Robert McNeil: Wee parliament, big deal as Holyrood keeps busy talking about jobs

Published on Thursday 21 May 2009 21:35

BIG world, wee country. Big mouth, wee voice. Wee parliament, big deal. It's at times when Holyrood discusses big issues like the recession and unemployment that you realise how small and helpless Scotia is, under current constitutional arrangements. Put in a nutshell: there isn't much we can do.

Still, we can always talk. Yesterday, in the chamber, it was as if there were a volcano raging outside, and they were in here asking each other: "Do you think we should put on our hats?"

John Park (Lab) led the debate on employment, his broad proletarian voice urging more support for "biznissaes". There was more medieval talk of apprentices and some modern guff about "stakeholders", the puff-word whose phoney inclusiveness highlights everything that is wrong with political discourse today.

Listening carefully to John's speech, I'd no idea what point he was making. Reluctantly, I was forced to do something I rarely do: read the text of the motion. I hate doing that, preferring the debate to be a surprise. In this case, I was surprised to find the motion concerned copying an employment initiative in Wales.

Addressing this possibility, enterprise minister Jim Mather spoke of "trying to get a phoenix to rise from the ashes". Pigeon from a puddle, more like. Jeremy Purvis (Lib Dem) said something had to be done urgently, and Derek Brownlee (Con) had more variations on: "Isn't it all too awful?"

So far, it was more like a seminar than a debate. It's rare for me to say proceedings in the chamber were pointless, as I'm usually bumming the place up, and I've no wish to join in the anti-politician mood. I always side with the politicians against the people. I've met the people. I didn't like them.

WHAT about a politician who is also a man of the people? Hmm, tricky one. Duncan "Disorderly" McNeil (Lab) claims to be one such. Commentators often make out that Duncan is as thick as two metropolitan phone books, but that is a hideous untruth. One phone book yes, but two would be to pour too much egg over this particular pudding.

Anyway, the yolk was on all of us as he made the best speech of the debate, recalling how he had skipped through the shipyard gates 40 years ago (not to have a yacht built, you scurvy knaves; he was working there) and met the wee foreman with the big stick. Times had changed, he acknowledged, and we lived now in an economy devoted more to silicon chips than sailing ships.

In the past 30 years, he said, he'd met many ministers and statesmen, including "Margaret Thatcher in her den in Downing Street". Fascinating stuff but, once again, I remained unsure of the point, so it was a relief when the equipment propping up his speech collapsed and his notes went fluttering to the floor.

On retrieving them amidst titters, Duncan pithily observed of the equipment: "The person who constructed this didn't serve their time at the Cartsdyke shipyard."

After some time finding the next bit, he got to the point: the SNP administration was "complacent" about a threat to jobs in Greenock.

James Kelly (Lab) resurrected Labour's old routine of "I heard this bloke in a curry-house say the SNP was rubbish, which just proves it", by saying he'd met a 16-year-old last week who was finding difficulty getting an apprenticeship. Fiona Hyslop (SNP) countered that Alex from the south side of Glasgow had lost his job at Woolies but was now working as a bus driver.

She added that over 1,000 butchers and bakers were now benefiting from training. Well, no matter how bad things get, at least we won't run out of pies and cakes.

HUGH Henry (Lab) now has a wispy beard that makes him look even more of a Taoist sage. I thought he was overdoing it with the silken robes, though. Yin of his ideas was that the government should invest in a company in his constituency. Oh, right. Yeah, why not? Go with the flow, man. Mind you, it sounded like a worthy firm, and they're all needing cash. This was the gist of Hughie's message: "My I-Ching is calling for the sound of ker-ching!"

Jeremy Purvis (Lib Dem) characterised government policy as being like "a toolbox with one tool in it". And even that's a left-handed hammer. Duncan put it there.

At First Minister's Queries, Tory leader Annabel Goldie wanted Ecksworth Salmond to face inquisition at Westminster. The idea had uncomfortable echoes of William Wallace's visit there, though, to be fair, Annabel didn't call for the First Minister to be paraded through the streets of London in a cart first.

Scotia's rebel leader claimed he wiznae feart and added that he was interested in this new Tory policy of treating Scotia with respect, saying the sub-text was they hadn't done so in the past. "I suspect the leopard hasn't changed its spots."

Annabel miaowed back with a call for a general election. Ecksworth: "At last, something we can agree on!" Gosh, a Westminster election. Big parliament, big deal.