The Edinburgh Festivals had a windy start this week.
Several events had to cancelled, including the Military Tattoo, the Ceilidh in the Park and 100 shows taking place in flapping tents. The storm, Storm Floris, was short-lived but it blew in mighty winds on Monday which, even here in the sheltered east, reached around 40mph.
Welcome to the Festival. The Royal Mile, Edinburgh.
Over on the west coast, they had winds of 70-80mph – and in the north 122mph on the summit of the Cairngorms. Fortunately, there was no loss of life, but travel on the trains and ferries was disrupted and more than 70,000 homes in the Highlands were left without power as overhead lines were brought down. There was much talk of summer storms on this scale being unusual and another warning of climate change.
Even the Royal Mail was thrown off its usual steady stride. It warned school pupils their exam results envelopes might be delayed in rural parts of the country. It’s somewhat quaint the think that anyone was waiting for results on paper, since most pupils were getting their results as text messages on their phones.
There were the usual pictures on television and in the press of happy pupils, supposedly surprised, opening large envelopes in the presence of the Education Minister at a carefully chosen school. Jenny Gilruth congratulated the 147,000 pupils throughout Scotland on a slightly improved pass rate, despite their education being disrupted by the Covid pandemic. In the Higher Exams, the pass rate rose from 74.9 per cent to 75.9 per cent.
It means the number of pupils likely to go on to university is up four per cent at 16,300, including a record 1,960 from deprived backgrounds. However the “attainment gap” between pupils from poor and wealthy areas has hardly changed.
The exam results are also a chance for the opposition parties to give the SNP government marks for how it is running the education system. It’s certainly not been without its problems – rising levels of violence and disruption in classrooms, poor attendance, changes to the curriculum and the exam system. The government blames “Westminster austerity” and Covid for most of the difficulties.
Certainly teachers have been feeling the strain. A report out this week from the body overseeing local council spending, the Accounts Commission, finds that teacher absences due to stress and illness have increased by 12 per cent in the last year. Overall, absences by local council workers rose by four per cent, with the total number of days lost rising to 2.65 million, an average of 14 days per employee.
Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes at the National Robotarium announcing funding for start up businesses PHOTO ©The Edinburgh Reporter May 2024
Also feeling the strain is our Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes. She has sent shock waves through the SNP by announcing she will not be standing as a candidate at next year’s Scottish elections. She said she wants to spend more time with her young family. She says the pressures of government office and the traveling involved in serving her large Highland constituency of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, meant she was not spending enough time at home.
She’s seen as a very capable politician and she came close to becoming leader of the SNP and First Minister when she stood against Humza Yousaf in 2023. However, her membership of the Free Church of Scotland put her at the front of the culture war raging inside the party over “progressive” social policies such a gay marriage and gender recognition. She is also on the right wing of the party on industrial policy and the transition to renewable energy. So how these issues play out in the party, in her absence, will be interesting to watch.
It certainly makes the job of winning next year’s election more difficult for John Swinney. He’s losing a lot of his senior team. Shona Robison, Fiona Hyslop, Humza Yousaf and half a dozen backbenchers have all announced they will not be standing again. And with independence a more distant dream, under Mr Swinney’s “slowly, slowly” approach, it will be more difficult to fire-up the SNP election machine.
But back to the show on the crowded streets of Edinburgh. Not only do we have the 100 official concerts to chose from, we have 3,700+ Fringe shows to go to and, this weekend, the book festival opens. And if you want to hear a wall of sound from 30 years ago, Oasis comes to town with three concerts at Murrayfield. At least it will be a bit more lively than the opening concert last Saturday in the Usher Hall – eight hours of transcendental music by John Tavener.
Preparations were well underway at Scottish Gas Murrayfeild ahead of the first Oasis concert there on Friday night
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