Monday, January 28, 2008

Plots Thicken

Me again - Indypal One. 

You will be glad to know that Indygal is settling in well to her new home in Sri Lanka.  Her only complaint is the howling dogs and baying monkeys (or it could have been the other way around) keeping her awake at night.  But she used to live in Dennistoun so she ought to be used to that. No encounters with spiders yet..

Anyway, she seems quite happy.  Just wait till she reads that I intend to reveal her true age on this blog  ...

Nah, only kidding.  Your secret is safe with me Indygal.
 
If you haven't seen the Scotsman today, Bill Jamieson has an interesting piece suggesting that Nick Kuenssberg, Sepa's part-time deputy chairman, donated to Wendy Alexander's leadership campaign.  This all relates to the Aviemore planning palaver. According to one source Kuessenberg 'blew his stack' when Richard Lochhead tried to intervene with sepa to speed things along a bit. It is all very complicated so read the article for the fine details but it seems that there may be political skullduggery afoot. 

The most amazing thing for me is that the plans to redevelop the Aviemore resort have now been in the pipeline for 11 years!  A bit much I am sure you will agree.  Hardly surprising that the FM decided to get on the blower about it.

Ah, I have slipped into the habit of referring to the First Minister as the FM  ... I don't really like it because it makes him sound like a radio station.  Alex Salmond FM.  Scotland's answer to Terry Wogan.

Posted by Anne McLaughlin AKA IndyGal at 18:40:59 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Is honesty always the best policy? No - but it can be very entertaining.

Hello boys and girls. Indypal One here. 

Don’t know about you but I was quite impressed by Rhoda Grant’s frank admission of ignorance in yesterday’s Sunday Herald.  She was asked about a meeting she had attended with other Highland elected members regarding the Aviemore Highland resort palaver, following which she wrote a letter to Alex Salmond about the matter. 

According to Rhoda, the MSPs ‘knew we were there at the meeting for some reason. I don't know why. We were providing cross-party support of some sort.’ If she didn’t know what the meeting was about, I wonder what she put in her letter?  Perhaps she wrote ‘Dear FM please don’t get involved in this’.  But I doubt it.

Apparently there has been a motion put down in the Scottish Parliament asking MSPs to allow the Government to release all correspondence relating to the matter.  That could be quite amusing.  Not quite sure why MSPs have to agree to it however – if I was the Government I would just do it anyway.....

Posted by Anne McLaughlin AKA IndyGal at 18:03:08 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Back from SNP Conference

I've been away for a few days. Been to SNP conference up in Aviemore since last Thursday. I'm a bad blogger because I really should have been blogging live from the conference. Sadly, however, I didn't have time. For some reason I ended up speaking in a lot of debates so I was up and down on that stage like a yo yo. And then there are all the people you've not seen for a year that you want to catch up with. Of course there is also the obligatory socialising and you get funny looks if you even think about leaving the pub at a reasonable time. So, it's exhausting going to conference, you are on the go the whole time. But it's great fun and I wouldn't miss it for the world. Glad to be home mind you - it's the first time I've been on my own since the middle of last week. Peace and quiet at last, and the time to post a few blogs about conference hopefully - once I've caught up on some sleep!
Posted by Anne McLaughlin AKA IndyGal at 22:05:01 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |