Here is a list of some of the thing sour 'beloved' 'first' minister said he wanted to do for Scotland starting anew after 2000!

"For the opening years of the new century, we have outlined our approach, our determination to make progress and to unlock opportunity for all"

"Faint hearts warned against taking on such challenges, but politics is about delivering for the people. Real politics is driven by the dynamic of change not simply as an abstract but as measurable progress."

"In these new circumstances, there is a duty on Scots of all parties and none to join me in working together in the many areas of policy in which we may find common ground. I value the work already done in partnership and the achievements so far of the partnership administration. Whatever the future may hold, that spirit is important to our future success."

"Now is the time and the opportunity for the Scottish Parliament to get on with its real business - to fight poverty, injustice and despair, and to build prosperity, hope and social justice for all. It is our honour and responsibility to meet those challenges."

"We leave the twentieth century behind us with mixed feelings: a century terribly scarred by famine, by war and by man's inhumanity to man. It also was a century blessed by scientific, social and economic advancement: for an ever-increasing number of men and women and their children on this planet the twentieth century has been the best ever time in our shared history to be alive.

"We built democracy, we defeated Nazism, we founded the welfare state, we witnessed the collapse of communism. When Labour was elected to serve just two years ago, our Prime Minister Tony Blair said that we would be judged by what we did for social justice - for 'the poorest who had been forgotten, told they were not needed'.

"One of the first acts of this incoming Government was to keep faith with the people of Scotland and to finish our unfinished business - the establishment of Scotland's own Parliament."

"That Parliament was achieved in the only way it could be achieved - by the people of Scotland and the Government working together so we could say on 1st July 1999 that we had finished that business."

No Mr Dewar, we will only progress as a fully independent Western democracy, free from monarchy, free from Whitehall and free of the lies that have made us doubt ourselves these last 300 years.