Maureen Macmillan

[Duncan Stott 🏗️🔰🇺🇦 @DuncanStott]

This is the only thing you need to understand about inheritance tax on farmland https://t.co/0PmQtchH6y

[Anas Sarwar @AnasSarwar]

The Highlands and Islands will be at the heart of Scottish Labour's plan for growth.

[Zubaida Akbar @ZubaidaAKBR]

Shocking new directive: Today, the Taliban's Minister of Vice and Virtue announced a ban on adult women's voices in each other's presence. In August, the Taliban banned women's voices in public, deeming it provocative. Women protested to this ban by singing and poetry.

[Sarah Boyack @SarahBoyack]

Enjoyed joining @AnasSarwar in Germany to visit EnBW, a state-owned energy company investing in the North Sea. Great to discuss how to make Scotland a world-leader in clean energy & learn lessons from their work to ensure GB Energy delivers for people across Scotland and the UK

[Alastair McIntosh @alastairmci]

A wise and experienced old hand, Peter Peacock (formerly convener of Highlands Council and deputy Scottish finance minister) on the rise and now the faltering of “green lairds”: “We need to factor in the insights and permanence of local communities….” https://t.co/QdI4uBMiGX

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Woman of the Day Barbara Betts born OTD 1910 in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, one of the longest serving Members of Parliament and the first woman in the UK to be appointed First Secretary of State.

Barbara was the Labour MP for Blackburn from 1945 to 1979. From 1965 until 1968, she was the Minister of Transport and never one to sit still, she called for "a profound change in public attitudes" to halt the gallop of road fatalities, saying: “Hitler did not manage to kill as many civilians in Britain as have been killed on our roads since the war".

Barbara also introduced legislation permitting use of breathalysers. A BBC journalist told her it was a “rotten idea” and said, "You're only a woman, you don't drive, what do you know about it?". Quite a lot, as it happened. In the first twelve months, road deaths dropped by 16.5%.

She didn’t stop there. She made the national speed limit of 70mph a permanent one and motorway casualties fell by 20%. Seat belts? Yes, Barbara introduced those too, making the roads safer for all of us.

As Employment Secretary, she proposed reducing the power of the trade unions with her 1969 White Paper In Place Of Strife. It caused uproar, a major cabinet split, resignations, and alienated her from her colleagues on the Left. In fact, it is still blamed by some for Labour’s GE result in 1970 but Barbara made history when she intervened in the Dagenham Ford sewing machinists’ strike of 1968. She helped resolve the strike, thus securing a pay rise for Ford’s women workers that gave them 92% of men’s pay, but she cemented this win and took it to its logical conclusion by ushering through the Equal Pay Act 1970.

The UK led the world by being the first country in the world to legislate for equal pay for women, all thanks to Barbara.

By now you’ve probably guessed the name by which Barbara is better known. She married a bloke called Ted Castle along the way. That’s right. Barbara Castle, later Baroness Castle of Blackburn.

I should also mention that Barbara’s secretary during the mid- to late 1950s was former Tiller girl Betty Boothroyd, who became the first woman Speaker and later, Baroness Boothroyd. Office accommodation in the House of Commons was so scarce and so restricted that for a while in 1959, she also shared her office with the newly elected MP for Finchley, one Margaret Roberts, who became the first woman Prime Minister and later Baroness Thatcher.

Three forces of nature in one small corner of the House. Wouldn’t you like to have been a fly on that particular wall?

Barbara Castle died in 2002, aged 91, at her home in Hell Corner Farm. A political giant.

[Sarah Boyack @SarahBoyack]

Residents need confidence when they use Portobello beach. That is why myself and @ChrisMurrayMP are working so hard to ensure Porty beach is free from sewage and contamination

[Torcuil Crichton MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar @Torcuil]

“In Na h-Eileanan an Iar, we are in the middle of a depopulation crisis, and I am here to sound that alarm…
we see the rapid out-migration of younger, economically active families” - read my Westminster Hall debate on depopulation:
https://t.co/8uNO1GJw6L

[Theo Bertram @theobertram]

When Labour introduced Winter Fuel Payment in 1997, pensioners were more likely to be in poverty than working age people. Since then pensioner incomes have risen faster than those in work & the situation has reversed. The gap is projected to widen further still.

[Sarah Boyack @SarahBoyack]

To mark the UN’s Declaration on Future Generations, I called to ensure we consider the long-term impact of our legislation in the Scottish Parliament. Across the world, countries have taken steps to ensure greater thought is given to securing the outcomes of future generations.

[judy murray @JudyMurray]

Laughed out loud. Too clever. #DadsArmy

[Women's Aid @womensaid]

“We don’t just need change we need a wholesale transformation…it’s time we tackle #VAWG as the national emergency that it is’.’ A keynote speech to remember from minister @jessphillips this morning at #WAConf24

[STV News @STVNews]

Labour’s new MP for the Western Isles has sworn his oath of allegiance in Gaelic on a Gaelic bible. https://t.co/a3UkDopCDR

[Sarah Boyack @SarahBoyack]

When I set the first renewables target as a member of the first Scottish Government they were seen as radical
– but we have travelled so far since then. It's disappointing that the SNP Govt hasn't delivered ambitious policies the climate crisis requires.

[Torcuil Crichton MP for Na h-Eileanan an Iar @Torcuil]

Someone nasty has taken a knife to a Labour banner near Arnol. We’ll repair and replace, we won’t be intimidated and like all the main participants in this election we’ll respect our differences democratically not with thuggish vandalism.

[Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak]

It's is a gift for Starmer, on the day of another big leaders' TV event too - he says, "This candidate should be suspended and it's very telling that Rishi Sunak has not already done that. If it was one of my candidates they'd be gone and their feet not have touched the floor."

[Moray Labour Party @MorayLabour]

This is a flat out lie. It’s a 10 year commitment and last year Shona Robison slashed it by 75% - providing a mere £12 million. #FibbingForScotland

[Maureen Macmillan @mmmacm]

@johnerskine @InvCourier So sorry! Ken was a tireless campaigner for workers rights and disability rights.

[A New Scot @ArmstrongT97969]

The difference 20 years makes to Scottish NHS funding

Nicola Sturgeon deliberately underfunded health spending in Scotland and used the money to give to groups/organisations to promote independence instead

[Malcolm Chisholm @MalcolmChishol1]

Realise many of those spreading disinformation know full well it's disinformation but,for the benefit of anyone taken in by privatisation lies,the Labour manifesto is categorically clear("With Labour the NHS will always be publicly owned and publicly funded")