DAVID STEWART: Government can’t back away from dualling promises
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Local MSP Fergus Ewing offered to “eat his hat” if the A9 was dualled by the SNP government at the date promised in their pre-election manifesto.
I do not regularly say this, but Fergus deserves praise and admiration.
Criticism from within your own party can hurt more and seem more credible than outside attacks.
I know Fergus well – we were opponents locally in the 1992 and 1997 General Elections and the 2011 and 2016 Scottish Parliament elections.
(By my reckoning, the score is 2-2. Maybe we need a penalties decider at The Caledonian Stadium, with MP Douglas Ross as the ref?).
The serious issue, however, is road safety. The A9 and A96 are killer roads and the sooner both are fully dualled, the better.
There were 13 deaths on the A9 between Inverness and Perth last year.
On top of that were numerous collisions, resulting in serious injuries, causing painful family loss, distress and concern.
Recent Freedom of Information releases have laid bare the tragedies on this infamous route.
On one night during the recent cold weather, seven lorries jack-knifed on the A9.
MSPs from across the political divide have also contacted Transport Minister Jenny Gilruth about speeding up dualling rather than delaying it further.
I know Jenny Gilruth quite well.
For two years, we both served on the environment committee at the Scottish Parliament.
She is bright, articulate, and a good performer in parliament.
Jenny and the SNP hierarchy need to remember their pre-election promises to dual the A9 and A96.
Both roads are absolutely vital infrastructures that are essential for local people, businesses and tourists.
It is easy to fall into the mindset that if the A9 and A96 were in the central belt they would have been dualled decades ago.
However, a promise is a promise.
The SNP government must come good on their manifesto commitment and dual both roads.
Fergus – I’ve got a hat I could give you…
Throughout my parliamentary career, I have been a campaigner on behalf of those who have diabetes.
For many years, I chaired the Scottish Parliament’s cross party group on diabetes.
Thankfully, for people in Scotland who are Type 1, diabetes can be very successfully managed by insulin.
However, prior to 1922, Type 1 diabetes was a death sentence – before the successful trial of insulin.
One of the leading innovators on diabetes was a Scot – John McLeod – who was born in Dunkeld.
Working with fellow scientists, Banting and Best, their pioneering work led to a success, a dose of insulin which worked for a patient who had diabetes.
McLeod and Banting won the 1923 Nobel Prize for Medicine because of their achievements.
John McLeod’s work was world leading, but little known in his own country.
Readers with Type 1 diabetes will, of course, applaud his revolutionary work, but should John McLeod’s years of ground-breaking research not be recognised more across Scotland, along with other great Scottish scientists – such as Alexander Graham Bell, James Watt and Alexander Fleming?
