Sad to say, but Holyrood is so small-minded compared to Westminster

By comparison many of the Scottish Parliament’s tributes to Alex Salmond were functionary and had the sense of occasion you’d get from reading a school report card. Others would have been better not given at all. No one is suggesting a need for overly effusive reflection but the fact not one of his opponents, and that includes many within his own former party could find it in themselves to convey warmth like William Hague did for John Prescott in five simple words, says far more about them than it did Salmond. Telling too is the fact that the kindest and light-hearted reflections on his contributions to public life came from his opponents in Westminster. The political instinct was well, instinctive. In Edinburgh it was still being focus-grouped.

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Those who criticise Westminster tend to do so in respect of its procedures and cultures, and on both I’m sure much of it is more than justified. The pugilistic set-up of the chamber where opponents face off against each other separated by two sword lengths is a regularly-cited example of the arcane system which critics would have you believe doesn’t serve its people well. Add to the mix the boorish heckling, cheering, and calls for order, and that’s before the lobby queues for voting, and its decriers would have you believe the Mother of Parliaments is an institution that should itself be in an institution.

Comparisons are made with the beacon of progressiveness that is the Scottish set-up where a less adversarial hemicycle was, we were told, to lend itself to more collegiate debating. It takes a fool to believe that a building which cost about the same as two CalMac ferries is by design predisposed to delivering better and more thoughtful parliamentary content without considering its likely occupants; yet this myth is one readily perpetuated, usually by those who lack the ability for spontaneous contribution or original thought, and who owe more to a selectorate than the actual electorate for their positions. Thank heavens they don’t have to endure the trauma of facing order papers waved approvingly in the air, whilst undertaking the altogether more dignified behaviour of banging their desks like a pod of one flippered seals.

Rather than look people in the eye, pre-prepared points of performative drudgery are read to the backs of the heads of those who already know they don’t need to listen to them. The self-censoring risk of derision is nearly non-existent as opponents zone out to the white noise while they practise in their head the killer line they want clipped for their social media account later.

The mental agility to respond to genuine inquisitorial questioning is as rare as genuine inquisitorial questioning as distain and evident antipathy for opponents regularly spills out into performances in the chamber.

Originality and independence of mind occasionally breaks though at committee but heavy scripting and message management doggedly persist there too. Whilst Westminster committees can point to altogether more forensic approaches to scrutiny, they do fish from a much deeper pool than at Holyrood and low intellect is quickly exposed.

For all that, and lest there be any doubt, I am a fervent supporter of the Scottish Parliament and believe it can be a source for and of good. By the same token I deplore some of the policy decisions which have caused so much misery and suffering and have emanated from Westminster, and I certainly don’t subscribe to the increasingly populist view that it’s for Holyrood to mitigate the decisions of Westminster. Reacting always hampers the ability to act.

Annabel Goldie with The Herald's Brian Taylor at our Scottish Politician of the Year Awards last week (Image: Gordon Terris)After picking up her lifetime achievement at the Herald’s Scottish Politician of the Year awards last week, Annabel Goldie, with all the gravitas you would expect from a seasoned and well-respected parliamentarian, told her audience to that parties should kick out those members who are in politics for their own ends. Whilst that would generate plenty vacancies in Westminster, it would hollow Holyrood out.

I’m not blind to the fact Westminster has more than its fair share of charlatans who add nothing but weight to the belief of many that politicians are in it just for themselves. One distinct advantage Westminster has over Holyrood in managing the “Who’s that?” of parliamentarians is its sheer size. Idiocy can never be hidden forever but being one out of 650 gives better odds of being kept out of harm's way than one out of 129.

The smallness of Scotand’s politics can be found not in its institutions but in those who occupy its institutions. An inability to set aside personal animus will always be a greater barrier to progress than any system within which such animus festers. Holyrood’s supporters believe men in tights and buckled shoes, swords, and voting lobbies make Westminster archaic. In doing so they wrongly assume superiority. For as much as both Parliaments demand respect and courtesy, only Westminster has it truly engrained in its psyche. Until Holyrood has the same, its occupants will continue to live down to the big occasions.

Calum Steele is a former General Secretary of the Scottish Police Federation, and general secretary of the International Council of Police Representative Associations