Memories
of summer:
a photo-essay
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The Midgie
Manchester, Wednesday
A man who many believe should be deported as prime minister has instead been allowed to stay in this country, and even go on running it, because he owns a cat. The identity of the cat has not yet been established, but is believed to be one of the following suspects:
Danny
Ginger Tom who once roamed free in the Cairngorms, writing press releases that no one ever read, until it was discovered that he could add up. Sort of.
Ken
Ancient moggie some would like to see put down; failing which, appointed to the vacancy at Nottingham Forest, possibly a fate worse than death.
Theresa
Cool cat who never makes things up.
Vince
Glum-looking top cat, keeps to himself, tends to hiss at other cats in the room, a picture of misery.
Fat cats
All the millionaires around the cabinet table.
Media News
What is thought to be the first television appearance of Santa Claus in the current season took place on the execrable ITV breakfast programme, Daybreak, on Tuesday 4 October. Yes, there he was – with an editorial reference to the coming festivities. Can any reader beat this? Can any reader believe this?
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Today’s banner
Ponies on Islay
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
Revealed: MSP Dave
and his Holyrood
secret society
Kenneth Roy
Dave: Mr Transparency
www.bobsmithart.com
About Dave himself, we already know quite a lot. First elected as a list MSP in 2007, he now represents the many interests of Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, a constituency so wild and glorious that it could almost qualify as the Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley of the north.
Dave is vice-president of the Trading Standards Institute and is a member of: the GMB trade union, An Comunn Gaidhealach (he is learning Gaelic), Inverness Credit Union, Scottish CND, the Church of Scotland, Oxfam, Christian Aid, Marie Curie, Save the Children, Compassion UK, the Smile Train (so not the one going all the way to Mallaig then), and the Co-operative Group. From this impressive list of affiliations, it would be safe to conclude Dave is somewhat to the left of centre, if not indeed on the side of the angels.
His second name is Thompson. Dave left Lossiemouth High School with eight O-grades and went on to obtain a certificate in something called legal metrology. He worked latterly for Highland Council as its ‘director of protective services’ (not sure what that means) and now wishes to disband the local authority which once employed him.
Oh, and Dave is a grandfather. We have BBC Scotland’s word for that. ‘Grandfather was SNP election hero’, it declared on its website in May 2007. I checked Dave’s age half-expecting to find that he had recently celebrated his 72nd birthday from a rocking chair somewhere in deepest Badenoch. But no: at the time of his election he was a mere stripling of 57. Such is their fragile state of maturity, the babes who compile these headlines must have thought it relatively cute that a grand-daddy had made it to Holyrood and decided that this was the most important thing about him.
More remarkably, the babes discovered to their astonishment that someone as old as 57, and a grandfather, was still capable of spotting a mistake in the regional count which gave the SNP no list seats when it was entitled to two such seats. When this error was put right, it pitched Grandpa Broon into parliament and gave the SNP its historic victory. In fact – by which I mean in my opinion – had it not been for Dave, Alex Salmond would not be occupying the dominant place in politics he enjoys now.
In extracting all this guff about Dave, it was not necessary to subject a poor old man of 62 to enhanced interrogation techniques. Dave is quite open about all of it. He is a veritable model of transparency. Visit his entry on the Scottish Parliament website and the first words you will read are these: ‘Glad you chose to look me up. If there is anything I can do for you, just let me know’.
And yet, and yet – I believe a double ‘and yet’ is justified in this extreme case – this apparently unimpeachable fellow, his ingratitude to Highland Council the only blemish on his report card, runs a highly influential secret society of politically motivated persons. Of this organisation, we know very little indeed; and it seems Dave and his pals intend to keep it that way.
For the committee’s motto, we should look no further than Dave’s own:
‘Glad you chose to look me up. If there’s anything I can do for you, just
let me know’.
Shortly after the May landslide, Dave was appointed convener of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee of the Scottish Parliament. Be not deceived by a title of such crippling dullness. It is a committee of some importance for two reasons.
First, it has a responsibility for public appointments, which are a continuing disgrace for their narrow range and their discrimination against women, ethnic minorities and the poor, although not against my old friend Ruth Wishart or against members of the Grossartia (the loose association of Edinburgh power brokers categorised in this way by Bill Jamieson in a recent edition of the Scottish Review). Dave, who I take to be a man of the people, has much to do here; there is a commissioner of public appointments, one Karen Carlton, who could assist him, in theory at least.
Second, the committee is much concerned with the present inquiry to find ways of making the parliament vaguely interesting to anyone who has not the good fortune to be paid by it. Since there are only 143 people in Scotland who follow its proceedings closely, and I can name all of them, Dave has a job on his hands to broaden the scope of public interest in this obscure legislature.
For both these reasons, the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee is keen to promote transparency and a spirit of openness. Presumably that is why it appointed Grandad Dave – Mr Transparency – as its convener. For the committee’s motto, we should look no further than Dave’s own: ‘Glad you chose to look me up. If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know’.
Actually, Dave, there is something you can do for me. You can tell me why this committee devoted to openness and transparency, which wishes to make the parliament as interesting as, say, Interesting Steve Davis, conducts most of its business in private.
At its meeting last week, with Dave in the chair:
Item 1 was a decision to take some of the committee’s business in private ‘at this and future meetings’.
Item 2 was a decision to take Item 8 in private.
Item 3 was a decision to take yet more of the committee’s business in private ‘at future meetings’.
Item 4 was a decision to ‘accord recognition’ to the cross-party groups on Golf and Scotch Whisky (could one group not serve both?).
Item 5 was the taking of evidence.
Item 6 was the taking of evidence.
Item 7 was taken in private.
Item 8, following the decision in Item 2, was taken in private.
To summarise: of the eight agenda items, five were either taken in private or were decisions to take business in private in future.
My informant in this matter – a prominent figure in Scottish public life, a man well accustomed to minutes – tells me that the minutes of this committee are ‘worse than useless’. I have studied them. My informant is correct: they are stunningly uninformative. The minute of last week’s meeting, which lasted almost three hours, consists of 30 lines, including a list of those present, a line devoted to the time the meeting started and a further line devoted to the time the meeting closed. In these 30 lines, the phrase ‘in private’ is used no fewer than eight times.
So how about it, Dave? What have you lot got to hide? As my distinguished informant puts it: ‘Openness and transparency are obviously for other people’.
But at least we can be trusted with golf – and whisky.
Kenneth Roy is editor of the Scottish Review
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