how to handle himself.
Temporary adjustment
We never have believed the allegation that Labour believes it is entitled to be in power but after
76 Holyrood 28 March 2011
Den Dover, former Tory MEP for consistently refusing to payback £345,000 in ‘misused’ staffing expenses
new suit!”, Moira hastily picked him up off the floor, giving him a cuff round the ear at the same time. Now we know where the power lies…
Licking the opposition
At the same reception hosted by the Law Society of Scotland, the FM also revealed that he and the new chief executive of the society, Lorna Jack, had indeed met many years before when he had tried to curry favour by treating her to an ice-cream at the pantomime in Fraserburgh. It was later revealed by Mrs FM that in fact her husband had not just bought Ms Jack an ice-cream but had treated the whole theatre audience to an iced delicacy. Now that’s one way to melt the ice with the electorate.
It’s only a game show Former Transport Minister
Surely the Coalition down south isn’t resorting to offering a union of a particular kind to distract the SNP from its independence course as is [mis]spelt in this SNP press release… “We cannot allow the Tory-led UK Government to blow us of course, which is why we need to secure full economic and financial responsibilities for Scotland. To protect the progress we are making in Scotland, and win the real powers that Scotland needs to succeed, it is vital that the SNP Government are re-elected on 5 May.”
Keep digging
Te Lib Dem conference in Perth was a subdued affair but even the valiant attempts by Jamie Stone MSP to encourage delegates to give money to the election campaign fund with the words “because it’s not worth leaving in the bank, anyway” kind of fell flat given that Danny Alexander MP, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was sitting in the front row and already feeling under siege.
Cut of the cloth
From Local Electoral Administration (Scotland) Bill debate:
Jim Tolson:…It was also good to see Stewart Stevenson giving us a history lesson. He told us that he was going back to 1892—what a memory that man has. However, very quickly—through his digital processes, no doubt—he fast- forwarded to 1945 and talked about multimember seats. Te world did not fall apart in 1945 following the introduction of multimember seats, nor did it do so in 2007 following our local authority elections. In giving us the new history lesson that we seem to be getting from the SNP, Stewart Stevenson has a big task in trying to fill the boots of Christopher Harvie, who often gives us very good history lessons in the chamber. I do not know whether he will manage to do that—time will tell. I cannot conjure up the thought of Stewart Stevenson in plus fours, but let us leave that aside. Stewart Stevenson: I have plus fours. Jim Tolson: Tat worries me, Presiding Officer.
Quote
“Until we meet again— in the White Heather Club or in a Jobcentre
Plus near you—I thank Alasdair Morgan, Trish Godman and Alex Fergusson for their commitment to the Scottish Parliament”
Margo MacDonald, 22 March
SPOTTED Murdo Fraser walking up the Royal
Mile…Robbie Coltrane on Bread Street…man wearing sunglasses walking down Holyrood Road with skis and ski poles on the warmest day so far…a casually dressed Jamie McGrigor nipping into the drycleaners on St Mary’s Street the day after Parliament dissolved…
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