Today is a very special day for my family and a testament to the Scottish NHS and to @StagecoachEScot - And now you are thinking what the heck has a bus company and the NHS got to do with each other. Well, today marks the 30th anniversary of my mother and her colleagues...

....establishing a midwifery unit in Malawi which over the last 30 years has saved tens of thousands of lives.

On this day, 30 years ago, after collecting massive amounts of unused medical equipment from hospitals around Scotland, my father and I transported them to....

...the stagecoach depot in Perth. Stagecoach loaded all of that equipment onto buses and transported it to Malawi where my mother (who was a midwife) and colleagues used them to create one of the first dedicated midwifery units in Malawi.

Everything from basic midwifery supplies to things like mosquito nets was transported en-masse to the new unit.

It was a co-operative effort by hospitals from the borders to the Highlands.

What would have been thrown out because it was fast approaching the end of its use, was retasked to assisting some of the most impoverished in the world. This unit still exists to this day and continues to provide proper midwifery care to tens of thousands of expectant...

Let me make this clear @Douglas4Moray. THE COURTS not THE GOVERNMENT and NOT PARLIAMENT are masters of law and THE ONLY ONES ALLOWED TO INTERPRET IT. Parliament makes laws, The courts interpret them. Government and Parliament DO NOT SIT ABOVE THE COURTS. They sit EQUAL TO THEM.

This is to stop Governments and Parliaments from going off on one and becoming a full dictatorship. Only a court can rule something lawful or unlawful. I'm surprised that as a member of parliament you do not understand this very simple concept.

Inherent in the right to vote is the right not to vote. That is your choice if you opt not to vote in a referendum and the Tories boycott it. BUT LET ME BE CRYSTAL CLEAR - IF THE COURTS DETERMINE (and your panic shows how good our case is) THAT IT IS LAWFUL FOR HOLYROOD...

...TO LEGISLATE FOR A SECOND REFERENDUM WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF WESTMINSTER (#PEOPLESAS30) then your "boycott" is NOT a "boycott" - It would not delegitimise the vote. Only the courts get to decide what is lawful or unlawful. Not you or your tory cronnies.

The courts having said a referendum WOULD BE LAWFUL would mean that IT WOULD BE YOU WILFULLY MAKING THE CHOICE NOT TO VOTE IN THAT REFERENDUM - IT WOULD BE THE FREE EXERCISE OF YOUR RIGHT NOT TO VOTE, INHERENT IN THE RIGHT TO VOTE! - YOU'LL HAVE MADE THE CHOICE COGNISANT OF...

My proposal to the movement on the way forward is quite simple and is a hybrid of both Plan A and Plan B. Which should bring together all sides of the movement.

1. The #PeoplesAS30 establishes that the Scottish Parliament can legislate for a second referendum without Westminster consent.

2. The Scottish Government, and pro-independence parliamentarians at Holyrood IMMEDIATELY pass a referendum franchise bill to protect the right to hold a referendum. Included in that bill is a provision for its activation:

"That on a majority vote of the Scottish Parliament a date shall be set and a referendum held on Scottish Independence".

3. This bill having been officially passed prior to the 2021 elections. Pro-Independence candidates stand on the following policy -

This is exactly what the UK Government does to unpaid carers -IF you are fortunate to have time to have another job (because you're not caring 24/7) they take your income support or UC pound for pound for every pound you earn. Once that's all gone they take your carers allowance.

So in other words - IF you are fortunate enough to have time to take a job - you end up doing two jobs for half the money. So what you end up with is most full time carers being locked-in to the caring roll earning less than £2.30 an hour.

2020 has been a lesson that the UK population doesn't give a crap about carers, or low income families. Sure, they'll stand on their doorsteps and clap, or abuse their neighbour who didn't clap, but the reality is that it serves the British state to keep low income carers...

...and unpaid carers in forced servitude (and that's exactly what it is). When it broke that people were being forced to work for £3, 4, 5 per hour in sweat shops in northern England at the start of the pandemic, you couldn't turn on a TV channel without some politician...

...talking about "worker exploitation", but the reality is that the UK is ok with worker exploitation. It has engaged in it for decades through both Labour and Tory governments. It actually has legislation that specifically defines Carers Allowance as an allowance...