Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 24 March 2021
I hear what you say, Presiding Officer, but—as I said—some of these issues are, to my mind, very important, so I wish to make the points, as I have stated I would.
Donald Dewar must be turning in his grave seeing the damage that the Administration has done to the integrity and standing of our Parliament. The Parliament was launched with such high expectations that we would do politics better. The Sturgeon-Salmond scandal has discredited our Parliament and highlighted a fatal weakness in our ability to hold the party in power to account. We have seen the SNP Administration wilfully ignore a series of votes that it has lost and wilfully ignore requests for information that was promised by our First Minister to the investigating committee at the outset.
Democracy is a fragile flower. Without proper scrutiny and the ability to hold a Government to account, our democracy is at risk.
The Administration is mired in scandal and failure on many fronts. No issue is more serious than the decline in our education system. Our education system was once the envy of the world. After 14 years of SNP rule, it is but a shadow of its former self. Nicola Sturgeon has said on many occasions that we should judge her on education. We have, and she has failed miserably.
On a lighter note, one of the maist memorable speeches I hiv delivered in the last five years was the ane I did in my ain north-east tongue—the Doric. Fin I pit it on the Facebook, it wint viral, an I hiv hid aboot twa hunner an sivinty thoosan hits fae aa ower the world. At jist gings tae show hoo important the Scots language is tae sae mony folk an foo important it is tae wir heritage an wir culture.
I wid love tae see wir Scots language pit on an equal fittin wi Gaelic an get the same level o support an fundin as Gaelic gets. In my mind, it is jist as important. It wid be great if the mony fantastic poems written in the Doric, for instance, cwid be taught in schools, bit thankfully wir Doric winna be forgotten fin I leave becis Mark Findlater is fechtin the Banff an Buchan seat instead o me, an he is a native spicker an jist as passionate aboot it as I am.
In conclusion, I have had only five years in my role as an MSP. It has been a great experience, and I have made many new friends but, frankly, I leave disillusioned with what the Parliament has become, and concerned about the future of my country.
Another five years of an SNP Administration with an overall majority, and without the ability to hold it to account, fills me with dread. Another divisive independence referendum is the last thing that this country needs just now, and I passionately hope that we can prevent that from happening. I promise that I will be doing my bit up to election day to return as many Conservative MSPs as possible, because a balanced Parliament will be a better Parliament.
17:20