Plenary, 13 Sep 2006

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Official Report 390KB pdf

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Time for Reflection

Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, which is led today by David McNeish of Citizens Advice Scotland.

I come in peace.

My granddad, Duncan Stephen, was born in Clydebank to parents who hailed from Peterhead. His best friend at school was a boy named Jamie Duncan. Jamie excelled in the qually and won a place at Clydebank high school, but a few months later he was dead. My granddad recalled, "It is fair to say he died of starvation and that society murdered him." That experience had a profound effect on both his Christian faith and his politics for the rest of his life.

For my part, I will never forget standing as a 12-year-old boy outside Lusaka post office in Zambia, on Nelson Mandela's birthday. We were asked to move on because, as whites, we were suspected of being terrorists. That was racial profiling. As a white Scot, it was the first time that I had experienced being judged solely on the basis of my skin colour, and I did not like it.

I am sure that each one of you could recount such formative experiences—incidents that branded your memory and shaped your future, when passion distilled into determination. Yet, with time, passion can be dimmed by responsibility. Compromise, which is so necessary in politics, can run unfettered by principle. Cynicism and bitterness can begin to encroach on those most precious of commodities—trust and hope. If you will permit a word of advice from a citizens advice bureau worker, it is this: do not lose that passion. Do not let the bruising nature of your responsibilities rob you of that which you set out to contribute.

In an old book of my granddad's, I found a speech given by a fellow Clydesider, Jimmy Reid, when he was installed as rector of the University of Glasgow in 1972. As part of his memorable address, he said:

"A rat race is for rats. We're not rats. We're human beings. Reject the insidious pressures in society that would blunt your critical faculties to all that is happening around you, that would caution silence in the face of injustice lest you jeopardise your chances of self promotion and self advancement. This is how it starts and, before you know where you are, you're a fully paid up member of the rat pack. The price is too high. It entails the loss of your dignity and human spirit. Or as Christ puts it ‘What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?'"