MATAS TO MEET THE SCOTTISH FIRST MINISTER

By Humphrey Carter BALEARIC president Jaume Matas embarks on an official visit of Scotland tomorrow which will include a meeting with the Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell who controversially spent New Year in Majorca last year. McConnell and his family opted to spend Hogmanay 2004/2005 at the Alaro home of the BBC Newsnight and Scottish general election presenter Kirsty Wark. Despite McConnell's claims that the two families have been close friends for years and that it was not the first time they had stayed with Wark in Majorca, Scottish opposition MP's raised questions over the relationship between the First Minister and a leading journalist and Wark's ability to be “impartial”. Conservative MP's even called for Wark to resign her top job. However, both eventually escaped unscathed, although Wark is unlikely to present the Scottish general election programme again. McConnell will receive Matas for talks early tomorrow afternoon after the Balearic president, accompanied by the Balearic Minister for Education and Culture, Francesc Fiol, have spent the morning with Majorcan students and teachers from various Palma colleges who are on English language courses at Dalziel College in Edinburgh. The Majorcans are in Scotland as part of a lingusitic exchange programme devised by the Balearic government. Matas and Fiol will then go to the new Scottish Parliament for their meeting with the First Minister. Tomorrow night, Matas will visit the Ministry for Education where he will meet the Scottish Minister for Education, Charles Gray, leader of the North Lanarkshire council, James McCabe and the Mayor of North Lanarkshire, Mr. Probost. On Thursday, the Balearic delegation will visit another group of Majorcan students and teachers based at St. Margaret's college before Matas ends his first official trip to Scotland with a trip to Loch Lomond. Last year, Majorcan exchange students and teachers went to Oxford as part of the Balearic government's language teaching programme.