David Scheffer:
Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. I m David Scheffer, visiting senior fellow on international law at the Council on Foreign Relations. And I ve been a longtime student of Scottish devolution and aspirations for independence from the United Kingdom. We have the privilege today of being joined by Michael Russell, who is cabinet secretary for the Constitution, Europe and External Affairs of the Scottish Government, and he is a constituency member of the Scottish Parliament, representing Argyll and Bute. He was raised in Troon in Ayrshire and educated at Edinburgh University and has lived in Argyll for over 20 years. Mr. Russell was previously Minister for Environment from 2007 until 2009 and then served as Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution before moving to the role of Cabinet Secretary for Education, which he held until 2014.
A special Northern Ireland centenary edition of a book of devotional readings from the notebooks of the late Lord Bannside and his father James Kyle Paisley has sold more than two-thirds of its 1,000-strong print run within a few weeks.
Paisley Pattern has been produced in hardback by the Paisley family in association with the Lord Bannside Foundation and Bannside Library.
It costs £20, with the proceeds going to the library.
Baroness Eileen Paisley, widow of the late Ian Paisley, who died on September 12, 2014, said the book was very much a family effort . My daughter Rhonda edited all the notes and put the book together and my daughter Cherith set it up for the printers, she said.