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Meeting of the Parliament 18 September 2013

18 Sep 2013 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Scotland’s Future

Adam, George SNP Paisley Watch on SPTV

We live in exciting times. This is a time of potential responsibility and opportunity for our nation, although when people listen to the leader of the Labour Party, they would think otherwise. Ms Lamont states that “Scotland is on pause”. I say to Ms Lamont that the Scotland that she wants would be in permanent rewind. She offers no ideas; I am still waiting to hear about the vision that she said she would offer in her speech.

This is one of the biggest opportunities our nation has ever had. With independence, we can talk about what we can do, instead of what we cannot do, and the members of this Parliament can get together to discuss what is best for Scotland and Scotland’s people. Instead of blaming others, we will take on the responsibility of government.

I met the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning at breakfast this morning. He quoted from Wordsworth, because he was so excited about today. Of course, I knew exactly where the quote was from, so I instantly googled it. Afterwards, I decided to think about some other things, because the public are listening to our debate and they want to engage with it. They want to find out what independence offers and what the union offers. I believe that the union does not offer us the future that independence offers us, and I have yet to see the case or the vision for retaining the union.

We are talking about the tale of two nations and the tale of two Governments, so it might be a good idea to consider the first lines of “A Tale of Two Cities”.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness … it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us”.

That is exactly what the campaign seems like, as far as the public are concerned. We offer the positive vision for Scotland as an independent nation; the no campaign just comes up with negativity, constantly says the same things and offers the people of Scotland nothing.

We have to be better than that; we are better than that. Members of this Parliament might not agree on party policy and issues, but I think that every one of us became involved in politics to make a difference in our communities. I got involved for the sake of Paisley and the communities in the area, because the two Ps—people and Paisley—are the most important things to me.

Some schoolchildren from Paisley grammar school came here yesterday. They will vote in the referendum because of our policy. One of their teachers asked about independence, saying, “This is the most important question, and these new voters should know about it”, so I had a debate about it with the member who was there from one of the parties of the no campaign. The children—I am sorry; they are young people who will be voting—laughed at the member when he told them, “You wouldn’t get BBC iPlayer. Scotland can’t run its own national broadcaster.” When we were talking about culture, he said that a boy who had had a bit part in “Waterloo Road” would not have been able to become an actor, because Scotland would not be able to sustain anything like that. The students of Paisley grammar laughed at that no campaigner, because they could see—

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Meeting of the Parliament 18 September 2013

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