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: New Scottish Parliament: 10 years old
I was working for Company of Bankrupt Evil between 1995 and 1999: when the first Labour government was elected after 18 years of Tory misrule, the day after 1st May 1997, I had a meeting to discuss something work-related, and I remember how three of us stepped outside after the meeting and admitted to each other we'd stayed up or when we'd gone to sleep, to see the Conservatives fall. Four months later, as promised, we got a referendum on the Scottish Parliament: I voted yes to the Parliament and yes to tax-raising powers.
Between May and September we had had a Pride festival in Edinburgh in the rain, and the logo of that Pride became the logo of the organisation for which I now work: the organisation itself came into being that year, a part of the new resurgence in Scottish politics. I knew one of the founders (as one does: we had both been involved in the anti-Clause 28 campaigning back in the 1980s).
Things went very wrong for me at work - for reasons there is no point going into here: almost all those concerned in it have since lost their jobs when the Company of Bankrupt Evil went bankrupt. I voted in the election for the new Scottish Parliament, of course, but in May 1999, when the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament was being held, I was off with my old job and on with my new - I had moved to Thames Valley and was working for Enormous Software Company.
In July, I was on a training course in London when the new Parliament opened: Friday was the day there were pics in all the papers. I said to a lot of people who asked what I thought of devolution that we should wait 10 years to judge.
Being in England that year I missed the worst of the campaign to "Keep Section 28", where a Scottish millionaire teamed up with a tabloid paper and a Catholic cardinal to campaign against the abolition of the law prohibiting "the promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities. There were billboards all over Scotland for a while letting all the LGBT people in Scotland know just what Brian Souter thought of us.(When the millionare briefly published a Freepost address, I sent him a very heavy box of telephone directories and junk with his Freepost address on it: he had to pay double for the postage of anything sent to him by Freepost, you see.)
Since then: things have changed. I think Scotland's become more left-wing/more liberal than England has: the Tories remain the least popular mainstream party in Scotland for tribal reasons, but they're meek enough that they even have an active gay branch which shows up at Pride. The First Minister sends messages apologising for his absence at Pride. (It's just up the road from where the Scottish Parliament stands, but it was raining quite hard.) Politically Scotland changed, and mostly in good ways. I still don't especially want an independent Scotland - wouldn't vote for one, at least. But I like having "parliament-men o' our ain" as Mrs Howden says in Heart of Midlothian (1818 - it's on the Canongate wall) "we could aye peeble them wi' stanes when they werena gude bairns - But naebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon". And that has proved remarkably true: not that MSPs do not vote according to party and whip, because they do, but because the voting system in Scotland is such that it is (though it broke down quite seriously at the last election) quite responsive to small groups of voters. It works - which is the main thing you can ask for in a government. (And Section 28 was repealed years earlier in Scotland than in England/Wales, despite Brian Souter.)
MSPs are required to take an oath of allegience to the Queen: from 1999 onwards, an increasing number of MSPs have rather preferred to take their oath "to the Scottish people" (the principle derived from the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 - I have to say rather loosely, given the original text, which includes promises to the Pope that the Scots lords will go on Crusade if only King Edward will leave them alone - but vested with over six hundred years of tradition). In 2003, Rosie Kane, a young Scottish Socialist MSP from 2003-2007, raised her hand to take the oath of allegience and had written on her palm "My oath is to the people" (BBC) but most MSPs choose the less-dramatic route of letting the senior MSP of their party say they're taking the oath to the monarch but affirming that "the people of Scotland are sovereign in this land" or some such, and then taking the oath with a "What s/he said".
As Doctor Winnie Ewing said on 12th May 1999, at the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament, which - in the absence then of any Speaker or First Minister or any other official bodies, she was asked to chair in accordance with UK Parliamentary tradition as the oldest person present: "I have the opportunity to make a short speech and I want to begin with the words that I have always wanted either to say or to hear someone else say: the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on 25 March 1707, is hereby reconvened."
On 1st July 1999, the Parliament took up its full powers.
Sheena Wellington sang "A Man's A Man For A'That" at the opening ceremony: and, spontaneously, as she sang, most of her audience of MSPs joined in. (Reportedly, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and the Queen, both of whom were accustomed to far more sedate State Openings of Parliament, looked absolutely grimly horrified.)
A man's a man for a' that
The verse where the MSPs joined in:
Tags: music videos, pride, scottish politics
I was working for Company of Bankrupt Evil between 1995 and 1999: when the first Labour government was elected after 18 years of Tory misrule, the day after 1st May 1997, I had a meeting to discuss something work-related, and I remember how three of us stepped outside after the meeting and admitted to each other we'd stayed up or when we'd gone to sleep, to see the Conservatives fall. Four months later, as promised, we got a referendum on the Scottish Parliament: I voted yes to the Parliament and yes to tax-raising powers.
Between May and September we had had a Pride festival in Edinburgh in the rain, and the logo of that Pride became the logo of the organisation for which I now work: the organisation itself came into being that year, a part of the new resurgence in Scottish politics. I knew one of the founders (as one does: we had both been involved in the anti-Clause 28 campaigning back in the 1980s).
Things went very wrong for me at work - for reasons there is no point going into here: almost all those concerned in it have since lost their jobs when the Company of Bankrupt Evil went bankrupt. I voted in the election for the new Scottish Parliament, of course, but in May 1999, when the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament was being held, I was off with my old job and on with my new - I had moved to Thames Valley and was working for Enormous Software Company.
In July, I was on a training course in London when the new Parliament opened: Friday was the day there were pics in all the papers. I said to a lot of people who asked what I thought of devolution that we should wait 10 years to judge.
Being in England that year I missed the worst of the campaign to "Keep Section 28", where a Scottish millionaire teamed up with a tabloid paper and a Catholic cardinal to campaign against the abolition of the law prohibiting "the promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities. There were billboards all over Scotland for a while letting all the LGBT people in Scotland know just what Brian Souter thought of us.(When the millionare briefly published a Freepost address, I sent him a very heavy box of telephone directories and junk with his Freepost address on it: he had to pay double for the postage of anything sent to him by Freepost, you see.)
Since then: things have changed. I think Scotland's become more left-wing/more liberal than England has: the Tories remain the least popular mainstream party in Scotland for tribal reasons, but they're meek enough that they even have an active gay branch which shows up at Pride. The First Minister sends messages apologising for his absence at Pride. (It's just up the road from where the Scottish Parliament stands, but it was raining quite hard.) Politically Scotland changed, and mostly in good ways. I still don't especially want an independent Scotland - wouldn't vote for one, at least. But I like having "parliament-men o' our ain" as Mrs Howden says in Heart of Midlothian (1818 - it's on the Canongate wall) "we could aye peeble them wi' stanes when they werena gude bairns - But naebody's nails can reach the length o' Lunnon". And that has proved remarkably true: not that MSPs do not vote according to party and whip, because they do, but because the voting system in Scotland is such that it is (though it broke down quite seriously at the last election) quite responsive to small groups of voters. It works - which is the main thing you can ask for in a government. (And Section 28 was repealed years earlier in Scotland than in England/Wales, despite Brian Souter.)
MSPs are required to take an oath of allegience to the Queen: from 1999 onwards, an increasing number of MSPs have rather preferred to take their oath "to the Scottish people" (the principle derived from the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320 - I have to say rather loosely, given the original text, which includes promises to the Pope that the Scots lords will go on Crusade if only King Edward will leave them alone - but vested with over six hundred years of tradition). In 2003, Rosie Kane, a young Scottish Socialist MSP from 2003-2007, raised her hand to take the oath of allegience and had written on her palm "My oath is to the people" (BBC) but most MSPs choose the less-dramatic route of letting the senior MSP of their party say they're taking the oath to the monarch but affirming that "the people of Scotland are sovereign in this land" or some such, and then taking the oath with a "What s/he said".
As Doctor Winnie Ewing said on 12th May 1999, at the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament, which - in the absence then of any Speaker or First Minister or any other official bodies, she was asked to chair in accordance with UK Parliamentary tradition as the oldest person present: "I have the opportunity to make a short speech and I want to begin with the words that I have always wanted either to say or to hear someone else say: the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on 25 March 1707, is hereby reconvened."
On 1st July 1999, the Parliament took up its full powers.
Sheena Wellington sang "A Man's A Man For A'That" at the opening ceremony: and, spontaneously, as she sang, most of her audience of MSPs joined in. (Reportedly, the Speaker of the House of Commons, and the Queen, both of whom were accustomed to far more sedate State Openings of Parliament, looked absolutely grimly horrified.)
A man's a man for a' that
The verse where the MSPs joined in:
Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree an' a' that,
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That man to man the world oe'r
Shall brithers be for a' that.
Current Mood: 
pleased
pleased
