All in all, they're a fairly well-behaved bunch

Published on Wednesday 5 August 2009 21:19

LORD David Steel has criticised the current Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, Alex Fergusson, for allowing First Minister's Questions to degenerate into a point-scoring match, in which opposition members ask Alex Salmond a loaded question and he replies with a barbed insult.

But look at how matters stand in other countries. In the past few years, physical violence among elected members on the floor of the debating chamber has erupted in the legislatures of South Korea, Russia, Australia, Bolivia, Taiwan, Mexico, India, Turkey, Italy, Kenya, Nigeria, Nicaragua, the Czech Republic, Japan, New Zealand and Ukraine – to name only some.

Even in the United States, tempers flare. In 2007, in the Alabama Senate, Republican Charles Bishop had a dust-up with Democrat Lowell Barron after the latter referred to him as a "son of a b****". According to Senator Bishop: "I was raised in the woods of Arkansas, up there in Walker County, where you don't involve somebody's mother in a disagreement. That's when I responded with my right hand."

So we should be grateful that the Scottish Parliament is a model of decorum compared with most other legislatures. And remember: the reason why MPs in the House of Commons sit facing each other at a distance is so as to be out of reach of each other's swords.