WHEN Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop said she is “looking forward” to her Tuesday date with the Education and Culture Committee, Agenda suspects she does not mean she is anticipating it with pleasure.

Hyslop will be asked to spill the beans about the exact purpose of £150,000 subvention to profitable enterprise DF Concerts for the Strathallan T in the Park event. The fact that the SNP candidate and go-between for the subsidy Jennifer Dempsie is now an ex-candidate is an interesting prelude to this meeting. Why should we care? Even if the economic benefit to Perth and Kinross of T in the Park is accepted, transparency matters.

Scottish Tourism Alliance chief executive Marc Crothall failed to acknowledge this point in his Herald article implying that the “lifeline” cash award to T in the Park was essential to deliver the tourism benefits. Agenda assumed he had some basis for this assertion, but not only was Crothall unable to give any (although DFC is an STA member), he was also vague about the wider local tourism benefits of the relocated T in the Park, strongly opposed by another member, Gleneagles.

IT’S an ill wind and all that ... the dirty tricks of the bankers who fiddled the Libor rate have at least allowed the Government to direct the fines to charities, one of which is the Scottish Veterans Garden Cities Association, also known as Houses for Heroes, which celebrates its centenary this year. The charity’s AGM, held in Edinburgh last week, provided an excellent showcase for recent developments in Angus and North Lanarkshire. Here’s to the next 100 years of providing “communities within communities” for ex-service personnel.