David Maddox: Lochhead loses the spirit of Speyside

Pity the poor Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead (pictured right). There he was enjoying one of the biggest junkets of the year as a judge at the Spirit of Speyside contest sniffing and tasting 40 single malts and he is forced to clear off to take part in some pesky votes.

One thing is for certain, though, his constituents in Moray will not thank him for his sacrifice.
I admit to some jealousy with this, as a judge of the same contest from last year, I had to give up my place because Thursday is Holyrood's busiest day.

However, there were a couple of reasons why he should take part in these votes. The first was on the Forestry Commission which is part of his departmental responsibilities and which the SNP won by one vote.

The second, though, was called in his honour. As mentioned in this blog before Labour took the advice of my colleague Hamish Macdonell's column to test Mr Lochhead's loyalties - constituents vs government career.

The vote was essentially on whether MSPs regretted the failure to include the Elgin bypass in its strategic transport plans for the next 20 years. Since the SNP promise to do exactly that was formally dropped by his constituency neighbour Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson, the MSP for Banff and Buchan, he has continued to campaign for its inclusion.

So was he going to continue to back his constituents and resign after voting against the government of which he is a minister? Not on your life. Ministerial career first. No regrets for Lochhead.

David Maddox: Where Thatcher feared to tread

After the high drama of yesterday's budget debate we are back to the more mundane issues of the Thursday morning subject debates. These, as we have learnt with the SNP's support for the Green's £1billion free insulation scheme in November and unwillingness to add it to yesterday's budget, have all the meaning and substance of toilet paper being flushed down the lavvy.

But, interestingly, this morning we start with SNP plans to lease out large tracks of land run by the Forestry Commission for 75 years.

The "creative proposal," as Environment Minister Mike Russell put it, came from Rothschilds, the international financiers, historically most famous for lending money to Benjamin Disraeli to fund the Suez Canal.

Labour have pointed out that the same idea was floated by Rothschilds to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s and she rejected it as "a privatisation too far."

So there we have it the SNP are willing to go where even Margaret Thatcher balked. However, in their defence this far from being a straightforward debate. Mr Russell has made it clear that he watered down the Rothschild proposal and he argues that this is the only way to fund large scale extra forestation needed to meet Scotland's climate change targets.

The trouble with this row is that it is hard to see the wood for the trees.