Published: Friday, 27th October, 2006 16:45
Jack's lecture
By East Lothian Newsroom
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EAST Lothian residents filled St Mary’s Parish Church on Tuesday evening to hear First Minister Jack McConnell pay tribute to a former county MP who campaigned for a devolution settlement.
Mr McConnell told his audience how the Scottish Parliament had come into existence 21 years after former Berwick and East Lothian MP John P. Mackintosh’s death in 1978.
Mr McConnell described how the key principles of the current Scottish devolution settlement were subsidiarity and solidarity.
Subsidiarity, he explained, meant taking decisions which accounted for cultural bonds, national identity and geographical common sense.
“And rather than lagging behind the rest of the UK, we now aspire to be the centre for innovation and creativity in the UK, to be the UK’s innovation hot-house,” Mr McConnell added.
And Mr Mackintosh believed reforming the UK was possible while others said Scotland’s woes could only be tackled by separation, Mr McConnell added.
A lecture by a prominent political figure is given every two years in St Mary’s Church, Haddington in memory of Mr Mackintosh.
On Tuesday, St Mary’s had been filled to its 220 capacity for Mr McConnell’s lecture, a spokesman for East Lothian Council said.
Outside the Haddington church, members of the East Lothian SNP handed out leaflets campaigning against the current devolution settlement to people attending the lecture.
John Mackintosh was first elected MP for Berwick and East Lothian in 1966 and then regained the seat in 1974 after losing out to Conservative Michael Ancram. He died while still in office aged 48.
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