When I was reading this piece in the Edinburgh Evening News today, I found I had to reread the following:

The transport minister and Green MSP Patrick Harvie left their cars at home and cycled to work yesterday…

If only the first part of that sentence really meant what it sounded like.

I got back from Party Conference earlier this evening. It had a bit of a different character than previous conferences, but it was good all the same. We managed to get a little bit of press coverage, but it seemed much less than we had at the past two years, meeting in Edinburgh. I did particularly like the BBC News article about us though: “Greens in climate bill pie claim“. Anyway, a weekend of early mornings and long constitutional motions has left me exhausted, so I might just give up trying to write something coherent for the night.

In a very surprising move, Patrick Harvie has said that he is putting his name forward for co-convenorship of the party after Robin steps down. Hopefully everything will go well, and he’ll be elected. Robin will be a tough act to follow, both in holding the party together in the run up to a major election campaign, and in making sure that the party is kept in the public eye for the right reasons.

Update: Patrick has blogged about his nomination.

I made sure that I got a copy of The Herald today, so I could read the interview with Robin Harper about his decision to step down from his co-convenorship. Echoing what James at Two Doctors said, having heard from people in the party around the early ’90s, he really does seem like “the glue that held the party together”.

Hopefully his successor will be able to carry on the excellent work, and hold the party together for all the elections we have coming up.