At the Aberdeen Conference in May 1968, Winnie entered the Beach Ballroom, and the place erupted as she walked to the platform; she wore a shocking pink trouser suit, if I remember rightly, and she positively radiated. Ah the heady days, when we felt Independence was just round the corner! Our joy was short lived, for we lost Hamilton at the next election in 1970, but we took the Western Isles in that General Election, when Donald Stewart was elected, our first General Election victory; but from November 1967 there has always been an SNP Member of Parliament in Westminster. In February 1974, Winnie was elected as the MP for Moray, taking the seat from Gordon Campbell, who had been the Tory Secretary of State for Scotland; that seat was declared late, as rural seats were at that time, and it was well into the Friday before we got the result.

Winnie held that seat until 1979, when the debacle over Callaghan’s vote of confidence cost the SNP 9 of our 11 seats, but she bounced back again as the Member of the European Parliament in 1979, and held the Highlands and Islands seat until 1999. In May 1999, as the oldest member of the Scottish Parliament, she opened the Parliament with the words "The Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on March 25th, 1707, is hereby reconvened."

At the next elections, in 2003, Winnie is standing down, as a Member of the Scottish Parliament, having given a lifetime of service to Scotland; we are sad, but wish her a long and happy retirement, spending time with her grandchildren. No doubt Stewart, her husband, will be delighted, as his life has been sacrificed to Scotland, too, over the years.

The last company in the Scottish Transport Group was sold ten years ago, and there was £250 million left in the pension fund; the nasty Tories decided to keep £150 million of this to be split between the Treasury and the Inland Revenue, giving the pensioners £100 million of their own money back. In England, John Prescott ordered that £114 million of a bus pension fund surplus be returned to the 54000 pensioners, whether they had a legal claim to it or not. Mr Prescott said at the time that a Labour Government would not "raid the pension funds."

Annabelle said "All of the money belongs to these Scottish pensioners, and all of the money should be handed back to them. That’s what happened south of the Border, and that’s what the SNP demand must happen in Scotland. The SNP are tabling a parliamentary motion on this important matter, and expect all Scottish MPs to sign up to it. It would be crazy if Scottish New Labour MPs agreed with Government policy to hand the English pension money back, but supported London ripping off Scottish pensioners to the tune of £150 million ."

At the time of writing, no Scottish Labour MPs have signed the motion; who’s going to tell the pensioners?

The argument is between local authorities and the private sector, who were happy enough to go into the caring business as long as there was money to be made; they now feel that having to take the councils’ surplus elderly is not economic, but as care homes are closing all over the place, maybe care of the elderly per se is no longer economic. In the midst of all this are the victims - the elderly - being used as pawns; it is surely bad enough having to go into a home without having the insecurity of knowing you will be staying there. Moving house is enough of a trauma when you are younger, and when you do it by choice, so what must it be like for the elderly passed from pillar to post?

Lord Sutherland, who chaired the royal commission on long term care said that we were not putting aside enough money to provide care for the elderly, and if the government had implemented the commission’s recommendations they would not be facing the problem now. Whatever the long term solution, and although the Scottish Government has agreed to fund care for the elderly we have no specific proposals, an interim solution has to be found quickly, as around 3000 hospital beds are being occupied by the surplus elderly now; all we will need this winter is a moderate flu epidemic and the hospitals will be bursting at the seams. And the elderly deserve our consideration; the SNP do not regard them as surplus.

We referred in the previous article to the old Hairmyres Hospital, which is being brought back into use for the elderly, but the new Hairmyres Hospital, a PFI costing £67 million is getting a bad press. It opened four months ago, and just a week or two back we noted that the meals were being cooked in Manchester, 210 miles away, every three days and then sent to East Kilbride; we now hear that there have been problems with raw sewage seeping through the floors, thousands of missing records, and faulty air conditioning. The latest is that the planners forgot to put in a purpose built cancer unit! They have now converted part of the administration area into a cancer ward, but there is only one member of staff left to man the ward. This cavalier attitude highlights why Scotland has one of the worst records for death from lung cancer; the death rate for males per 100000 in Scotland is 93.8. This compares with Ireland at 53.4 and England and Wales of 74.3; for females it is 62.7, against 27.8 in Ireland and 41 in England and Wales.

However, we digress; Andrew Smith, Chief Secretary to the Treasury (the same one who told the truth about the Barnett formula just last week) was in hot water earlier this month. He told Parliament that there had been "two substantive reports on PFI which have indicated that PFI is delivering value for money". A report from the National Audit Office entitled "PFI and Value for Money" had found an average saving of 20 per cent, The National Audit Office later confirmed that the report "PFI Value for Money" did not exist; the Government’s financial watchdog said it had never done an analysis of whether PFI offered value to the taxpayer. It said it planned to raise the misleading answer with the Treasury.

And was it just last week that we commented on Carlisle Infirmary.......? As we said at the start of this article, if you believe in pyramid investment you will believe in PFI; or if you are the one taking the money, you believe in it.

While there is also an outcry at the appointment of a commercial company to select the artworks to adorn the walls of the Parliament, the SNP’s Mike Russell has been viewing the great collections of artworks in public ownership. Unfortunately, Mike has not been able to visit all the art galleries, but he has discovered that even if he did he would be wasting his time; he has been viewing them at www.gac.culture.gov.uk The reason that he cannot see them by visiting an art gallery is that many of these treasures are hung in Government buildings, mainly in private offices; in fact there is a Government advisory committee made up of the great and good of the London art gallery world which continues to purchase items for the collection and oversees where they are hung. The remit was originally to purchase items of "historical or official interest for the decoration of public buildings and offices in London"; this was extended to allow purchases for overseas posts, ie embassies. Mike thinks that as Scotland has paid for a part at least of this collection we should be entitled to at least some of it; the website does not say where all the items are, perhaps to save Lord Derry Irvine embarrassment. The point is that there is already a committee selecting art and presumably paid from the public purse, so perhaps we could even get a sub committee at no extra cost.

Regarding the title of this article, the location of the new Parliament building is actually outwith the boundary of what is Holyrood; the understandable reason for the name Holyrood being used is that the proper name for the site is the Watergate.

The Pendennis column in the Observer commented that another doyenne of the Tory Party, Dame Shirley Porter had still not been investigated after the council "homes for votes " affair. The judge, Lord Justice Rose insisted that she had "lied to us" while giving evidence on oath, what normal people call perjury. "If someone asked us to do so, we would have to consider whether to launch an investigation" said a Metropolitan Police spokesman. We’ve had no request to consider the matter. Yet."

Dame Shirley Porter was the Tory leader of Westminster City Council, and is the daughter of Jack Cohen, founder of Tesco; she now lives in Israel, I think.

I cannot say I approve of any moves to bar Lord Archer, or Dame Porter for that matter, from membership of the House of Lords; in general terms, membership of that House was originally for people whose forebears were bigger thieves and cutthroats than mine, so what is different?

Nicola has also written to Muir Russell, Head of the Civil Service in Scotland, as one of his civil servants had breached the Code of Conduct; the Press Association copy quotes the Executive as follows "The nationalist attack was dismissed by the Executive. A spokesman for the Health Minister Susan Deacon said "As usual, the SNP have taken extremely selective figures which they then twist to meet their own need."

The Civil Service Code of Conduct requires "the duty not to use public resources for party political purposes, to uphold the political impartiality of the Civil Service." Nicola says that this is a clear breach, and further evidence of the politicisation of the Civil Service by Labour.

As for the culture colliding, Nicola was on the train which hit the Waverley Station buffers on Monday this week, but fortunately does not appear to have required hospital treatment; interesting that accidents from the past privatisations are treated at the future privatisations, to be denied by unpoliticised civil servants, of course.

Footnote for those critics of our new Parliament; it is in recess but Nicola was on her way to work as usual, as all other MSPs would be as well.

The HCI Hospital was funded by money from Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Office (our money - at least £30 million) but did not get enough rich patients from overseas and went bust; it was bought for a song by the Abu Dhabi Medical Investment Group in 1995 who are coining it at the expense of the NHS. We don’t blame this company for the exploitation, but the ineptitude of successive governments.

The former Scotsman building has now been transformed into a five star hotel; the hotel, known as the Scotsman Hotel, has a whisky bar offering 399 malts.

When they had the signs put up they must have used a 40% proof reader; the sign said "Whiskey Bar."

The University has now decided to demolish the wave test tank used by Professor Stephen Salter as they need the land for other purposes; ironic as the increase in global warming is focusing efforts to find sources of renewable energy. Wealth does not always bring responsibility.

It is now 10 years since the BCCI scandal, when a bank, supposedly regulated by the Bank of England, went bust. The Western Isles Council was so pleased with the rate of interest they were getting from BCCI that they even borrowed money from other lenders to invest with it. This was one private investment idea that did not work; the Council lost all £24 million.

The Labour -led Scottish Executive has awarded Edinburgh based Yellow M advertising agency the contract to promote the Executive and its policies over the next three years.

The agency concerned is the one used by the Tory Party in the General Election; the elections for the Scottish Parliament will be held in two years’ time.

SYNOPSIS

LABOUR ARE SO FERRY STUPID

The Labour government has come under fire for failing to ensure the state ferry firm CalMac were exempt from new EU laws. Writing in his weekly Sunday Mail column, SNP MSP Andrew Wilson describes CalMac as the single most important lifeline for Scots in places as far apart as Dunoon, Mallaig and Stornoway. He says: "Travelling up the West Coast of Scotland you start to appreciate the value of CalMac. But there's a real threat CalMac is going to be replaced by a private operator. That's because the Labour Government failed to apply for an exemption from EU laws, which ban subsidies to state companies like CalMac. Other countries like Greece managed it but Scottish Office ministers sat on their hands. The result is real distress and uncertainty for island residents. Bidding will start soon and Transport Minister Sarah Boyack will be praying CalMac wins out. If not, we'll all know who to blame."

MOBILE 'PHONE MAST CRACKDOWN BEGINS

Strict new regulations for mobile 'phone masts have come into force in Scotland. All ground-based masts must have planning permission and equipment on buildings will also be subject to controls. The new regulations mean that Scotland has stricter controls on where masts can be sited than anywhere else in the UK. Mobile phone companies will have to go through the full planning process before installing masts on the ground. In recent weeks, there have been angry protests over the siting of masts with community groups mounting blockades to prevent developments from going ahead. Bruce Crawford, shadow environment minister, said that the new regulations did not go nearly far enough. "The only way that we can ensure that there are no such structures around our schools and residential areas is to implement retrospective planning regulations," he said. Mr Crawford is particularly concerned that the new regulations will not impact upon plans to install masts in sensitive areas such as schools, hospitals or residential areas. There have been long-standing concerns about potential risks from radiation, but the industry has denied that they pose any danger to health.

UK CARS COST MOST IN EUROPEAN UNION

The SNP has called for a radical overhaul of the existing rules of selling cars which, its MEPs claim, are rigged in the interest of car makers. A new report from the European Commission shows that British motorists are still paying significantly more for their cars than their European neighbours. In the worst-case scenario, certain cars are 60% more expensive in the UK than elsewhere. The EU's survey compared the prices of 81 models from more than 25 of the largest car manufacturers. The UK was the most expensive place to buy a car for 52 out of the 81 models tested in the study, despite the recent depreciation of the pound sterling against the euro. SNP Euro-MP Ian Hudghton wants the European Commission to investigate restrictive practices by car manufacturers that impede EU citizens from buying a car in another Member State. "The manufacturers' behaviour should be fully taken into account when the EC present its proposals later this year for the future legal framework for motor vehicle distribution," he said.

REPORT TACKLES VOTER APATHY

Internet voting and a "positive abstention" box on ballot papers are just two possible options which could prevent a repeat of June's dismal election turn-out, a report from the powerful Electoral Commission concludes. The commission, which oversees UK elections, revealed is it also set to run a pilot study of phone voting as part of a drive to make taking part in elections "easier and more user-friendly". John Swinney said that the report amounts to a total review of the way UK politics are conducted covering not only voting reforms but also political donations, fixed term parliaments and education schemes to teach young people about democracy. The SNP were committed, he said, to developing a long-term programme of civic education and encouraging participation in all areas of politics. "We need to find new ways of engaging the public in politics if we are to encourage them to question and participate in the civic arena," the SNP leader added.

SHAREHOLDERS SUPPORT BANK OF SCOTLAND MERGER

Bank of Scotland shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a £29bn merger with the Halifax. At an extraordinary general meeting in Edinburgh, shareholders voted by just over 99% in favour of the deal. The Bank of Scotland announced its plans to merge with Halifax in May and last week the UK government gave it the green light. Stewart Stevenson, MSP for Banff & Buchan and the bank's former technology director, said Scotland could look forward to having another world-class and world-scale financial institution based in Edinburgh and contributing to the local economy. "We must however remain vigilant that real decision-making remains and grows in Edinburgh," he warned.

SCOTTISH FISHING AID FALLS SHORT OF EU PARTNERS'

Shadow fisheries minister Richard Lochhead has labelled £5m of funding to help the fishing industry as a "drop in the ocean". Most of the money will come from the European Union - but it will be topped up with almost £1m of Scottish Executive cash. There are among about 50 Scottish companies and organisations who are going to receive the first round of awards of the European Union financial aid. The programme will run until the end of December 2006, and money awarded will be used to give a financial boost in areas like fish processing, marketing and port facilities. Mr Lochhead compared the £5m Scottish package with the additional £120m awarded last week to Spanish fishermen. "It remains the case that the fishing industry has been left bruised and battered by the Labour-Liberal coalition's policies," he said.