Margaret’s Blog
This blog aims to give an insight into the day to day life of an MSP, rather than being a political soapbox.
19 March 2011
St Anne’s Church coffee morning
Beautiful day and we’ve been out and about in Corstorphine. Lots of folk obviously had the same idea and decided to head to the St Anne’s Church coffee morning. I have to say it was the most exciting coffee morning I’ve ever been to. After we parked on Kaimes Road I looked across to see a parked car start to move. Just about the time I was thinking it was unusual to see a car move that slowly it twigged that there was no-one in it! At exactly the same time another passer by spotted it and we then set off running as fast as we could down Corstorphine Hill in pursuit of the runaway car. My partner Suzanne and I and the local resident running full pelt alongside this Vauxhall as it careers downhill heading for Corstorphine Road – me desperately trying to get into the locked car. We managed to push/direct it onto a pavement where it ended up lodged between a wall and an amazingly unscathed parked car. Having called the police we carried on to the coffee morning where I’m glad to say we were able to find the very grateful owner of the car and I was able to get a sweet cup of tea to calm my nerves.
18 March 2011
Kirkliston Leisure Centre poster competition
I was delighted to be able to present prizes to the winners of the Kirkliston Leisure Centre poster competition. The competition was one of the suggestions which came forward from the Community survey I did to try to find ways to increase use of the centre. It’s a big thank you to the Community Council and the school and nursery for getting involved. Unfortunately our youngest winner Lana couldn’t be there to accept her prizes from me and the Edinburgh leisure manager as she was unwell but overall winner Ellie and age group winner Caitlin were there with their families. The girls all produced great posters and Ellie’s winning poster will be blown up and hopefully will play its part in getting people into the centre. I was pleased to also be able to presented Ellie with a congratulations card which I’d had all the Scottish party leaders sign for her. The good news is that numbers at the centre are still growing. Since news of the potential closure of Kirkliston Leisure first broke last year there has been a great effort from the Kirkliston community to work together to save the Leisure Centre. I have worked with the Kirkliston Community Council as well as Centre staff and I have recently written to the Chief Executive ahead of the crucial Board Meeting at the end of the month which will decide whether or not the Centre stays open. Despite the terrible weather during December and January the number of memberships taken out in 2011 is higher than usual. Kirkliston is set to grow significantly with the building of 600 new homes over the next few years so it makes no sense to shut it down. Kirkliston Leisure Centre is an essential part of Kirkliston life and with a rejuvenated interest in the facility due to the work undertaken by the Community Council, Edinburgh Leisure staff and others I believe the Centre can be a viable part of Edinburgh Leisure’s services. Let’s hope that common sense prevails.
17 March 2011
Sick Kids Hospital and Public Records Bill
A good cross party turn out to question Nicola Sturgeon about the Government’s delay to the new Sick Kids. The Government was originally going to fund it from capital funding as it is the £850m Southern General in Glasgow but they changed their minds and have brought in the Scottish Futures Trust to assist NHS Lothian in finding a source of funds. Having met the SFT and the Chair and Chief Executive of NHS Lothian about this recently I’m not convinced the SFT are bringing anything much to this project. Anyway I asked the Cabinet Secretary for assurances about the Government’s ongoing revenue support for the Project and she did so. It was another packed day of Stage 3s today. I spoke in the debate about the Public Records Bill which was inspired by the Historic Abuse Systemic Review undertaken by Tom Shaw in 2007. One of his recommendations was that we should improve public record keeping so that never again would children in care not be able to access records of their childhood. In the afternoon we passed new housing legislation which included an amendment from retiring Ted Brocklebank. That is the only time anyone will ever call Ted retiring! There were a number of retirees speaking today for the last time – including my colleagues John Farquhar Munro and Nicol Stephen the former Deputy First Minister who has now been elevated above us rabble to a place in the House of Lords with Jack McConnell.
16 March 2011
Mike Russell’s statement about Higher Education
Big event of the day was Mike Russell’s statement about Higher Education although most of it had been trailed beforehand. We agree with pretty much all of it. I made clear we had ruled out a return to tuition fees or a graduate contribution. The challenge for all of us now is to find the money to invest in Scottish universities and keep them competitive. The Cabinet Secretary floated his idea of charging EU students a service charge which is something that’s done in Ireland. However in Ireland it’s means tested for Irish students too so I was a bit concerned it might be a back door charge on Scottish students but I asked for and received reassurances from the Minister.
15 March 2011
The Big Education Debate
Just back from doing the Live BBC Education debate in Glasgow. The taxi driver managed to get lost on the way but we got there eventually. Highlight of the night was being asked to sum up Curriculum for Excellence in 30 seconds. Interviewer Isobel Fraser seemed impressed. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not known for my brevity so they’ll be impressed that I managed to stick to just 30 seconds on anything.
9 February 2011
Budget Day
Have just voted to support the Scottish Government’s budget. Over the past few weeks we’ve been negotiating with John Swinney, trying to secure extra funding for college bursaries and skills and training so I’m pleased that we’ve been successful and we’ve managed to secure those. An extra £15 million for bursaries over 2 years is good news for 40,000 of the poorest college students who were going to be hit hard by a freeze on bursaries at a time when living costs are going up and part time jobs are harder to find. The Liberal Democrats also managed to secure a further £8 m for 1200 more college places, 2,000 more training places, more modern apprenticeships and £1m for the Post office diversification fund which we championed last year and has proved successful. Concessions made by the Government to the Conservatives and Margo on housing, small businesses and more money for Edinburgh meant this was a better budget as a result. As I said in the debate it might not be the budget we would have produced but it’s the role of a reasonable opposition, particularly at this time, to try to secure improvements to the Government’s budget so they can support it. I was glad too that John Swinney responded positively when I asked for the Government to rethink their plans to cut £2.3m out of the Capital City Partnership which does employability work in Edinburgh, including locally in Muirhouse. We’ll keep the cross party pressure up on this and hopefully get a result.
27 January 2011
National Holocaust Memorial event
Just back from the national event to commemorate the Holocaust and other genocides. The event was held this year at Craigroyston High School in my constituency and it was an incredibly moving experience. First Minister Alex Salmond was the keynote speaker and while I don’t always agree with Alex politically, he made an excellent, thought provoking speech highlighting the importance of the event and how important it is to never forget what happened to the Jewish people. He also focussed on how we de-humanise others asking us to remember that it can all start with something as seemingly trivial as name calling. Name calling says that you think the victim of taunts are less than you and that can often be the first step. Pupils at Craigroyston made a wonderful contribution to the event through the choir’s singling and a series of presentations. None were more moving that the reading given by Tommy Paget of his own work “ The Lone Voice” about the genocide in Darfur.
24 January 2011
Kirkliston Leisure Centre meeting
I’ve had a very useful meeting with officials from Edinburgh Leisure and the Kirkliston Community Council about the results of the survey I put out around the village in December . I was really pleased with the response I got . As well as filling in the form lots of local residents came forward with their ideas about how the Centre could be improved and numbers using the Centre could be increased . EL have gone away to look at a number of the ideas . One of the best ideas was that kids in the Primary School could be asked to design a poster to market the facility and the Community Council will be taking this up with the School . We’ll all chip in some prizes . The good news generally is that use of the Centre has gone up in the past month and if we carry on this trend the Centre may well be kept open which would be a great result for everyone who’s got involved – especially those who have looked out the lycra and headed to the gym.
22 January 2011
Cramond Beach Clean
Headed out to the Cramond Beach Clean organised by the Marine Conservation Society. They do this all around the coast and keep an eye on the state of our beaches. Not so much rubbish to pick up this time because it looks like the Council had cleaned up the beach earlier in the week. Not that I’m complaining about the Council keeping the place clean but it would have been nice to know before I crawled out my bed on a cold Saturday morning to do my bit.
6 January 2011
New Years Day - 1st January 2011
Another successful Loony Dook. This was the 25th Dook and some hardy souls like Jim McKenzie and Iain "Rambo" Armstrong started the whole thing off in 1987 and havedone it every year. This was the first year it had been part of the official “Edinburgh’s Hogmanay” events and the first time we’d had to register in advance so that meant as well as having to pay £6 I had to wait in a 40 minute queue at the Hub on New Years Eve to pick up my ticket so I could be allowed to throw myself in the Forth! I had been a bit worried that this might have put people off but David Steel, the Queensferry liaison man on the day, reassured me that there were actually more people registered than took part last year. I was raising funds for the Queensferry RNLI and this fantastic organisation also got a well deserved contribution from every registration fee not least because they save us all from drowning on the day itself. As ever Suzanne and I wore our Santa suits although this year I wimped out a bit and wore jeans underneath but the coldest part of my body was my feet because the summer canvass shoes I decided to wear were certainly not up to the task – I bore the scars afterwards with blisters. It was freezing cold but given the snow and ice of the past few weeks it could have been a lot worse. We mustered at the Lifeboat Station and met up with SNP councillor Norman Work who was dooking for the fourth time, raising funds for the Queensferry Churches Care in the Community and Diane Job who looked like she’d stepped out her bed and was wearing pink pyjamas to raise funds for breast cancer research. Suzanne raised funds for the Children’s Hospice because she’s worked with a number of families over the years who have relied on the wonderful work done at Rachel House. And when all is said and done, that’s what the Loony Dook is all about – 1,000 mad people rushing headlong into near freezing water to raise money and to say thanks to all the people who will make good use of the monies raised. A big thank you, as ever, has to go to the guys who started it all back in 1987. I’m sure they had no idea then that they were starting something which would become an international event which has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charity. If you want to see more go to the loony dook site at http://www.theloonydook.co.uk/2011.htm