IN 2021, I won my seat at Holyrood amidst pandemic restrictions, with campaigning briefly suspended out of respect for the late Prince Philip. I held no rallies, no celebration parties.

A year later, the scandal of lockdown parties and rule-breaking events at Westminster has appalled voters. Repelled by government contempt for the pandemic sacrifices of those obeying the rules, voters elected anti-Tory majorities across all of Scotland’s councils.

The SNP set new records with 453 seats and, in East Lothian, nearly half the members of the new council are female, including four strong women representing the SNP.

Determined to represent voters’ views, they will bring experience and insight in tackling the cost of living crisis, soaring energy costs, increased poverty and dependence on foodbanks, and poor mental health, especially among young people.

For the first time, the county also has a Green Party councillor, making the connections between environmental damage and urgent social issues.

My priorities as MSP include poverty and the climate change emergency. I’m gratified to see this growing awareness across the county, especially in Musselburgh, and also in North Berwick Coastal, which saw the county’s highest voter turnout in a ward where lack of affordable homes, and over-provision of short-term lets, are major issues.

In under a decade, East Lothian voters have taken part in an epic democratic exercise involving three General Elections, two Holyrood ballots, two council elections and the Brexit referendum. In other democracies, it can take two generations to test voters’ wishes on that scale.

Emphatic anti-Tory majorities across the country should lead the Scottish Conservatives to recognise that Douglas Ross’s failure to remove Boris Johnson reveals their limited influence at Westminster.

If Anas Sarwar allows Keir Starmer to turn Scottish Labour into his personal lifeboat for Number 10 then, like Douglas Ross, he too will discover that being ‘a servant o’ twa maisters’ never ends well. The SNP won its best ever local election results across Scotland by focussing on the people of Scotland.

The questions being asked in the north of Ireland have reverberated around our country since 2014; the hotly contested local elections have created a historic watershed moment for asking them again.