by Jennifer Stark

Caught by the spring 2020 lockdown, last year’s General Assembly was cancelled (a one-day version was held online in October) and this year’s was almost entirely online, with just a few key speakers physically present in the Assembly Hall in Edinburgh. The first change that struck me when listening to the recorded debates was that they were shorter! Votes on sections of reports were ‘fast tracked’ where no questions had been

submitted in advance. Here are a few ‘stop press’ observations on some of the debates (not all are yet available).