If you help fund the Scottish Parliament, you are entitled to understand how it operates. Here is one example.
Holyrood returned from its October recess with Westminster’s approval of gas drilling at Jackdaw high on the opposition’s agenda, alongside renewed demands for the Rosebank oil field to receive the go-ahead.
The First Minister showed rather less enthusiasm for discussing the issue. Labour MSP Michael Marra began with a short, direct question: “I support Rosebank. Does he?” He even invited John Swinney to answer in equally plain terms.
Instead, he received a heavy barrage of political jargon. The matter, Swinney explained, involved a “quasi-judicial process” — a formulation seemingly designed to bury both the question and its author beneath layers of official-sounding language.
Marra eventually emerged from the verbal fog and moved on. Russell Findlay, however, was not prepared to let the issue go.
When his opportunity came, the Tory leader adopted Marra’s concise approach. “Should Rosebank get the green light? Yes or no?”
John Swinney has a great many opinions on a great many things, but still ducks the question when it comes to North Sea oil
Swinney rose with a glint in his eye. “I answered that question to Michael Marra,” he said.
Then he sat down again.
“Oh no he didn’t,” Findlay sang, entering the spirit of pantomime season several weeks too soon. “Rosebank: yes or no?”
Once again, Swinney stood. Once again, he sighed and repeated: “I answered that question to Michael Marra.” Once again, he returned to his seat.
Findlay asked a third time, and the First Minister delivered the same routine. He appeared thoroughly pleased with himself.
Perhaps he was taking a cue from Cabinet colleague Stephen Flynn, who is highly skilled at provoking the opposition and considerably less convincing in most other respects.
Swinney, it should be remembered, earns £136,000 a year. I have no objection to the First Minister playing the cheeky political operator. I do object to paying six figures for the privilege.
“This is torture,” Findlay cried. “He has opinions on Gaza, Israel, Russia, Iran and Europe — but not on the North Sea.”
Swinney offered slightly more in response, though not much. In essence, he repeated the now-familiar statement given to Marra — a statement that had not answered the original question in the first place.
Findlay pointed out that 1,000 jobs were being lost every month in the North Sea, as though the First Minister’s concern extended to every occupation except his own.
The SNP leader countered by invoking the previous Conservative government’s energy profits levy and throwing the criticism back at Findlay. At last, albeit unintentionally, the First Minister had raised a fair point.
When the SNP and Labour were climbing aboard the Net Zero bandwagon, the Conservatives were scrambling onto it too. Findlay accused the First Minister of being “terrified of the Green Party and Nicola Sturgeon”.
Has he noticed the way Ross Greer’s blank, doll-like eyes spring into life whenever fossil fuels are mentioned? Or how his tangerine hair seems ready to ignite at the prospect of an unrecycled carrier bag? I too am terrified of Climate Chucky.
Greer, meanwhile, blamed the latest storms on “climate breakdown”. Apparently, strong winds did not exist before climate change. Dorothy must have been carried to the Land of Oz by a gust of far-Right hate speech.
His proposed answer to the environmental crisis — and this may surprise you — was another tax, this time targeting “frequent fliers”, including bankers and other wealthy people who rely heavily on air travel.
Greer said the measure could raise £50 million. Alternatively, a tax on attention-seeking flights to the West Bank could bring in twice that amount from Green politicians alone.
Swinney claimed the Chancellor’s latest spending plans would reduce the Scottish Government’s budget by 1.3 per cent in real terms. On that basis, perhaps there was at least one positive development in the Budget.
Michael Marra urged him to “put the betrayal myths away and work together to build growth”.
Why would he? Betrayal myths win elections; co-operation rarely does.
Well-intentioned figures such as Marra approach politics like Sunday school teachers: heavy on morality, light on strategy. They want the keys to the kingdom, while the SNP is content to hold the keys to Bute House.
