Reflecting on past year... and my own service
In many ways this week has been one for reflection.
On a national level, we have been looking back on a year since we first entered a lockdown and during this week we took the opportunity to think of all those who have lost their lives to Covid. There was a publicly observed minute’s silence in remembrance of the lives lost and to show support to the millions of people who have been bereaved.
It was an opportunity, too, to think of those over the last year who have lost loved ones to causes other than Covid and for whom the sadly necessary restrictions that have been put in place will have made the grieving process even more difficult than it might otherwise have been.
To those who have had that experience, then my thoughts are with you.
In these spaces for reflection, I have also been thinking of everyone who continues to make enormous and heartbreaking sacrifices as we continue to navigate our way through this terrible ordeal.
That absolutely includes those whose businesses – often not just their livelihoods, but their very life’s work – have come under the most intense pressure over the last year.
I know that there are better times ahead.
On a personal level this week I’ve also had occasion to take a reflective look or two of my own.
Parliament has shut up shop in advance of the forthcoming Scottish Parliamentary election campaign and, although we will – unusually because of the potential of a Covidrelated recall – retain the title of MSP right up until the election, I will not (barring that possibility of recall) again sit in the chamber as the elected Member of the Scottish Parliament for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire.
Twenty-six years and six elections since I was first elected in the Perth and Kinross by-election in 1995, I am taking a step back from elected politics.
It has been an absolute honour, pleasure and privilege to be your MP, then MSP, over that quarter of a century.
Thank you to my staff who have made my job a little bit easier along the way and, of course, to my political opponents who have helped to keep things lively and interesting!
But most of all, thank you to everyone who has voted for me and campaigned for me down those years, and to the people in our communities who do so much to ensure that they remain vibrant, interesting and exciting places to live and who have over the years brought so many issues to my attention that I have been able to raise at the national level.
You can be sure though that, although I’m retiring, I’m not going anywhere.
I’ll see you all round the Strath or in one of my favourite cafes - just as soon as we can get out and about properly again!