In which my MSP becomes a Minister

Congratulations to my MSP Angela Constance who was yesterday appointed as Skills and Lifelong Learning Minister in the reshuffle following the resignation of Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson who reckoned that

 I feel that I could have done much more to ensure that members of the public who were caught up in a difficult and frightening set of circumstances were better informed of the situation.

I don't really get the rush to resign, to be honest. Ministers have taken a great deal more grief and stayed in office. I agreed and still do with Kenny MacAskill's decision to release Megrahi, but he was under sustained pressure for a long time. Nicola Sturgeon got into hot water with a letter she wrote for a constituent on benefit fraud. Again, I felt more of a fuss than necessary was made of that, but while she came close to losing her job, she survived after making a reasoned and respectful statement to Parliament. It took ages for Salmond to replace Fiona Hyslop as Education Minister. Broken promises have come under the spotlight a lot in the last week - so maybe we need to look at the SNP's pretty dismal record on education and the promises they haven't kept on class sizes and teacher numbers. However, just one muck up and Stevenson heads off into the political goodnight like a little lamb.

I am not entirely convinced that anyone (well, except Ross Finnie) could have dealt any better with the horrendous conditions we've had over the past few weeks. Certainly Stevenson mucked up last Sunday. If I could tell from the BBC Weather website that it was going to snow heavily for 6 hours at 8am last Monday morning, then someone in his Department must have known more and could have warned people not to leave home. Having said that, after a week of chaos, employers would have been foaming at the mouth if their workers had said they weren't even going to try to get to work because of a weather warning. In fact, I know of people who called into work regularly during fruitless and frightening 5 hour bus journeys in whiteout conditions who were given extremely short shrift from their bosses. Apparently because it was snowing lightly in the centre of Edinburgh, then it must be the same elsewhere.

It has certainly been a bit weird over the last couple of weeks to see Alistair Carmichael and Tavish Scott commute quite successfully from the northern isles while West Lothian has been pretty much cut off from the rest of the world. People who relied on public transport to get to work have been in dire straits for the last fortnight. Trains weren't running from 1st December until this weekend and the replacement bus service was a joke. One single deck coach to replace an entire train? Ridiculous. Apart from that the bus service to Edinburgh was withdrawn for much of that time and the roads were a nightmare. I was not therefore terribly chuffed to hear Stewart Stevenson talk about Network Rail in much more friendly terms than he should have in response to a question from local MSP Angela Constance:

We will ask Network Rail to examine that issue further. The organisation has done well, but it, too, feels that it will have lessons to learn.

In what universe is failing to run a service for the better part of a fortnight doing well? While their profits are doubling, could it be that they're cutting corners? I mean, much colder countries seem to have functioning rail networks which aren't brought to a crashing halt when the temperature slides into minus figures.

So, not a good performance from Stevenson, but resignation material?

The letters exchanged between Stevenson and Salmond were peculiar to say the least:

I am also conscious there has been a lot of party politics in the last few days and that my continued presence in government would be used politically by our opponents.

I have not devoted my adult life to winning Scottish independence and to working for and serving in this first SNP government to allow that to happen.

Nothing that the other parties have done during this Parliament comes close to matching how much a pain in the backside the SNP were in opposition, when they just dug their heels in and said no for the sake of it, and made loads of noise in the process. For them to accuse others of playing party politics is the stuff of the pot and the kettle. As Salmond's bullish response illustrates:

There were indeed problems with communication with those suffering extreme difficulty, but just as no man can tether time nor tide, sometimes the elements are beyond anyone's control.

It is reprehensible that while you have been concentrating on addressing the practical issues facing our people, some of our opponents have been engaged in no more than parliamentary game playing.

So, if it's just game playing by a febrile opposition five months from an election, why allow your minister to be sacrificed unless there's something we don't know?

But anyway, the reshuffle was required and Keith Brown becomes transport minister while Angela Constance, my MSP, becomes Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning. Andrew thinks these appointments are political, designed to promote MSPs in marginal seats ahead of the election, but I disagree.

Angela is one of the brightest people in the Parliament, let alone the SNP. She's also one of the most decent people in politics with her heart firmly in the right place. She should have been given a ministerial role a long time ago. Given the SNP's shameful record on further education, for example cutting back college places during the recession, and doing nothing to deal with the runaround Siemens were given on the wind technicians' course at Carnegie College in Dunfermline, she's got her work cut out for her. Unfortunately for her, she's just not being given enough time to make an impact and change things and she's going to  have less time for campaigning in the constituency. It's going to present her with quite a challenge. It'll also be interesting to see how the former student activist will cope with her boss Mike Russell's mixed messages on higher education. He's telling a Parliamentary Committee that there may have to be consideration of a graduate contribution of sorts and then telling the NUS that there won't be any fees. Whatever you call it, it's still money out of graduates' pockets. We'll see more when the Green Paper is published this week, but ducking the issue until after the election isn't going to wash.

Download Gamu's charity single today for Aberlour Trust

Please take some time out of your day today to download this single in aid of the Aberlour Child Care Trust. Christmas is about helping people and the fantastic people at Aberlour will make good use of the money it raises. Have a look here at some of the things they do right across Scotland.

Abandoned cars causing havoc in Livingston

Now that we've reached the balmy heights of 5 degrees, I finally got brave and ventured out to drive Anna to school this morning.

Regular readers will know how utterly rubbish I am as far as snow and ice are concerned and this morning's outing was the first time I'd been out in 2 weeks, apart from a brief trip out on Sunday when I pathetically teetered to the car, making more fuss than Gillian McKeith on I'm a Celebrity and then never got out of it until we were home again.

I still hold by my criticism of West Lothian Council's decision to open the schools on Wednesday with a caveat that it was up to parents to assess the risks and decide if it was safe.  If that's always the case, why emphasise it? Clearly the conditions are severe enough to warrant putting that out in the statement.  Anna's had the last two days off and I'm comfortable with that decision as I just couldn't get out of the street.

However, I felt that there was no justification to keeping her at home today because I could see more brown than white on the road. I had one little slide on my street, but that was ok. The biggest problem I found, though, was, like Sunday, having to negotiate abandoned cars. I have a little bit of sympathy with those from the estates round the school where parking is at a premium anyway, and where they have a fair proportion of elderly residents. There were huge mounds of snow everywhere, cutting the space available to park by at least half. I'm not sure how you quite get round that. So, I kind of get why there were so many cars on the main road. That doesn't make them any less of a hazard, though, and someone needs to find a solution to it.

On the main road near my house, I see absolutely no excuse for people parking on the road. Every house has its own drive and the flats have a car park which, if all the mainly young residents cleared together, it would take a lot less time. What really incensed me was to see parked cars on the roundabout. This is a major intersection of 4 main roads and a housing estate and I was shocked that nothing had been done about the cars which had been left in dangerous positions.

With the thaw set to be halted by colder weather and more snow next week, some action is needed to deal with this.

A Fab Coincidence of Tweets

This is why I totally love Twitter.

There I was tonight, with emotions completely minced after watching the turmoil and trauma of the Coronation Street live 50th anniversary episode. In my mentions column, I saw this from Fabienne, who tweets as @gift_of_the_fab.

Seemingly connected, but not connected tweets.. @SallyBercow:http://bit.ly/eAp8Xv Followed byhttp://bit.ly/hun78V by @caronmlindsay

You can't but wonder what that was about.

Well, the first tweet was from Labour activist and serial tweeter Sally Bercow:

*whispers* Now off to @torybear's Christmas Party #yesIwasinvited#crosspartybuddies.

And the second was this from me:

Can't believe they let Sally go in there without a hard hat. What happened to health and safety law? Has it been suspended for the night?

I was, of course, referring to Sally Webster's mercy dash to sit with the dying Molly Dobbs in Corrie which, by the way, has to be be the best TV death ever, portrayed brilliantly.
Thank you, Fabienne, for making me laugh so much at the end of a day which has been, shall we say, emotionally taxing for all sorts of reasons not entirely unrelated to tuition fees.

Coronation Street's glorious Golden Jubilee

By magic this post will appear just a few minutes before the live episode to be broadcast this evening to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the "serial drama" (as they're called these days) Coronation Street.

When I was growing up, we watched Corrie more religiously than we went to Church. The first episode I can remember watching was Emily Bishop's wedding to Ernest on Easter Monday in 1972. I remember we'd been at the beach at Nairn and had to rush back for this great event. I watched pretty much every single episode until I left my parents' home and then dipped in and out of it occasionally.

It's probably about 10 years since I watched it regularly but I was really keen to see this week's special week of episodes, with its dramatic and devastating explosion and tram crash. I watched it all of last week to get a sense of what was going on in it and was pleased to see that the show's key strength, its excellent characterisation, was still very much in evidence. While like all soaps it has sensational story lines, its characters are believable and very human. Many of the problems they face are the sorts of things that we all struggle with, relationships, work, infertility. I'm really pleased with the fact that they've had a teenager come out as a lesbian and be completely accepted by her family and friends.  Maybe not her church, but she kicked them into touch.

When the programme appeared on the scene, it brought northern accents to the screen on a regular basis. Until then people plummy, posh BBC English was the norm. It provided a realistic, grittier view of life than was generally seen in dramas at the time and it was hugely popular amongst ordinary people. I remember in 1983 that they even interrupted football matches to tell the crowd that Deirdre had decided to stay with Ken - a wise decision in my view, despite the actor who plays Ken being a rabid Tory.

I've found the episodes so far absolutely compelling. The first episode on Monday night set the scene for who was where when the disaster happened. In a whirlwind of scenes, gathering pace and tension with every round we saw,:

• the mother leave her husband after telling him he wasn't the father of her baby, head for the shop on the way to leave the street forever, meet the actual father of her baby who received some of the most gorgeously beatific from the wee tot - how they managed that I'll never know
• the two men gathering in the office of the bar, one about to tell the other, who was on his stag night, that he'd been having an affair with his fiancee until they are joined by a third man, popping in to say goodbye
• the fun game of hide and seek going on in one of the houses
• the man murder the woman who was about to destroy his life with a hammer
• the hen party in the pub attended by many of the street's women folk, including the pregnant wife of hammer man
• the child who's gone missing while staying with his auntie
• the veteran resident, who'd planned to go out, changed her mind and went home instead Bad, bad decision.

The accident itself and the special effects were absolutely brilliant, very dramatic and the quality of the acting has been extremely good.

Last night's episode had me in bits as Ashley, the raspy voiced local butcher, who's been a stalwart of the cast for the last 15 years was crushed to death after valiantly saving the guy he was trapped with.

Worse than that, though, the young mum, who's trapped in the rubble, was found, but looks to be in a bad way. The moment when they took the baby away from her really made me blub as I imagined what it must have felt like for her to worry that she was going to die and would never see him again.

Tonight, there's an hour long live episode. I remember the one they did 10 years ago for the 40th anniversary. I can imagine the excitement on the set that's building now as the cast no longer have the safety net of another take if they get it wrong. On EastEnders' live episode earlier this year, Strictly sensation Scott Maslen fluffed his lines at a key moment.

My prediction for tonight is that Molly will die and that Peter will be discovered to have some mortal injury and will marry Leanne before he dies. I have no idea what actually is going to happen, but that's how I read the runes of what's been going on. Others in peril include Sunita, Rita (who nobody has realised is missing) and Fiz's little baby. In the midst of all of this, her husband has to work out what to do with the body of the woman he murdered.. I really hope that Rita is not going to die. She's been in the show for forty odd years and I don't want her to go like this.

The fake news flashes they have on the Coronation Street website are very, very eerie.

Anyway, I am looking forward to another assault on my emotions tonight - as if I haven't already had one this afternoon. Happy Golden Jubilee to all the cast and crew, past and present, of Corrie.

+++Breaking News - Mike Crockart resigns to vote against fees proposals

Andrew wrote the other day about the farcical incident where Radio 4's World at One programme broadcast an interview with a Yorkshireman purporting to be Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West Mike Crockart.

Mike Crockart has now hit the headlines himself by resigning as PPS to Michael Moore MP, Secretary of State for Scotland so he can vote against the tuition fees rise tonight.

That means that at least three of the eleven Scottish Liberal Democrat MPs will be voting against the proposals, Mike, Ming Campbell and Charles Kennedy and at least four for, Alistair Carmichael, Danny Alexander, Jo Swinson and Mike Moore.

I have to be honest and say that if I were an MP, I would also vote against even though I wouldn't have signed the NUS pledge. I wouldn't want to have much to do with an organisation which betrays its members by wanting to cut the maintenance grants for the poorest students. NUS is a breeding ground for the Labour front bench - it's where Jack Straw and Phil Woolas come from, among others, and I will eat my hat if Aaron Porter is not on the Labour benches within a decade. There is much within the proposals that is good and progressive as I've written about at length. The reason I'd vote against is simply that I believe that higher education benefits all of society and therefore I just couldn't bring myself to vote for a system that lets that principle go.

Salmond hails Liberal Democrat Alex Cole-Hamilton's anti-fees record

At First Minister's Questions today, Alex Salmond name checked Edinburgh Central Liberal Democrat candidate Alex Cole-Hamilton.

Brandishing a newspaper in response to a planted question on tuition fees from Christina McKelvie, he pointed out a photgraph of Alex Cole Hamilton with a no fees banner.

It was good of him to remind us all of Alex's long record as an anti fees campaigner and student activist. Alex was President of Aberdeen University's SRC as an independent and joined the Liberal Democrats because of the way we'd delivered on abolishing tuition fees in the first Holyrood Government. Then we faced a Labour Party who had promised not to introduce them south of the border and had, and who wanted a similar scheme in Scotland.

As I have said before, our conference in Dunfermline, just 3 days before the Browne Report came out, affirmed our commitment to free university education with the blessing of the Scottish leadership. Alex spoke passionately in that debate as I posted at the time.

Alex is in a close fight with Labour for Edinburgh Central. The voters have a clear choice between Alex, who has more than a decade of experience and commitment to free university tuition and Labour, who are going to be putting forward a plan which is not a million miles from the one the coalition are introducing down south.

Huhne stays in Cancun, no thanks to Labour or the Greens

So, Chris Huhne has decided to stay in Cancun to continue the valuable work he's doing at the UN climate change conference. This is a good thing, and shows that he's prepared to stick by what's important, regardless of the political consequences. Let's hope that he really can achieve some progress on measures to combat climate change and persuade those countries who have their fingers in their ears going la la la la la that they need to do more or the global consequences will be catastrophic.

The reason this was ever an issue was, as I wrote yesterday, because Ed Miliband decided to abandon years of parliamentary convention and refuse to provide a pair. That means taking a Labour MP out of the vote so that a Government vote in favour and an opposition vote against would cancel each other out. It's the sort of procedure that's necessary for the Government to do its job and meet its international obligations. You would think, by now, that Parliament would have found some way of using technology so that not just ministers, but MPs who may be sick or on maternity leave, who have a good reason for not being there in person, can record their vote in another way. We accept that principle in public elections by allowing everyone who wants one to have a postal vote, so why not at least trial something soon?

I think it's becoming imperative to do so if Miliband is going to behave like an idiot. I'd have more sympathy with him if Labour had never used the pairing system for close votes when they were in Government - but they did on ID cards, when they went against their manifesto pledge and introduced top up fees and on pre-charge detention.The opposition co-operated then, not because they wanted to, but because it's one of these conventions that keeps the wheels of Government turning.

You would think that a stint at climate change secretary would have given Ed Miliband an awareness and understanding of the huge issues facing the planet. I want to know whether he sleepwalked through his time in office and just doesn't understand or whether he is deliberately deciding that the future of the planet is not important when there's some political point scoring to do. Incompetent, or opportunistic? You choose.

And as for Caroline Lucas, until yesterday I had quite a bit of respect for her as the first Green MP, but she too has shown that she'd rather play games than put her principles into action. She could have offered to pair Chris Huhne but chose not to. She would have been quite prepared to see him fly across the Atlantic and back again to walk through a voting lobby. Apart from the exhaustion and the effect it would have on his work at the Conference, what a waste of carbon that would have been. I would have thought that Caroline Lucas would have put that issue above any other but it seems that's not he case after all.

Chris Huhne has shown that he's prepared to take the risk of losing the vote because he knows how important his presence in Cancun is. As it happens, I think the Government will win regardless, which is something I will watch with a very heavy heart.

Millennium Elephant's Daddy Alex has come out of his sick bed to write a fabulous post not just on this issue but on the whole tuition fees thing. Today is not going to be an easy day for any Liberal Democrat, but when the party is in pain, he knows exactly which bit to rub.

Lennon: 30 years on

This business of it being decades since important milestones happened continues to bewilder me. Surely it can't really be 30 years since John Lennon was shot dead in New York - although it would have been 30 years tomorrow morning since I found out by listening to the Today programme on Radio 4.

I thought I'd share with you four things to mark the occasion, 3 songs and an article.

Tom Brook was a young BBC reporter and one of the first on the scene at the Dakota Building. Here are his memories of that night. Obviously it's very poignant, but one of the things I found interesting about it is the description of  what he had to do  to get the audio back to London. We have come a long way in 3 decades.

In terms of the songs, one of my favourite Beatles songs, untypically for someone who generally goes towards the cheesy, is Come Together, partly because the story tickles me. The title was inspired by the campaign slogan for Timothy Leary, the US psychologist who experimented with psychedelic drugs when he decided to run for governor of California against one Ronald Reagan in 1960. A wee conviction for possession of Marijuana brought that campaign to an end. I remember reading that Lennon said that although the song was inspired by the Leary campaign, it wasn't much of a campaign song. Err, quite. Anyway, it tickled my fancy and is available on You Tube here

You couldn't do anything about John Lennon without thinking of his iconic song Inagine. Is there anyone who isn't word perfect on it? So simple and compelling.

And then, finally, from the last album before he died, Double Fantasy, Woman. I just love it - one of my favourite songs ever.

Misleading headline of the day - the Guardian on Megrahi release

If you see a headline that says "Wikileaks Cables: Lockerbie Bomber freed after Gadaffi's Thuggish Threats" it does sort of imply some sort of causality between the latter and the former.

It implies that the Libyan Leader basically sent the boys round to Bute House and Alex Salmond meekly complied with their wishes.

Bad taste this may be, but it does amuse me that anyone could think this was even remotely plausible.There are mental images going round my head that will keep me amused for hours on that one.

Seriously, though, if you actually go read the full report, it actually says three things: that Gadaffi had had a good go at the UK Government, threatening UK diplomats, business and interests should Megrahi die in prison; that the Scottish Government was courted and offered "a parade of treats" which they knocked back and, surprise, surprise, the decision to release Megrahi was taken by the Scottish Government which apparently underestimated the international disapproval it would receive. Both the elements referred to in the headlines happened but one did not cause the other.

I have said all along and without embarrassment that I think that Kenny MacAskill did absolutely the right thing to release Megrahi, given the medical evidence he had available. I still hold to that and had I been in his position I'd have released him too. And that's not just about my soft heart - it's because it was the right thing to do.

There's nothing in the Wikileaks cables that suggests anything to the contrary and the Guardian's sensationalist headline should actually have read "Megrahi: as we thought, nothing to see here."

The MacBlogosphere on Wikio - December 2010

And Another Thing - Tom Harris goes up to 12 in the month he gives up blogging

Alex Massie goes up to 37

The Cute Greek Baby slides gracefully downwards to 52 now he has also stopped blogging. It's been a sad month, having to say goodbye to two giants of the Scottish blogosphere.

Subrosa falls to 55

I fall to 56 - better write some decent stuff this month

Underdogs Bite Upwards uniquely seems to be in twice,  falling to 75 and rising to 81. A mistake somewhere, I think

Andrew Reeves rises to 85

Better Nation rises to 90

Lallands Peat Worrier falls to 93

Stephen's Liberal Journal, with the parking brake on, falls to 94

We are saying at least au revoir to some Scottish blogging giants at the moment, with Tom, Mr E and Stephen all hanging up their keyboards, at least temporarily. There are plenty new Scottish political blogs - for exampleI mean you Set in Darkness, you Midlothian Liberal and you, Burdzeyeview, you Bellegrove Belle, you Paul Edie, you James Taylor, you Joan McAlpine, you Love and Garbage and you Indygal who don't yet appear on Wikio. If you haven't registered with them, please do so here.

Other things of note - New Humanist Blog has gone way up, to 19

Labour game playing threatens key Climate talks - could Caroline Lucas help?

While the atmosphere at Westminster heats up in advance of The Vote tomorrow night, our attention has been diverted from the fact that something else is warming up - the planet - and unless concerted, global action is taken soon, we are going to be at the mercy of some cataclysmic changes.

In order to try and avoid that, the latest UN Climate Change Conference is taking place in Cancun. At last, in Chris Huhne, the UK finally has an effective Environment Minister who knows what he's talking about and could play a major role in bringing people together. Or at least he could if he didn't have to fly home to vote tomorrow night.

It is convention that when a minister is away on Government business, that the opposition organises it so that one of its members don't vote. That's a reasonable arramgement which enables the Government to carry out its international obligations.

There aren't many more important international issues than climate change, and Chris Huhne already outlined his concerns that the momentum behind the :UN effort might fall away. From the BBC report above,

"What worries me is that there will be countries that say the game here, this particular forum, isn't worth a candle," he told BBC News.

"It will peter out, it won't vanish. People next year won't send a senior minister, they will send a junior minister, and then the year after they will send a senior civil servant. In a few years' time it will be the local ambassador, and it will wither on the vine.

"That's not what we want here. We want a sense that there is renewed momentum so people are coming back next year with a real sense they want to reach a deal."

Chris has been asked by the UN to sort out a compromise on the Kyoto Protocol. No pressure, then! Unfortunately, because Labour are playing silly games, it looks like he's going to have to leave this vital work to cast his vote in the debate. What a waste of a trip, and for no good reason. 


It's clear that this comes right from the top in the Labour Party. Ed Miliband's office is clearly exploiting the fact that the vote is likely to be tight and is flying in the face of organisations like Oxfam and Christian Aid who acknowledge the vital role this country represented by Chris has in brokering a deal on climate change.

Oppositions play games, we know that - but there are limits. Ed Miliband, the former climate change secretary whose achievements in that office seem to have passed me by, should no better than to jeopardise an intensive international effort.

He should think again - or, actually, there's another solution, put forward by A C McGregor on Twitter, quoted with permission.http://twitter.com/#!/A_C_McGregor

@ChrisHuhne needs an opposition MP to pair and let him stay at Cancun Summit... asked @CarolineLucas ?

Surely the Green MP would want to do her bit to enable Chris Huhne to stay at the Conference and continue his efforts to further the cause of global action to prevent climate change?

The irony of the NUS protests

Today the National Union of Students and other organisations will take to the streets of London to demonstrate against the Government's proposed university funding scheme. There will be Liberal Democrats amongst them and I understand why they are there. Their position is straightforward - our party policy is in favour of phasing out tuition fees and they want to see us in Government do more to bring that about. I'm not sure how realistic that is, but there is a logic there and one I sympathise with.

The position of the NUS is more complex. There is a certain irony that they are turning their fire on 57 Liberal Democrat MPs who were daft enough to sign their pledge. I know that Liberal Democrat candidates did that with the blessing of Campaigns Department, but I don't believe it was ever anything other than a cynical elephant trap.

Look at it this way. We're being held to account for an NUS pledge which the NUS themselves no longer support. Their scheme, not a million miles from that proposed by the Coalition, was, I'm sure, not drawn up of the back of an envelope overnight. You can tell the close relationship between Labour and the NUS by the sheer number of key NUS figures who've made it into Government - like Phil Woolas and Jack Straw. This pledge was never meant to deliver the abolition of fees, it was meant to trap the Liberal Democrats. You can bet your life that if we'd ended up in coalition with Labour, we'd be voting on the NUS scheme tomorrow night. We should never have signed it.

In other news, the Goverment has made some changes to the scheme this morning  - taking in more part time students under the scheme and ensuring that the £21000 starting rate will rise every year with earnings. These can't be described as anything other than helpful.

I am very surprised that all the Liberal Democrat ministers are going to vote for the proposals. I didn't think they'd be able to achieve that level of consensus.  There will still be a significant number of MPs voting against.

Let's just hope that a few Trots don't shift the focus of today's demonstration from the issues under discussion. Most people who go on these things do so to protest peacefully, but there's always a few febrile types who have to spoil things.

West Lothian Council's Schools Cop Out

West Lothian Council has reached a baffling decision that is the worst of all worlds as regards schools opening tomorrow.

I'll post the ten announcements made on the Council's excellent Twitter feed  While the Council has in general done very well in horrific circumstances, I think they've mucked up here, especially as regards primary schools.

I have the info on schools that you are waiting for, it will take quite a few posts to share. Please read the info for parents.

Given current road conditions it is not possible for the council to guarantee school transport.

as it is the responsibility of the School Transport Operator to risk assess this provision.

When schools re-open, travel to and from school will, in many instances remain difficult.

Parents/carers are advised to check that pupils can get to and from school safely before they set out.

The decision to access schools when conditions could be difficult can only be made by the parent/carer.

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December : All special schools and all special classes in primary schools.

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December : All Nursery schools and all nursery classes and wraparound care provision.

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December: Linlithgow Primary School; Bellsquarry Primary School and Kirknewton Primary School +

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 Dec: Pumpherston and Uphall Station Community Primary School; Westfield Primary School +

The following will be closed on Wednesday 8 December: Torphichen Primary School.

Please read the 10 posts above  carefully - apart from those noted all other Primary Schools in West Lothian will be open.

You may not know this but I'm not much of a meteorologist. I'm being asked to make an assessment of what the weather is likely to do over the 6 hour period of the school day, without access to the detailed forecasts that the Council has. We all know what happened the other day, and how things can change very quickly.


How am I supposed to know from here how conditions are up at the school and what the route is like before I set off?


In practice, and with the temperature forecast to be well below zero tomorrow, I suspect that I'll make the decision to keep Anna at home. I hope that she won't be marked down as an unauthorised absence because of my concern that it is simply not safe to get her from here to the school either on foot or in a car.


I get that the schools have been shut for 6 days out of the last 7 and that working parents are finding this a real struggle. They need the schools to be open, but surely not at any price.


I think the Council have copped out here. If the schools are open, then there needs to be transport provided for the people who normally get it and the roads in the vicinity need to be passable. Reports from parents who walked up on Monday even before the snow started falling said that the paths around our school hadn't been cleared and were absolutely treacherous. A tiny ribbon had been cleared in the playground and that was about it. Walking in those conditions is not an option for me and I'm not keen on driving there either given what I've heard about the road the school is on.


For secondary schools, the information is as follows:

The information about secondary schools is a bit more complicated for twitter - please read carefully.

The secondary school information which follows relates to the year groups that should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Armadale Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Bathgate Academy, S3 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Broxburn Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Deans Community High School, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Inveralmond Community High School, S3 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Linlithgow Academy, S1 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

St Kentigern’s Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

St Margaret’s Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

The James Young High School, S1 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

West Calder High School, S3 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December.

Whitburn Academy, S4 to S6 should attend school on Wednesday 8 December

The illogicality of the Council's position is clear when you consider Meldrum Primary in Livingston. It is currently situated in a corner of Deans High School. These kids have been told their school is open, but S1-S3 Deans High pupils have been told not to. That makes no sense. Why is it safe for the wee ones and not for the 12-15 year olds.

My worry about our school as well is that a fair few teachers live out of town. I don't want them to be pressured to take unnecessary risks to get in and nor do I want to see a situation where parents have struggled to get their kids to school only to be called half way through the day or sooner and told to pick them up again because they don't have the staff cover. 


As far as I know, once a child is through the school gates, there must be a safe route for them to access the school that's been cleared of ice and snow. I understand that this was not the case at a fair number of schools on Monday. I don't feel that I can properly assess whether it's safe for my child to go to school unless I see a copy of the risk assessment that the head teacher has prepared and I know whether there is a safe path. 


The Council is expecting us to make an assessment on whether to send our children to school without giving us the proper information we need to make that assessment. It's a cop out on their part.  In the absence of that, I am likely to choose not to send my daughter.

Gamu's Charity Single official video - and a chance to appeal to Simon Cowell #xfactor

Have a watch of this poignant official video for the charity single from the Aberlour Child Care Trust, Where will you sleep this Christmas, featuring Gamu Nhengu.

It was going to be released next Monday, 13th December but it will now be available from Sunday 12th. I wrote last week  about how Simon Cowell is refusing to allow Gamu to do any promotional work for the single because it is in competition with the X Factor Winner's single.  Here's a reminder of what you can do if you disagree with him:

Firstly, write to your MP - and if you don't know how to contact them, you can find outhere - and ask them to sign EDM 1111 to support Gamu and the single which has been tabled by Jo Swinson. The full text of the motion is:

CHARITY CHRISTMAS SINGLE BY ABERLOUR CHOIR AND GAMU NHENGU

30.11.2010

Swinson, Jo

That this House applauds the charitable work undertaken by Gamu Nhengu on behalf of Scottish Children's Charity, Aberlour Child Care Trust, which provides services to vulnerable children across Scotland and their families; notes the forthcoming release of Where Will You Sleep This Christmas? a single featuring Gamu, by the charity; further notes that the proceeds from the sale of this record will support the work of Aberlour; is dismayed that despite this act of charity on her part, Gamu has been prohibited from promoting the single by her contractual obligations to the television show The X Factor on the basis that the Aberlour single is in direct competition with the show's Christmas number one bid; and therefore calls on hon. Members to support and promote the success of this record when it becomes available for download on 13 December 2010

Secondly, download the single on 12th December and encourage everyone you know to do so.

Thirdly, (and this is my idea only, not Jo's) Don't buy the X Factor winner's single this year unless Simon Cowell relents and lets Gamu promote the single. Having her do the rounds of the usual radio stations, webchats, press interviews and so on would make a huge impact on the sales of this charity single.

Fourthly, tell the X Factor people what you're doing and why. Their Facebook page ishere and their Twitter account is here. You can tweet them at @TheXFactor. 

Lynne Featherstone - please don't resign over tuition fees

I'm spending a fair bit of time thinking about all the implications of The Vote on Thursday night, trying to work out what's the worst that can happen, that kind of thing.

I doubt the Government would fall if it were defeated, but I think our position within it would be weakened. The worst for me, though, would be if, as has been speculated about all over the place, Lynne Featherstone resigned as Equalities Minister.

Every woman and girl in the UK, whether they go to university or not,  will benefit from the work she is doing, whether it's on the gender pay gap, making the family leave situation more flexible, or, of particular interest to me as mum of an 11 year old, because of the groundbreaking work her Campaign for Body Confidence is doing. Look at her blog to see some of the issues she's been working on, including informed work on transgender rights and domestic violence. I also want someone in there who's keen to point out to the British Board of Film Classification that a few utterings of the F word does not mean that 12 year olds can't understand a film that highlights discrimination. I mean, let's face it, I understand anybody can hear foul language on the Today programme at the moment.

I totally trust Lynne on these issues - she has a longstanding commitment to and understanding of the problems and barriers facing people and she's in a key role in Government, working across departments, to provide real solutions.  Ok, so nobody's indispensable, but Lynne is pretty irreplaceable. We really don't need to lose her from Government.

It may seem unfair to single out just one minister - but I think she's one person every single Liberal Democrat would support in her role.

Like all MPs, she has a tough decision to make in the next couple of days. I for one hope she chooses an option that enables her to keep her vital job.

Nick Clegg's says Coalition's university proposals mean poorest pay less

Nick Clegg has given an interview to the Independent on Sunday in which he's talked about all sorts of aspects of being in Government.

I'll maybe write more about what he's said later, but I want to separate off his comments about the issue of the moment, tuition fees.

You have to remember that it was the Labour Party who set up the current system, where graduates started to pay back their fees when they earned £15,000. It's the Liberal Democrats who are raising that threshold by over a third to £21000 and ensuring that students from the lowest income families, those who get free school meals, don't have to pay fees for two years. Nick Clegg has been passionate about social mobility for as long as I've known him. He doesn't want people to be restricted, their life chances harmed, if they come from a poor background. He wants to free people from the institutional barriers that have held them back.

Labour weren't bothered enough about freeing people from the barriers that kept them in poverty to do anything about it during the 13 years they were in office. And surely you can't seriously think that the Conservatives give two hoots about social mobility. They wouldn't have bothered about the poorest if they were governing on their own.

Now, join me in being utterly heartbroken that we're not sticking to our policy to phase out fees by all means, but please don't condemn our ministers for trying to make a positive difference, the best they could in the current political circumstances. We are only 57 out of 650. How would you really have felt to watch them abstain as a Tory plan, with no cap, and no measures for the poorest, was pushed through?

Have a look at what Nick actually said on the Coalition's plans:

 "It's immensely frustrating to me to see a policy which lowers barriers of entry to university being portrayed as putting up barriers."

"If you were a care worker starting on £21,000 you pay about £7 a month. Under the current scheme you pay £81 a month and under the 2 per cent graduate tax proposed by Ed Miliband it's about £36."

"I believe in this policy. I really think we will look back in 10 or 15 years' time and think, actually that was quite a brave and bold and socially progressive thing to do.

It's probably important to mention as well that hopefully by the time the first graduates are paying this, they will also enjoy the first £10,000 tax free because of another major Lib Dem win in the coalition.


I have to be honest. I'd have liked to have seen a little more mea culpa from him. He needs to balance promoting the benefits of the path he has chosen with a genuine recognition that he's really asking a hell of a lot of the Party. Not only that, he's asking people to abandon a specific personal pledge to the voters. He is the one forcing this situation on us, therefore he needs to be very sensitive and tolerant of those who find it impossible to go along with him.

I found another of his comments about the situation was quite telling:

"The allegation is made with the heart: it's 'you betrayed me'. And the answer is made with the head. When you have that, the heart always wins.

I kind of get that, and I know that the comment comes from somebody who genuinely values heart and head but it's not so simple. I have body parts strewn on both sides of this argument. My heart says no increase in fees, but it also tells me that these people I have trusted for so long are good people and are doing the best they can in the circumstances.  My head tells me that this proposal is probably the most achievable way at the moment of financing university education, but it also tells me that it means that we'll be investing less in our higher education even than the US. There's a shocker. 


If I were an MP, there was no way abstention could ever be a possibility. I would have to take one side or the other. I would never have signed the NUS pledge in the first place, so that wouldn't be an issue for me - it was so obvious that the mess we're in would come to pass, whoever we ended up in coalition with. Every instinct would tell me to vote against, just because I'd like to see no fees. The sorts of things that would persuade me to look again would be a raising of the limit for having fees paid from above the free school meals. I see why it's been done like that, but I think the evidence suggests that the poorest people are just above that limit. They may be working, but they find that they lose housing and council tax benefit and things like free school meals and prescriptions.


I suspect Nick is right in that in 10 or 15 years we will see some very positive effects of what we are doing, as the Pupil Premium means that kids who would today have no chance have been provided with the tools to make a much better life for themselves. We've just got to look at the big picture, see how everything fits together.


Whatever the outcome of the vote on Thursday, Liberal Democrat party policy remains that tuition fees should go. This isn't over yet as an issue. When this is discussed again, as it is bound to be, Nick and Vince need to approach these talks with sensitivity and emotional intelligence on one side and hard evidence that it's consistent with our values on the other. Having found a way to phase fees out for this manifesto, finding the money to replace the new system will be more challenging.


My biggest concern is that the party isn't irrevocably harmed by the polarisation on this issue. I am finding the name calling online by a small number of people from both sides very hard to deal with. We are all Liberal Democrats and there is much more binding us together than pulling us apart. We shouldn't do Labour's job for them by kicking lumps out of each other, even when there is a genuine split like there is on this.

West Lothian Council's excellent snow communications

I have been really impressed with the way West Lothian Council has kept in touch with people over the last week, since Snowmageddon hit.

I particularly want to highlight their helpline for vulnerable people, 01506 773440. This is what they've written about it on their Facebook page:

We are extremely concerned that there may be very vulnerable people in the community who may need urgent support. A special helpline 01506 773440 to deal solely with enquires for help from people who are frail, vulnerable or severely disabled and who have no other support. Staff from across the council have volunteered to make contact with people who need essential provisions or prescriptions. Please share this info.

I'm sure that people living in places like the Yorkshire Dales or Aberdeenshire will have seen conditions as bad as these before, but I don't remember ever having 23 inches of snow in my garden - and yes we've actually measured it. Like last Winter, I really appreciate the challenges faced by those who are working round the clock to try and get the routes clear. They seem to have been able to clear more residential estates more quickly than last year - although they've not yet been near mine.

As well as its own website with a dedicated snow page, the Council has been using social media. I don't know if Elaine Henderson, whose name is on the @lovewestlothian Twitter account is a real person with that name, or a generic made up name to make it more personal, but whoever she is, she's been marvellous all week, working long hours to give information not just about Council services but community events. Although they say that they can't reply to invididual queries on their Facebook page, it's clear from subsequent posts that they read what people are writing and respond accordingly. Apparently they've had praise for their "gritter twitter" on this Communities of Practice for public service website, but I'm not a member so I can't verify it.

What's been particularly good is that decisions on school closures have been made and put out there in good time. They'd decided by 12 noon on Wednesday to close for the rest of the week, giving parents time to sort their arrangements out. On Monday and Tuesday, the decisions about the next day were made by 4pm.  All the schools have been closed all week, a decision I wholeheartedly agree with. Blanket school closures took a bit of stick from Annabel Goldie at FMQs on Thursday, but I really can't imagine anywhere in West Lothian where it would have been safe enough to send the kids to school. We had 20-25cm falling during each night. There was no way on earth the routes to school could have been cleared by 8am with the equipment they had. There's definitely an argument that the head teachers have to be involved in the decision making process, but surely the Council knows what it can get done in terms of clearing routes across the whole patch. I think what I'm saying is that there needs to be some common sense in the process.

We still don't know if the schools will re-open on Monday. I'm sure they'll do all they can to ensure that they do, but ultimately it's the kids' safety that's most important. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to walk 5 year olds through 2 feet of snow when the roads were impassable - they would have been soaking wet by the time they got to school. My radiators have been stacked with several pairs of drying trousers every day from my tall 11 year old.

No doubt there will be reviews of decisions and services, but as a punter, I'm happy that they've kept us informed. Maybe the appalling First ScotRail could take a leaf out of their book.

Vince Cable says he will back tuition fee proposals

Common sense has broken out as Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable has said that he will vote for the tuition fee proposals.

He told his local paper that he would vote in favour next week.

I think this means that the party has accepted the inevitable - that there will be a 3 way split on the vote next week. That, to me, is a good thing.

There's no getting away from the fact that this is a tough time to be a Liberal Democrat MP and I know that many of them are going to struggle. Whatever happens on Thursday, I hope that it can all be worked through without recrimination and upset. 

Vince made another important point in that interview - that once he's had the chance to speak to students and explain the full situation to them, they understand why he's made this decision a bit better.

“Whenever I get the chance to discuss the situation with them face-to-face and I am able to explain it I think there is more understanding of the problem - that we had to take very substantial cuts in my department."

 I'm sure that doesn't mean to say they like it, but I hope they'll realise that the situation isn't as bleak as NUS and others have tried to paint it.

Tim Farron, the lie in and the 65%

That nice Tim Farron has been making videos again - talking about his plans for when he takes over as President. The thing that will surprise people most are his plans for 1st January. I will believe that if it happens. Our Tim is not known for his ability to sit still for more than 20 seconds at a time.

Of particular interest is the conversation he had with a colleague from one of the Dutch Liberal Parties who said we should be proud we are getting 65% of our manifesto into practice. Normally when people vote for us our policies aren't implemented,so it's an amazing achievement that 65% of our's have.

Anyway, watch and enjoy.

Friday Frolics: Four things about me

Spidey tagged me in this meme on Facebook, so I thought I might as well do it here seeing as it's Friday and all that. Feel free to carry it on if you like. I'll see if I can tell you things you never knew before:

Four Jobs I have had in my life

1. Youth Hostel Warden
2. Nanny
3. Medical Secretary
4. Caseworker

Four places I have lived

1. Inverness
2. Wick
3. Edwinstowe, Notts
4. Livingston

Four favourite drinks

1. Red Wine
2. Earl Grey tea (with milk, I don't care about the teasing this will get me from snobs of this parish)
3. Hendricks Gin
4. Coke Zero

Four Favourite ever TV shows

1. Strictly Come Dancing
2. The West Wing
3. Friends
4. Pride & Prejudice (the one where Colin Firth comes out of the lake, but obviously, I'm only interested in the literary quality of the production

Four Places I have been

1. New York City - a long way to go to see a Star Trek movie, but well worth it
2. Rome - from the Piazza de la Republica to the Spanish Steps - a truly gorgeous city
3. Mallorca - my favourite place away from home
4. London - I just love the bustle and the shows and the sights. Wonderful city.

Four of my favourite foods

1. the darkest of dark chocolate
2. fillet steak, cooked perfectly, medium rare,  by my husband
3. fish and chips
4. home made chicken curry

Four things I am looking forward to

1. Christmas
2. Being able to leave the house again - am currently snowbound
3. My David Laws book arriving
4. Seeing Anna perform in her choir concert next week. Her drama and other concerts have been cancelled & this is the only one left

Get your MP to appeal to Simon Cowell's better nature #xfactor

I am going to rather shamefacedly confess something to you. I have been known to buy the X Factor winner's Christmas single in the past. I know that will come as no surprise to those of you who know full well the extent of my trashiness, but there may be others who may be truly shocked. All I can suggest is a lie down and some smelling salts. I have no real defence - and in fact the year Alexandra Burke won, I bought two of them - one for my niece.

No chance of that this year, though, on a point of principle.  Remember Gamu Nhengu, the wonderful girl from Clackmannanshire who got through to Cheryl Cole's Judge's House and who was rejected more because of her immigration status, I suspect, than her talent? Well, she's recorded a charity single with the Aberlour Choir in aid of the charity the Aberlour Child Care Trust which helps vulnerable children.

The song she's recorded is utterly heartbreaking, a song to a child who's run away from home. As a mother it makes me literally not able to breathe as just thinking about it is horrific. The song asks Where will you sleep this Christmas? It's organisations that Aberlour that provide that shelter and help to these young people who so desperately need it.

Anyway, having recorded the single, she's now banned from doing anything to promote it because her X Factor contract means that she's not allowed to do anything that's in competition with the official X Factor single.

I think Simon Cowell makes more than enough money from his various TV ventures to allow a little flexibility here.

Jo Swinson, MP for East Dunbartonshire, has called on Simon Cowell and the X Factor bosses to think again by tabling an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons. It's kind of like a petition for MPs. She said:

“This Christmas charity single is for a truly worthwhile cause and features a very talented young woman, who has herself faced many significant challenges through her childhood.

“X-Factor bosses are behaving like Scrooge by preventing Gamu from helping a charity to raise money at Christmas-time. Taking these extreme measures just to ensure their own release does better in the charts goes against the spirit of the festive season.

“I am urging people to download and support ‘Where will you sleep this Christmas?’ when it is released on 13th December. I hope that the single’s efforts to raise money are successful, so that the vital work of the Aberlour Trust in helping vulnerable children here in Scotland fulfil their potential can continue.

There are four things you can do to help.

Firstly, write to your MP - and if you don't know how to contact them, you can find out here - and ask them to sign EDM 1111 to support Gamu and the single. The full text of the motion is:

CHARITY CHRISTMAS SINGLE BY ABERLOUR CHOIR AND GAMU NHENGU

30.11.2010

Swinson, Jo

That this House applauds the charitable work undertaken by Gamu Nhengu on behalf of Scottish Children's Charity, Aberlour Child Care Trust, which provides services to vulnerable children across Scotland and their families; notes the forthcoming release of Where Will You Sleep This Christmas? a single featuring Gamu, by the charity; further notes that the proceeds from the sale of this record will support the work of Aberlour; is dismayed that despite this act of charity on her part, Gamu has been prohibited from promoting the single by her contractual obligations to the television show The X Factor on the basis that the Aberlour single is in direct competition with the show's Christmas number one bid; and therefore calls on hon. Members to support and promote the success of this record when it becomes available for download on 13 December 2010

Secondly, download the single on 13th December and encourage everyone you know to do so.

Thirdly, (and this is my idea only, not Jo's) Don't buy the X Factor winner's single this year unless Simon Cowell relents and lets Gamu promote the single. Having her do the rounds of the usual radio stations, webchats, press interviews and so on would make a huge impact on the sales of this charity single.

Fourthly, tell the X Factor people what you're doing and why. Their Facebook page is here and their Twitter account is here. You can tweet them at @TheXFactor

And here's the reason for all the fuss - Gamu and the Aberlour Choir singing their searingly poignant song Where will you sleep this Christmas?

Hold on to your hats - Falchikov hits the blogosphere

I don't really like to admit to the fact that it's a whole quarter of a century since I arrived in Aberdeen as a wide eyed and innocent student. One of the first people I met was Dan Falchikov. He was unique, funny and generally fabulous.

I was thrilled today to discover that he's hit the blogosphere at Living on Words Alone - I was surprised that someone with so many opinions as he does has left it so long. I confidently expect not to agree with him a great deal, but please bookmark him now, because he'll be good to read.

Advice from Beyond the Bubble: MPs, please forget this abstention nonsense

Deep in the Westminster Bubble, I can imagine that there is a place where trying to get all the Liberal Democrat MPs voting the same way on the landmark tuition fees votes next week sounds quite sensible. Can I suggest that if they want to be cured of that misapprehension, they should watch Danny Alexander trying to rationalise it on Question Time last night?

Now, Danny overall did splendidly on the programme. He had by far the most difficult job and having Nadine Dorries as his coalition wing man was a bit like being chucked into the Thames with a rucksack filled with lead on his back. You probably couldn't have imagined two worse people to be up against in terms of their general humour, personability and charm than John Sergeant and Ken Livingstone. Danny stayed calm, focused and made some good points even when all the heat was turned on him.

What was very clear, though, was that people just don't get internal Liberal Democrat angst. They can't understand why someone who believes in a policy would abstain rather than vote for it to make life easier for their party colleagues. Frankly, people don't want to hear about it. The audience reaction to Danny was pretty hostile on that point and I hope he got the message loud and clear that this group abstention nonsense is just not going to sit well with people.

It doesn't even sit well with the party. If nothing else, the idea that Danny and Vince would abstain rather than vote for has united Liberal Democrats from both sides of the argument - those who think that there should be no fees payable by students and those who never supported it in the first place.

If the Question Time audience isn't enough, then the Parliamentary Party should watch former Lib Dem Communications guru Olly Grender completely disarm Andrew Neil on This Week last night, saying that she thought that the abstention policy wasn't the way to go and suggesting that we could have handled it better.

The only thing I could really have asked from Danny last night is that he could have been a bit tougher on Labour, could have reminded us with more vigour that it was Labour who'd gone back on pledges not to introduce tuition fees in the first place and had somehow managed to introduce them without incurring the rancour of NUS. That a graduate on a lower income of £21000 would actually, under the new scheme, pay £74 LESS a month than they would under the scheme Labour introduced. That's a lot of money.  And that the scheme proposed by the Coalition is virtually the same as that proposed by NUS, except the Coalition's is fairer and not retrospective. If you want to see more of the detail, the Elephant has it all here.

And, just as an aside, Nadine Dorries, who, on a previous Question Time appearance, said that Trident wasn't a weapon of mass destruction, stated that MP's should never abstain on votes because that wasn't the job that they were supposed to do.  My immediate reaction to that was to ask on Twitter for someone to check out her voting record to make sure she'd voted in every single division. Funnily enough, as Iain Whiteley quickly discovered:

@NadineMP Since you've been an MP you've voted 887 times out of a possible 1429 votes thats 542 abstentions #bbcqt#dorries

There's a surprise.

I don't often watch either Question Time or This Week live because I need my sleep. Last night's was possible because Anna's school is still closed so I didn't have to get up early. If you didn't see either programme, check out Danny Alexander and Olly Grender on the iPlayer. They are worth watching.

Pity Question Time only managed to get one woman on the panel, too. I see its gender balance is not improving.

So glad England aren't going to host the 2018 World Cup

I really don't like football. I make an exception where Inverness Caledonian Thistle are concerned, but other than that, every time a World Cup come round I check to see if there's another planet I can disappear to for the month.

My dislike of the sport is probably fuelled by a resentment at the disproportionate amount of money, tv time and resources it gets. There are plenty other sports, not that you'd know it from the way football dominates the sports media.

The thought of the biggest tournament on the planet taking place on British soil and the hyperbolic coverage that would attract, which would make the Royal Wedding look as small as a village charity coffee morning in comparison, made me feel quite sick. I'm sure the bid was very good and everything but I am so glad that it'll be at least another 20 years before it will take place on British soil.

Having said that, I would much rather the event was taking place in England as opposed to either Qatar or Russia on human rights grounds.

You might be interested to know that  FIFA awarded the next two world cups to countries which voted in favour of an amendment taking out the specific reference to sexuality in a motion condemning the arbitrary use of the death penalty, as reported here on the New Humanist Blog. Even Israel voted against that, for goodness' sake. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar, punishable by 5 years' imprisonment.

It always makes me feel angry when countries who have scant regard for human rights gain such major international accolades.

Yes to Fairer Votes start ambitious phone calling effort -how you can help make history

With just over 5 months left until polling day in the referendum on the Alternative Vote system, the Yes campaign are launching what they describe as the most ambitious voter contact operation in British political history. They want to speak to more people than all of the political parties did during the last election.

That's an awful lot of people, so it's a big ask for a grassroots campaign, dependent on enough volunteers putting in time and effort. With the interest shown so far, though, Yes To Fairer Votes are sure it can be done.

This Saturday sees the launch of the first 50 phone banks across the UK. They will be open 6 days a week, staffed by volunteers who are giving up just an hour or two a month to make calls, so even if you have elections, as we do up here. In fact, it's even more important that this operation gets off the ground quickly here.

Even better, if you don't live near a major town or city, come the middle of December, you'll be able to call from home via the virtual phone bank. I know this is sad, but I actually love canvassing online. I loved the E-Canvass software from a few years ago, and I completely fell in love with the system Ros Scott used when she was elected President. It was so easy to use and it was great to just sit with laptop on my knee, on the sofa, with cup of Earl Grey at my side calling voters. All the information you need is on the screen in front of you and they give you a script so you know what to say.

The beauty of this is that everyone who believes in the Yes to Fairer Votes cause can take part whether they live in the Shetland Isles or the centre of London. Already 140,000 people have signed up to help.

AV might not have been my first choice of electoral system, but it is an important step forward. It means that voters can be sure that their MP will have the support of half of local people. MPs will therefore have to get out of their comfort zones and give a good account of themselves across their constituencies. At the moment, under First Past the Post, it's possible for an MP, with the support of around 20% of those entitled to vote, to basically have a job for life. AV will make it much harder for an MP to take their constituents for granted. It may only be a small change to the political system, but it will make a big change to the political culture.

The No Campaign has shedloads of money representing powerful vested interests who don't want to give ordinary people more power in the political system. The Obama Campaign 2 years ago showed that these reactionary forces can be defeated when confronted with a strong grassroots network You can sign up here to volunteer. Why not give it a go?

First Scotrail takes mickey out of its customers

Picture the scene. A platform full of dedicated souls, waiting for half an hour in sub zero temperatures hoping for a train. They'd struggled through two feet of snow to get there. If you don't believe me, have a look at my back garden - the top of that fence is my hip height.

So, over the tannoys comes the announcement that all services to Edinburgh are suspended. With an air of resignation, people start the trudge home.

Just as they get to the other side of the station, a train appears, going to Edinburgh. The conductor screams at people that he's not waiting for them, and they're to run (across the snow and ice) if they want to catch it. Only a handful managed it.

What a complete and utter farce! I know perfectly well that First Scotrail aren't miracle workers, but to put a message out on a tannoy that there were no trains when the train must have been on its way from Bathgate is an absolute disgrace. They seem to fail at the most basic level of communication as I wrote the other day. Mind you that involved shunting people around the station and back again so maybe this is the "Grand Old Duke of York" style of people management.

The attitude of the company towards its passengers may well have been revealed by a conversation between my husband and one of their employees, waiting for their (free) transport to work. This person, when Bob made the usual commuter grumbles, said that it was typical of people who normally took the car in but used the trains in these conditions, to moan. Bob told them straight that he'd been taking that service for the past ten and a half years.

There is something seriously wrong with the culture in First Scotrail.  They need to sort their attitude out.