Webchat with Kirsty Blackman, SNP Deputy Westminster Leader, on Wednesday 4 December at 1pm

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with Kirsty Blackman, SNP Deputy Leader at Westminster, and SNP General Election candidate for Aberdeen North. Kirsty will be joining us on Wednesday 4 December at 1pm.

Kirsty was first elected as a city councillor in 2007 when she was 21. She served 8 years there and has been the SNP MP for Aberdeen North since 2015.

As well as being the Deputy Leader of the SNP at Westminster, Kirsty leads for her group on the economy.

She has two children aged 6 and 8. She’s a Mumsnet user (you may remember her thread about the lost bunny of Westminster), a supporter of Woolly Hugs and says that she met some of her best friends through a Mumsnet crochet and knitting group.

Please do join us on Wednesday at 1pm, but if you can’t make it on the day, leave your question for Kirsty on this thread in advance.

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is overwhelmingly dominating a discussion with a guest, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. (We will be taking action on this, including suspending the accounts of MNers who continue to repeat a point after we've posted to ask people to stop, so please take note.) Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Many thanks
MNHQ

Honestly, I don't know much about these systems and it may be unique to your health board. If you haven't already I would strongly recommend speaking to your MSP about this. We need to fix the system so these things don't happen. It sounds thoroughly demoralising, nevermind anything else.

It was for a centralised service outwith our own healthboard and would have affected people across the central belt. Believe me, if it wasn't that my then 17 year old refused to make an issue of it for his own mental health I would have been to the press about it never mind my MSP.

@lonelyplanetmum

Hello thank you for taking the time to do this chat.

Do you think more protracted attempts should have been made to restore Stormont before very serious decisions were taken about NI? Do you see that Scotland could take a more significant role in an assisting its revival after the election?

Hiya

I strongly believe that Government should be restored in NI as soon as possible. We have supported this in the Westminster parliament and will continue to support talks and moves towards this. I do believe that not enough effort has been made here by the UK Gov, probably because they've been quite consumed by Brexit and the NI secretary has changed a few times. This is too important to ignore though. I regret that we've not had much of an NI voice during the latter stages of the Brexit process so far. Either from the devolved administration there or from those in parliament - we've only had DUP MPs and Lady Hermon making the case and those voices are not entirely reflective of the views of many in NI.

@FlatpackFurni

In the spirit of Christmas ... do you like Ruth Davidson as a person? What's the nicest thing you can say about her?

Hiya!

I really don't know her very well. Because she's been in Holyrood and I've been in Westminster and we represent different parts of the country we haven't really been in the same room all that often.

I do think it's awesome that we've had a gay woman leading the Scottish Tories though.

Phew! Well, I've done my best on this. What a wide range of questions on so many different topics.

It's been fun to be back on MN. I'm not here that often these days though I sometimes do have a nosy at AIBU or some of the most active threads to give myself a good laugh.

Thank you to all of you who have asked questions. I'm sorry I didn't manage to answer them all in the time I had.

The last thing I'd say is, please do go out and vote in the General Election. Whoever you choose to vote for, whether or not you feel a candidate from a certain party is a shoe-in. Women fought hard for this right and I think there's a responsibility for us all to exercise it.

Signing off now, hope you all have a lovely winter and get something of a break.

Thanks Kirsty, good luck on the 12th and have a nice Christmas.

Thanks to Kirsty for coming on and to MNers for their questions - we're going to close this thread now.

Thanks
MNHQ