Leader: Dictatorship dangers develop in the party of overall control

Published on Thursday 2 June 2011 19:07

Events this week at Holyrood make prescient the warning delivered by Hugh Henry, the Labour MSP, that the parliament is in danger of becoming an "elected dictatorship" with no criticism, challenge or proper scrutiny of the majority Scottish National Party Government under Alex Salmond.

In an interview with this newspaper, Mr Henry pointed to First Minister's Questions, in which backbench MSPs barely got a look in and the Nationalist Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick, allowed Mr Salmond to make his answers so long that they were mini-speeches in which he failed to give straight answers to his inquisitors.

There was initial concern when the SNP, emboldened by their unexpected and unprecedented overall majority, ensured that one of their own was elected to a post which brings with it not only the responsibility of making sure ministers are held to account by the Parliament, but also the responsibility of making crucial decisions including, for example, whether any referendum bill is outwith the powers of the Holyrood. Ms Marwick's weak performance on Thursday has made those concerns all the more pertinent.

As well as having the Presiding Officer, the SNP chairs most of the important Holyrood committees where ministers and civil servants are questioned about policy and legislation, a fact which Mr Henry further fears will result in no proper scrutiny of the government's plans. That combination - of majority, the Presiding Officer's position and control of committees - has led him to the view that this is becoming a dictatorship of the majority party.

Now, the SNP will argue that Mr Henry represents a beaten party which has itself been dictatorial and brooked little opposition and they will be quick to accuse Mr Henry of displaying sour grapes after being defeated by Ms Marwick in the election for the Presiding Officer's position. Whilst some of these points might hold water, particularly in relation to Labour's behaviour in power, they do not negate his central criticism of the SNP, adapted from the phrase "elective dictatorship", once used by Tory peer Lord Hailsham in relation to a Labour government with a small minority forcing through policies in what he considered to be an undemocratic fashion.

Circumstances at Holyrood are a little different, but with a unicameral parliament, a party which wins an outright majority has power which the founders of devolution did not expect any one group to wield. In his speech the day his victory was confirmed, Mr Salmond promised that although the SNP had a majority of the seats, it did not have a monopoly of wisdom. Although it is very early in the life of this parliament, these conciliatory words have yet to be matched by deeds. Power, it is said, corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, an epithet with which Mr Salmond will be familiar. And Scotland did not vote to give Mr Salmond absolute power.