Full Council

I ended up keeping a fairly low profile at Council, asking a question regarding provision of crossing patrollers and giving my support to a motion on heart screening for amateur athletes. The mosquito device motion unfortunately fell off the end of the agenda, along with other SNP motions on Steven Purcell's support for the independence question being asked and the 10p tax rate. I was disappointed not to have been able to raise the issue, but I will bring it back if I can.

On crossing patrollers, I was asking whether the Executive Member for Land and Environment, Ruth Simpson (my Labour ward colleague) thought that there should be crossing patrollers on busy city roads. I knew already that the Council policy at present is against having crossing patrollers where there is also a pedestrian controlled crossing in place, except in exceptional circumstances. I know that the Council has had problems in recruiting and retaining crossing patrol staff, but I also feel strongly that where there is a primary school next to a main road like the Gallowgate, there should be a crossing patrol also in place. The answer I got didn't suggest that there would be any change, but I intend to keep looking into the issue and will blog more on it also.

The rest of the Council meeting seemed to be taken over by football (Tommy Burns, Rangers and Phil O'Donnell), but there was some good debate on the natural disasters in Burma and China, nursery education (which I personally didn't go through as a child, so always find slightly intriguing) and a principled debate about victims of miscarriages of justice. I have a sneaking suspicion of some filibustering going on, and there was certainly no acceptance from Labour of Cllr Mackay's suggestion for a suspension of standing orders so we could complete the agenda.

It seems sometimes that there's not enough public debate; we only have full Council (the plenary session of the Council) every six weeks, and Labour still said several times today that the things other parties had raised were not appropriate for full Council. A lot of what we do in the Council is not visible or easily accessible to the public, but it affects everyone in this city. I don't know what the solution is, and perhaps it's also about apathy and getting decent standards of coverage for all levels of politics in the media. Suggestions on a postcard please...

Finding my voice

Tomorrow is full Council, and I'm starting to worry - not because the Chamber is any more daunting than usual, but because the cold which started in my throat on Sunday morning is still with me. I'm hoarse, squeeky and keep having coughing fits. I'm also down to my last sachet of Max Strength Lemsip. The motion I'm moving on Mosquito devices is last on the agenda, so I hope I can last 'til the end of the afternoon. I'll let you know how I get on!

Strange times

I've just been watching tonight's Newsnight Scotland, and I can't decide whether I'm more amazed at the strange leap the Labour party has taken from "no new powers" to "bring it on", or that David Cameron picked independence as his main issue for Prime Minister's Questions.

Wendy Alexander's comments, you could put down to blind panic and a desperate attempt to win back ground from the SNP. David Cameron was more considered however - I imagine that for the PMQ circus questions are more carefully considered. It's an easy hit look to highlight a split, but it also puts the issue of Scottish independence on the news agenda in London (or at least on a couple of blogs. Is it just this week's news, or will it run til we're independent? Hmmm...

(incidentally, while googling, this turned up. Wonder how they're getting on?)

Super Saturday

It was great to take to the streets en masse on Saturday. I've been doing this plenty with the YSI of late, so seeing some older faces was a nice change. ;-)

I don't know if other people in other parties would say the same of their colleague, but I love this happy, confident group of people. Sorry for being so soppy...

One year on

Just about everyone I know has now posted on how they feel one year on, so I thought I'd jump on that bandwagon. I waited 'til today because Councillors in Glasgow didn't find out their results until the afternoon of the 4th of May.

When we left the SECC, squinting into the sunshine, we didn't know whether there would be an SNP government. We knew that our numbers in Glasgow City Council had gone up from four to twenty-two, that every candidate we had stood had made it and that was amazing enough. In the weeks and months before the election, even that had seemed unlikely - I remember my boss of the time looking at previous election results in the old wards with me and saying it was a long shot. Nevertheless, we'd all made it.

We were all in the Ben Nevis when I got a call from my dad. He was driving home from work and had just heard on the radio that we'd won the election. I went back into the pub, not quite believing and not sure whether to tell everyone in case I'd got it horribly wrong. I told them. We were all nervous. And then, in this age of instant news and global communications... the result came up on ceefax.

It's been a short year - I can't believe how quickly it's flown past. It's also been a learning curve. It's not for me to say how I'm doing, but I do hope that the people that I've helped feel that I'm making a difference for them. I'm still as excited and proud today as I was on the 4th of May 2007.

Calman - what's the point?

I've been wondering what the Calman Commission really hopes to achieve. It's a bit limiting to start off with such a limited position, and not even take the tiniest, slightest, attempt at a consideration that independence might be best for Scotland. When they talk of the future of devolution, I have to think: how long a future does devolution in Scotland actually have?

It's also curious that Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tories, despite having varying positions (even within their own parties) on devolution and independence have come together in this way. When the Prime Minister says the review is not a "one-way street", can other parties have confidence in the direction of the Commission? Will they be able to come to an agreement? What kind of outcome will satisfy all of them? Surely it's just a total waste of time if it doesn't actually propose much in the way of change?

Pete Wishart addressed both of these points well in a recent debate in Westminster:

The Liberal party must make it abundantly clear to Labour Members that it is not prepared to go through with the process unless it gets a cast-iron commitment and guarantee that there will be no taking away of powers from the Scottish Parliament to Westminster. We all look forward to hearing that from the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. Reid), who will be speaking for the Liberal party. No one believes that there is any requirement for a return of powers to Westminster: it exists only in the fevered imagination.

The biggest problem with the commission—there are many—is what I would call the democratic deficit. The only thing that it will not consider is independence. If it is to consider Scotland’s constitutional options, it is absurd and inconceivable that independence should be left out of a review of further powers for the Scottish Parliament. What are Labour Members afraid of?

What indeed. Perhaps losing their lovely Westminster privileges...

Ahem.

The Commission, is made up of the following carefully selected individuals (I would go into details, but I see that Jeff and Calum have beaten me to it):

Sir Kenneth Calman, Chancellor of the University of Glasgow (Chair)
Colin Boyd, former Lord Advocate, member of the House of Lords (Labour)
Rani Dhir, Director Drumchapel Housing Co-operative
James Douglas Hamilton, former Scottish Office Minister, member of the House of Lords (Conservative)
Professor Sir David Edward, retired Judge of the European Court
Lord Elder, member of the House of Lords (Labour)
Audrey Findlay, former Leader of Aberdeenshire Council, now Convener of the Scottish Liberal Democrats
Jamie Lindsay, former Scottish Office Minister, member of the House of Lords (Conservative), Chairman SAC (Scottish Agricultural College)
John Loughton, President of the Scottish Youth Parliament (serving in a personal capacity-that would be because the SYP doesn't allow for party politics...)
Murdoch MacLennan, Chief Executive, Telegraph Media Group
Shonaig Macpherson, Chair of the National Trust for Scotland and of the SCDI (Scottish Council Development and Industry)
Iain McMillan, Director, CBI Scotland
Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Glasgow
Matt Smith, Scottish Secretary , UNISON
Jim Wallace, former Deputy First Minister and former leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats

At least we have the good manners to invite some of their lot over to play...

Busy busy Friday

If the rest of the week was busy, Friday was manic.

At 10am, I attended the latest announcement of money in the CashBack for Communities at the East End Healthy Living Centre in my ward.

This scheme takes money from the proceeds of crime and returns it, in this case through rugby, to keep young people out of trouble.

This latest phase of the scheme will:

"..use over £1.4 million seized from serious organised criminals to provide free rugby coaching and playing activities for over 32,000 young people throughout the country by 2011.

The Scottish Government has brokered agreement with Scottish Rugby (the SRU) to deliver a comprehensive three year programme across Scotland to encourage participation by young people in rugby."

I'll be asking the SRU what money is heading to Glasgow, and I hope it will be possible for some to come to my ward.

The unexpected surprise from the announcement for me was the presence of several rugby players, and the very beautiful Calcutta Cup. Not sure if it was the real one or the replica, but I felt lucky to get to stand near it - I say stand near, because there was no way I would have been allowed to touch it! The Cup is pretty fragile partly due to age and some shenanigans on Princes Street.

After the brief brush with sporting glamour, it was back to the reality of Council with the fortnightly Executive Committee. My mum and my cousin had come to sit in, and there was certainly plenty to hear, including A response to the Scottish Government consultation on elected health boards and the Scottish Climate Change bill, papers on the future of LES trading operations and Direct and Care Services, and a paper on the funding of Area Committees.

After lunch, we went to finally put down a deposit on the wedding venue and to look at shoes and tiaras. It's been tricky to get a date when we could all get together, so it was nice to finally start looking at putting the wedding together. It's pretty weird to have it going from a far-off concept to realising that (according to my bebo countdown clock) we get married in a hundred and eight days!

I couldn't look round the shops for long, as I had to rush off to Edinburgh to catch the end of the SNP Councillors conference. It seems to have been a very useful event, with lots of workshops. We're all so busy getting on with being Councillors, it's not really been possible to catch up with what's been going on in other groups across the country. It was also good to geek out with a different set of people purely about our different experiences and swap stories and tips. It was a good kick-off for Spring Conference too, more of which later.