It is not every day that you get to fulfil a lifetime ambition but that was what I was able to do last weekend.
I stood on the platform of an SNP Conference and addressed the delegates as an SNP MSP. Not only that but the conference was on home ground in Aviemore in the Highlands and Islands Region which I represent in the Scottish Parliament.
Incidentally, as Moray is included in the Highlands and Islands Region I am also MSP for my home town of Lossiemouth, probably the first ever Lossie loon to have that honour.
The conference was our biggest and best ever and you couldn't turn without meeting a smiling face.
Having already laid a motion before the Scottish Parliament last week to have the drink driving limit reduced from 80mg to 50mg per 100ml of blood I took the opportunity at the conference to move a similar motion there. I have been running a campaign on this since Northern Constabulary caught 28 drink drivers in a two week period in August and after finding out that we have 27% more drunk drivers involved in accidents in the Highlands and Islands than the rest of Scotland.
The UK is one of only four countries in the EU which still has an 80mg limit, the other three being Malta, Ireland and Luxembourg. The other 23 have 50mg limits or less. There is clear evidence that above 60mg a drivers alertness is decreased, their reactions are slower and their co-ordination is impaired and that people with between 50mg and 80mg are two and a half times more likely to be involved in a fatal accident. This rises to five times with younger drivers.
I am pleased to say that the conference approved my motion and this will add weight to my efforts to get the limit reduced. At the moment the power to do so rests with Westminster and I would like to see the limit reduced for the whole of the UK but, unfortunately, they seem to lack the will to act. If they won't act on a UK wide basis then they should give us the power to it here ourselves.
I also put forward another successful motion in support of the Breast Cancer Campaign and their "Wear it Pink" day, which was last Friday, and rattled collection cans under the noses of the delegates to help raise funds towards the £3.5 million target they have this year.
It is a tragedy that 3,500 people in Scotland are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. I lost my own mother to breast cancer and know how important it is to continue researching the cure and help the one woman in nine in Scotland that will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime.
A week ago I had the pleasure of attending the opening of the new Red Cross Centre in Kyle of Lochalsh along with Alasdair Stephen, SNP Westminster candidate for Ross, Skye and Lochaber. This is a fantastic resource, run by local services manager Anne Eadie, who is the driving force behind the project, and I was very impressed to hear of the community work that the Red Cross are doing with young carers and disaffected youngsters.
Finally, I was very pleased with the announcement last week from Cabinet Secretary, Richard Lochhead, that the Scottish Government is providing a £25 million package to our farmers and crofters to ease the problems of Foot and Mouth. My only worry is that Westminster has not accepted its responsibility for the outbreak and therefore the responsibility to fund compensation for farmers and crofters.
If they persist with this there is a danger that the compensation will have to come out of the wider Scottish agriculture budget which will just mean that the farmers and Crofters will have paid themselves out of their own pocket!
This website was established while I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament.
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