A Week in Parliament

Paddy Lennon

Any death is always a sad occasion. With Covid-19, more families than normal are having to deal with the loss of a loved one. Every so often, a death occurs which seems more poignant. Into this bracket would be the death of Paddy Lennon from Galston. When someone has a big personality and a big heart you always imagine they will come through adversity. Sadly, this wasn’t the case with Paddy who died a week after being involved in a car accident. He was hugely popular and had been a coach at Galston boys and girls football club for some 15-years. He had also been President of the club for five-years. Therefore, he had touched a lot of people having done coaching for so long. This applies to all volunteer coaches, but they really can be inspirational; teaching skills and also life values to children and youths. Paddy did all this, helped supervise and take teams on trips down south, helped out with the massive Galston football tournament each year and more. He was a huge Killie fan as well, and that is how I got to know Paddy when he started travelling on the supporters bus I used to organise. This is where Paddy really excelled in singing, boisterous behaviour and enjoying whatever came our way as Killie fans. The supporters’ bus and Rugby Park itself will be forever quieter with the passing of Paddy. It is at these times that social media really can be a blessing as so many people paid tribute to Paddy from the youth football side of things and many Killie fans, with many funny and friendly photos provided. It was a privilege to have known Paddy and my thoughts go the family he has left behind, Louise, Kyle and Chloe.

Mogg Conga

Westminster descended into complete farce with the Tory Government and Jacob Rees-Mogg in particular determined to get rid of remote voting. With the system working well why do this? it can only be because it was working so well, that they feared the longer it stayed in place the more likely MPs would want it to continue. It is completely absurd, and with Public Health England confirming the voting lobby system was not safe, they devised another ploy which involved social distancing queuing. This resulted in a queue 1km long and the set up was akin to queuing at Alton Towers. The snake like queue eventually being dubbed the Mogg Conga. It is incredible that these people are so detached from reality that they think precious tradition trumps safety of staff who have to deal with these set ups. They have argued that the physical Parliament needed brought back as soon as possible so there could be more debate time and scrutiny of the Government. That theory flounders when two votes take nearly two hours to process. If Westminster is not willing to modernise during a pandemic, then it will never do so. It really is so difficult to respect the so called “Mother of all Parliaments.”