 I think we're all indebted to our clerks who've been masters of efficiency in this long difficult day. I have the opportunity to say a few words, and I want to start with words I've always wanted either to say or hear someone say. The Scottish Parliament adjourned on the 25th day of March in the year 1707 is hereby reconvened. I didn't say that until you'd all sworn the oath, really been convened. Well, it's a historic day, and I'm aware, in a long time in politics, that we owe debt to many who are not here, who didn't live to see the promised land. I'd like to mention a few across parties. Arthur Donelson and Robert McIntosh, Alec Buchanan-Smith, Johnny Bannerman, Emrys Hughes, John McIntosh, and John Smith, and it's today that his fifth anniversary of his death is. And I'd like also to mention Alec McCartney, my colleague and to so recently who so nearly lived to see the day. Now, there's so many other names, and I've only gone for people of my own friendship that I've known, but there's so many names in the history books named and people not in the history books who have made this history possible. I would like to give my thanks to every one of them. I have been in two parliaments, as everyone knows, I think. I was eight years in the House of Commons and 23 years in the European Parliament. Not so long if you say it quickly. I'm the mother of the European Parliament still until July, and I hasten to add not the oldest, though I'm the oldest here, which is very disconcerting. I think they made a mistake in my birth certificate somewhere. But I have several practical hopes very sincerely for this Parliament. The first hope is that we try to follow the more consensual style of the European Parliament and that we can say goodbye to the badgering and backbiting that seems to one associate with Westminster. Secondly, in the Commons, I found that there was a speaker's tradition of being fair to minorities, and I'm an expert in being a minority because I was alone in the House of Commons for three years and alone in the European Parliament for 19 years, but I have to say we're all minorities now, and I hope the presiding officer, whoever that may be, will be fair to each and every one of us. My next hope is that this Parliament, by its mere existence, will create better relations with England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which is what I believe is in the hearts of the peoples of all these countries. And my last practical hope is that everyone born in Scotland, whether they were born like me, can't help it, or whether they have chosen Scotland as their country, will live in harmony together with us all, enjoying our cultures, our cultures plural, but being loyal to their own. Out there in Europe and in the world, the greater world, there is a bank of goodwill towards Scotland, and I was privileged to visit 28 countries of the Third World in my Third World Committee, and I met many heads of state and struggling countries with problems, and many a head of state said to me, what's taking the Scots so long? And I know that there would be such a lot of goodwill in all these countries of the world. I was served in the LOMI Assembly, which is the European Parliament plus half the world, and I think one of the proudest moments was when LOMI came to Inverness, half the world, and we made a declaration which is part of a sort of international law and a declaration of Inverness, and we swept away in that declaration the last vestiges of apartheid. Thus we played a constructive role on the international stage, and we earned the admiration of all who attended from Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific. I've applied to make on behalf of my party to make this parliament work. We all here can make it work, and we can make it a showpiece of modern democracy. It's no secret that this parliament is, to us, not quite the fulfilment of our dream, but it's a parliament we can build a dream on, because our dream is to be as sovereign as Denmark or Finland or Austria, no more no less, but we know that this dream can only come true with the total consensus of the people of Scotland, that we accept. I'd like to end by quoting from the debate of 1707, and I've chosen a passage from Lord Belhaven, who was an opponent of the treaty, and this is what he said then, show me a spurious patriot, a bombastic fire eater, and I will show you a rascal. Show me a man who loves all countries equally with his own, and I will show you a man who lacks any sense of proportion. But show me a man who, while he respects all countries equally with his own, yet is ready to defend the rights of his own against them all, and I will show you a man who is both a nationalist and an internationalist. 1707 was said to be, was it not, the end of an old sang. While we all here together can begin to write a new Scottish song, and I would urge all of you to sing it in harmony for Tissimo. Thank you. For lunch, welcome news, and we resume at 2.30, as all members have taken their oath. At 2.30, the voting period for the election of the presiding officer will commence. The nomination period for presiding officer runs from 12.30 to 2.15. Thank you very much.