Notice board MSPs ought to lead by example, not abuse each other

● Free Highlight Talks continue in the Robertson Room at the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway at 2.30pm today. Gordon Wilson of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society will illustrate and discuss The MacGeorge Collection: Scottish Steamers In The 1930s. Booking a free spot via Eventbrite is advised.

● Author Tim Bell will be talking about his book Choose Life. Choose Leith: Trainspotting On Location at 6.30pm tonight at Edinburgh Central Library in the George Washington Browne Room. Free tickets available from www.ticketsource.co.uk

● Lesley Riddoch is touring with her new film Denmark: The State Of Happiness. There are screenings at 6.30pm on Thursday at Cameo Cinema,

Edinburgh; at 7pm on Friday at Adam Smith Theatre,

Kirkcaldy; and at 7.30pm on Friday, April 26 at Corrie and Sannox Village Hall, Arran. Lesley will be doing Q&A sessions after the screenings. For full tour dates and to book see lesleyriddoch.com/events.

● Brian Bilston and Henry Normal will appear together for the first time to perform "an evening of poems to be enjoyed not endured" at 7.30pm on Friday at Tolbooth, Stirling; and 7.30pm on Wednesday, April 10 at Mackintosh Church, Glasgow. For ticket details see www.waterstones.com.

● The Annual Arbroath Rally will be held on Sunday at 1pm. The march will begin at Kings Gate by the harbour and end behind Arbroath Abbey with short speeches. All welcome. Singers, musicians and pipers welcome for pub after.

● A screening of To See Ourselves, Jane McAllister’s documentary about the 2014 independence referendum, will take place at 2pm on Sunday, April 7 at Cameo Cinema, Edinburgh, followed by a Q&A with the director. To buy tickets see toseeourselves.film/ see-the-film

IN her excellent colum about misogyny in politics (Mar 29) Maggie Chapman rightly called out the recent behaviour of Tory MSPs Stephen Kerr and Edward Mountain, identifying what took place as “not physically violent ... but symptomatic of the monotonous everyday sexism women face even in the most powerful institutions.”

I would like to point out that the Health and Safety Executive defines workplace violence as “any incident in which a person is abused, threatened or assaulted in circumstances relating to their work” and clarifies that it is important to recognise that this can include verbal abuse and threats as well as physical attacks.

The harassment Ms Chapman described clearly falls within this definition. In detailing the outcome of this behaviour, citing the Scottish Parliament’s Gender Sensitive Audit as an illustration, she puts it beyond doubt that it is correct to consider the incidents as workplace violence.

How can we expect the Scottish Government to address any violence within wider society while it is beset with workplace violence within its chamber? Only when we call this behaviour what it is and see all of our elected representatives leading by example will we achieve greater success in reducing violence across our country.

Outside the restrictions on freely calling a spade a spade within the Scottish Parliament and at the risk of being charged with libel, I am confident that under the terms of the HSE definition I can safely say that Stephen Kerr MSP is a perpetrator of workplace violence. The whole of our country will benefit when the Scottish Parliament addresses this issue.

Ni Holmes

St Andrews

THE latest implementation of controls available to the Westminster government by the Internal Market Act (IMA) is to refuse to allow the Scottish Government an exemption to the IMA to ban the sale or use of glue traps in Scotland. The Westminster government is not contesting the right of Holyrood to make the legislation to ban the devices, but it is contesting its deployment and use as it states this will affect the internal market, where pest controllers in Scotland would not be permitted to purchase from other countries and use them in Scotland.

Westminster will ban the public’s use of glue traps in England and