With the first weekend since the election divided between various celebrations and a sleep recovery programme, I have now had a week to take stock and the bouyant mood it has put me in surprises me some, especially as I had expected the ‘scunner factor’ to prevail. What has helped is a number of well considered articles, such as Iain MacWhirter on how the game has changed and Gerry Hassan’s advice to the Labour party. They have mostly been bouyant and forward-looking. Even the Mail’s Quintin Letts has been rowing in synch, albeit for hugely different reasons. As MacWhirter writes, there’s been a ground shift in the debate over the last week; it’s now up to the unionists to make their case.

That pleases me no end and allows whatever personal setbacks I suffer to been seen in the bigger picture. So having missed out on the multilingual investiture of MSPs. I must return focus to the North Berwick Coastal ward (no hardship—watching the kite surfers at Gullane and sampling the new seafood hut at NB harbour yesterday). But, knowing so many of both old and new SNP MSP intake, there are a slew of tasks that cross the boundary between local authority and parliament on which I could use such channels to address key local issues needing parliamentary support like:

• Review of unsatisfactory FirstBus services and bus re-regulation
• Securing funding and long-term support for Leuchie House and Edington
• Provision of regular ScotRail services to Dunbar, integrated with exisiting NB services and serving a reopened East Linton station
• Refocus of Scottish Enterprise to support country-wide SME opportunities, such as wildlife tourism, specialist local produce retailing and town-centre offices
• Refocus planning laws to be less passive, especially as regards building complete communities (as opposed to just housing) and architectural context of infill.
• Develop local renewable energy strategy, echeloned by scale to its context
• Lobby the government to re-think Cockenzie for non-power-station use.