FERGUS EWING: Rebel with a cause is hoping for very boring year
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
It finally arrived.
Long overdue. The revised plan to dual the A9.
Of course, after the original plan to dual by 2025 failed, most people in these parts, including myself, remain sceptical. Rightly so.
That’s why, when the plan was announced in the Holyrood Chamber, I warned that there must be ‘no more slippages, no more delays and no more broken promises’.
This year must see that plan turned into action and the promises delivered of dualling more sections going into the procurement process.
Pivotal in persuading the Government finally to bring forward its plan were the efforts of this very newspaper and others, in supporting the dualling campaign; and also key was the Petition to Parliament by our own Laura Hansler, who has truly spoken out for the people.
A big thanks to Laura and to the Strathy team!
Laura’s work led to a thorough inquiry by the Petitions Committee.
Evidence from Grahame Barn, speaking on behalf of the civil engineering companies, forced Transport Scotland to make their contract terms less unattractive.
The committee inquiry also forced the publication of documents which revealed the lack of action, and failure to disclose that it was back in 2018 that officials advised the old deadline of 2025 could not be met (alhough to be fair, the world and its aunty knew that this was the case!).
We will take further evidence later this month so watch this space.
My job this year is to hold their feet firmly to the flame.
• Last year I became routinely described in the press as the ‘serial rebel’ on the SNP backbenches.
I began my ‘apprenticeship’ in rebellion at the unlikely age of 65 and am now, a year later on, nearly indentured.
This involved voting against such madcap policies as the dire deposit return bottle scheme which would have decimated many local businesses; the Highly Protected Marine Areas, a baseless and outright attack on our fishermen; the imposition of heat pumps for older Highland homes where they just won’t work; and of course last and possibly worst, the Gender Reform Recognition Act.
These are all the policies resulting from our co-operation agreement with the Green Party. In my view this deal has been a total disaster for Scotland, and has seriously damaged my party and its reputation.
Having served the SNP for 50 years now, I see the last few years as an aberration – a kind of late adolescence of the party from which we must surely emerge at some point soon.
Yet the current leadership say it’s ‘worth its weight in gold’. Maybe they are alchemists. They won’t fetch much cash down in the political pawnshop.
Meantime I pledge to continue to speak out for my constituents and the resumption of common sense.
Utterly predictably, the Gender Bill was declared ultra vires by the Courts. Though passed by a majority of MSPs, it was proven to be opposed by two-thirds of all Scottish people according to every opinion poll.
2023 ended with pledges to bring forward yet more controversial law – to ban so called ‘conversion therapy’.
Already several voices in the Churches have expressed their concern about this: concern that it will inevitably impair and impinge upon parental rights. And not only of parents but possibly also teachers, doctors and men and women of the cloth too.
Remember that it was the concerns of most parents that led to the demise of the doomed ‘Named Person’ plan. I did not come across any parents who were happy about the prospect of some third party having power – unclear and unspecified power at that – over their own children.
My hope for 2024 in political terms, therefore is fairly simple.
Let’s concentrate on the basics: health, education the economy; building homes, not creating more controversies which usually end in tears.
So First Minister: let’s focus on competent Government please.
2023 saw more political dramas than your average soap opera. Please make 2024, by contrast, a very boring year!
Fergus Ewing (SNP) is MSP for Strathspey
