But good things also come in threes, and this year we in the SNP have the three; in the first instance we have a new Parliament, a building, rather than the Parliament itself, we have a new Leader, Alex Salmond, who is a former Leader, and a new Scots Independent newspaper, a re-invention of itself. So not exactly brand new concepts, but all fresh and exciting; Scotland may not know it yet, but it is on the move, and despite all claims of it being a Labour government that created the Parliament, we know that the Scottish National Party made it happen.

The results of the elections were as follows:

Leader: Alex Salmond 4952 75.76%
Roseanna Cunningham 953 14.58%
Michael Russell 631 9.65%

Depute Leader Nicola Sturgeon 3521 53.87%
Fergus Ewing 1605 24.56%
Christine Grahame 1410 21.57%

This was the first ever election held on the One Member One Vote principle, by post, and there was an excellent turnout of 79.39% for the Leadership and 79.23% for the Depute Leadership; after taking out the spoilt papers, exactly 6536 votes were cast in each contest. The Single Transferable Vote system was used, but because both Alex and Nicola received more than 50% on the first ballot no further distribution of votes was required.

The results were announced at a Press Conference held on Friday 3 Sep 04 at the Dynamic Earth building next door to the new Parliament, chaired by John Swinney; the results were read out by Dr Alasdair Allan, National Secretary. The votes themselves had been counted by the Electoral Reform Society and the results faxed on the morning of the meeting, so there were no leaks beforehand. The auditorium was packed, but Allison Hunter managed to get me a seat - it’s my age, you understand - and it was a momentous occasion. I was very happy to be there, although not at the events which led up to it, but as John Swinney said - that’s past history.

The contests themselves had involved over 20 Hustings Meetings the length and breadth of Scotland and attended by more than 2000 activists, so there had been ample opportunity for questions, argument, press releases and all the factors which can make politics exciting; at the end of the day there should be no lasting animosities, so now the Party can take its collective eyes from its collective navel, and concentrate on winning Independence. There was a palpable sense of progress on the day, with the man who reformed the SNP Constitution, and created the situation, John Swinney, standing quietly at the side. I believe his day, too, will come again.

WHERE TO NOW?

After the setting up of the Scottish Parliament, Scottish Members of the Westminster Parliament have had little to do; I never saw Alex Salmond as one who would sit on the terrace at the House of Commons, sipping his whisky and watching the Thames glide quietly by, he was too politically hyperactive to do that. In addition, there has also always been a demand in the SNP that we spent too much time on the affairs of state, and we should be out round the country stirring things up, so at the very least we will see if this theory will be proved. Alex did run the Party for ten years as a Westminster MP, and when Gordon Wilson was Chairman (or to be more politically correct, Convener), he was also a Westminster MP, so that in itself is not new. What is new is that there was no Scottish Parliament at that time; certainly when William Wolfe was Chairman he was not an MP and we had 11 MPs (not 13 as the Sunday Post said) and there was constant friction between the National Executive and the Parliamentary Group. (The liaison officer between the two was Margo MacDonald.) Anyway, Alex leads the Party, not just the Parliamentary Group.

Bearing the above in mind, the election of Nicola Sturgeon as Deputy Leader on a joint ticket with Alex Salmond is as good an outcome as we could hope to get; while the Deputy Leadership vote was narrower than Alex’s landslide, Nicola did get 54% of the votes cast, so she is indisputably elected by the SNP to do exactly what she is going to do, lead the Party in the Scottish Parliament. As such, she can laugh off any attempt to downgrade her position, because she can point out that she was elected to her position, whereas Mr McConnell became First Minister by default, because no one challenged him, so he was elected unopposed, as the Labour MSPs are all second raters. Some press reports are hinting that McConnell may disdain responding to Nicola, as she is not the SNP Leader, but will put in his Deputy, Wallace, instead, as one Deputy against another. This is a possible scenario, but one which surely even McConnell would not be daft enough to follow. Just imagine, he could elevate the Tories by answering McLetchie, and the SSP by answering Tommy Sheridan, but ignore the SNP - mind you, as he preferred golf to the Remembrance Service for D Day, his political sagacity is sometimes somewhat lacking. However, as I write, First Minister’s Questions have passed, or failed, one might say, and McConnell did answer Nicola Sturgeon, so that was obviously a press kite; Nicola did rather well, by the way.

After the declaration of the Leadership Election results, I was invited to see round our new Parliament, which is just a few minutes walk from Dynamic Earth; the invitation was extended by Christine Grahame MSP, who had been one of the contenders for the Depute Leadership. Our small party consisted of Christine, Tony, her brother, Dr Jennifer Taggart, joint editor of the Scots Independent and myself, but we kept bumping into John Swinney MSP, Pete Wishart MP and Allison Hunter, fellow compiler, and it was an occasionally misguided tour, as at times we weren’t very sure of where we were! There are some pictures, courtesy of Tony Grahame at _______________.

For a long time, I have been a critic of the whole Parliament building project as I believed it was the wrong building with the wrong architect and the wrong contractor, built in the wrong place, and I am sure that the Fraser Inquiry will reach the same conclusions. My first impression was of the low dark ceiling as we did not come through the public entrance, but once in the main entrance hall there is a feeling of light and space, and this was also reflected in the Committee Rooms and in the public areas. However it was the Debating Chamber itself which had the most impact on me; it is difficult to put into words what I felt, but I think that for the first time I felt a sense of purpose. Many people have used the word "stunning" about this chamber, and I would not say it is an exaggeration.

This would be our real Parliament, for the people of Scotland, paid for by the people of Scotland, if somewhat grudgingly, and it is a worthy building for an Independent Scotland. Our elected representatives, of every party, need to raise their sights; I do not believe it is a Parliament for political pygmies.

Mike was Treasurer of the Party from 1970-1983, and was a comparative rarity in those days, an Englishman as a National Office Bearer; he worked very hard at it, and was described by those he worked with as a "lovely man". He was a member of the Party leadership at a very turbulent time, but did not seem to create many enemies, and was a good and competent steward of the Party’s finances, which were never vast. He was very popular as Treasurer, and may not have been challenged for the post very often, as he would have been a hard man to shift

When he lived in Musselburgh he was very much involved in the local constituency association; Helen Davidson, who was the Parliamentary Candidate for Edinburgh East at the 1970 General Election remembers what a tower of strength he was at what was a fraught election. His day job was as an accountant with Uniroyal, both in Newbridge, Edinburgh and in Dumfries, and on retirement he moved to Inverness and ran a taxi business. Over the past few years he suffered poor health.

Our sympathies go to his widow, Yvonne, and their four sons.

Percy was the designer of my election address for Dundee West in 1983; the address won a competition in the Sunday Standard as the best election address in Scotland. The prize was £500 , a fair sum at that time, which went to defray my election expenses; I heard later that it was pinned up on a notice board in SNP Headquarters in Charlotte Square as an example of good design. Percy designed Jim Fairlie’s election address for Perth & Kinross (another constituency which kept changing its name) for the 1987 General Election; Jim didn’t get a prize but he got a better vote than I did. I have a vague recollection that Percy also designed something for Winnie Ewing, but I can’t remember anything about it.

At his funeral, one of the hymns was "Be Still My Soul", from Finlandia by Sibellius, and I asked Percy’s widow, Margaret, who had chosen that. She told me that it was Graham, their son, and he said to me "Sibellius was a nationalist." Graham was also a member of Corstorphine Branch, and now lives in Bishopbriggs.

The well designed address can be seen at: http://www.scotsindependent.org/features/thecase.htm

We continue our publication of the SNP Policy Postcards; we will publish a new one every week, each one dealing with a different aspect of SNP policy. The full list can be seen on the SNP website under "Vision" and "Policy".