Margo MacDonald: Will Annabel Goldie give way?
Margo MacDonald: Will Annabel Goldie give way?
Margo MacDonald: When Gordon Brown introduced his ideas for the referendum at yesterday’s press conference, he said that Scots in Scotland should feel as responsible for the wellbeing of people south of the border as they do for people here. Should that not extend to the franchise? Should expats not have a say? I wondered about that when Helen Eadie said that they should have no franchise.
Margo MacDonald: Will the member take an intervention?
Margo MacDonald: I am older than him.
Margo MacDonald: Given all the care that is being taken of that group of electors—that is what we have decided that they are—if they are equally able to take the sort of informed decision that we more adult electors will take, why should they be protected?
Margo MacDonald: Woo! Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am with Abraham Lincoln. He accepted that people are individuals and that some folk would get too close to the fire while others would have the sense not to. This afternoon, we have made a wee bit of a meal of the difficulty of holding a referendum. I am old enough to remember the 1979 referendum. I am old enough to have taken part in it. Do you...
Margo MacDonald: We are into heavy territory. Is it true or not true that someone could be serving a custodial sentence while someone who might previously have been in jail could be outside with a leg tag? Both will have offended against society. Why should we judge the one who is in jail according to our administrative arrangements more harshly than the person who might have previously been in jail after...
Margo MacDonald: 6. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the recent Foreign Affairs Committee report on the consequences of Scottish independence. (S4F-01370)
Margo MacDonald: I am surprised that the First Minister was surprised. I do not know what he expected from such a committee at such a time. It struck me that, far from having an interest in Scotland—which it was meant to have—the report ended up being fraught with anxiety about what would happen to the reduced status of the rest of the United Kingdom when Scotland becomes independent. It talked about the...
Margo MacDonald: I regret putting this myth to rest, but I really must do so in all conscience. Mrs Thatcher did not dream up the poll tax and foist it on Scotland. It was the Tory MPs of the time in Scotland who, following a disastrous rates revaluation, demanded that it be put in place. I can tell the member later how I know that from personal experience.
Margo MacDonald: I appreciate the quotation, but I hope that the minister does not set his store entirely by that. He sounded very much like what Labour used to sound like when it said, “Oh, the Scottish Parliament is the Scottish solution to Scottish problems.” It is nothing of the kind. It is the opportunity to make us bigger and better and to think more adventurously and more creatively. That is what...
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: Surely as a scientist who understands the importance of proof the member cannot be suggesting that because he was a socialist Arthur Scargill was a healer and a consensus-maker. What she is talking about can happen on the left as well.
Margo MacDonald: It is important to make this point. Much of what has been said about Mrs Thatcher’s legacy in housing is true. I was the director of Shelter when the policies were introduced. However, she did not realise that she was trapping some people, such as in East and South Ayrshire. People were trapped because they did not have houses that they could go to. Even if they managed to go to houses,...
Margo MacDonald: Will the member give way?
Margo MacDonald: Will the member take an intervention?
Margo MacDonald: Arthur Scargill was the leader of the miners only because Mick McGahey, who would not have led the same strike, was diddled out of the leadership. Diddling went on on both sides.
Margo MacDonald: Thank you, Presiding Officer. I appreciate the gesture. I wonder whether I can put something straight on Ravenscraig. The reason why Ravenscraig was closed, as opposed to the other three steel plants that might have been closed, was that the European Union changed the steel quotas, so it was very nice and tidy to get rid of one steel plant, and Scotland’s was the steel plant without...