The Sketch: Loan arrangers under fire as MSPs ride to the rescue of Scots students

Published on Thursday 12 March 2009 20:56

WE DON'T need no education debate. That was the prevailing mood at Holyrood yesterday. Well, MSPs might have wanted one generally, but not on a Lib Dem motion to bung money at students. A noble ideal, admittedly, but all sides complained the proposal was uncosted.

The first three speakers were women, all speaking too quickly. It sounded like Spanish people arguing, only without the passion. I began to think we'd need subtitles.

I always take a novel to parliament, to see me through the dull bits, and I was a good few chapters in before the ever-entertaining Murdo Fraser (Con) held forth. He knew people who'd voted SNP because of the party's promise to dump student debt. How cruelly they'd been deluded, said Murdo.

In-yir-face Kenny Gibson (SNP) intervened to say he'd been to university – gasps of surprise – and had received a grant rather than a loan. Could Murdo explain how that system had ended? Murdo made no apology for being yir man for a loan, promising attractive low interest rates. This was prudent and fair, unlike the approach of the Lib Dems, "throwing around spending commitments like confetti".

To titters, Margaret Smith (Lib Dem), the motion's proposer, said: "It is actually very difficult to come up with a definitive amount." Oh, go on, take a guess.

The aforementioned Kenny rose again and peppered the place with invective. "Well, presiding orifice," he hollered, "it's kind of desperate stuff from the Lib Dems today, as they morph daily into the SSP (Scottish Socialist Party]."

Kenny recalled Jim Wallace, "now ermine-clad", saying his Lib Dem promise of cancelling tuition fees had been merely electoral rhetoric.

Margaret: "Back at you! When are you going to dump the debt?"

Kenny: "We have abolished the graduate endowment tax, which you actually voted to bring in."

The assertive Nat then tore into London Labour for causing widescale hardship, and was building up a fair head of steam when the deputy presiding orifice, Alasdair Morgan – a neutral figure but technically a fellow Nat – told him time was up. Kenny complained previous speakers had been given longer.

Alasdair: "Sit down!"

Kenny: "Aye, thanks. Friends like you."

Alasdair: "I didn't quite catch that remark, but the member was verging on being disrespectful to the chair." Why restrict it to the chair? Kenny's disrespectful to everyone.

Kenny's Glesga doppelganger, Frank McAveety (Lab), opined that Mr Gibbo's view had "not been put maybe as eloquently as I had hoped". Frank fancies himself as a literary man and noted he'd been phoned by an "august" organ – the Hootsmon, no less – to suggest a new quotation for the parliament wall. He suggested this from Bud Neill: "Winter's come the snow has fell/Wee Josie's nose is froze as well/Wee Josie's frozen nose is skintit/Winter's diabolic, intit?" He believed these the best-ever four lines of Scottish poetry. I see.

He also praised lines of Edwin Morgan (Frank's definition of a poet is "someone from Glasgow"), already on the wall. These advised refraining from "the droopy mantra of 'it wizny me'."

We were pondering these wise words peacefully when the calm was shattered by a roar. Workmen in hard hats clung to the roof, and a party of primary schoolchildren was evacuated from the chamber on safety grounds. Yes, James "Foghorn" Kelly (Lab) had begun another aural thunderstorm, introducing himself with the words: "Thang yoo, presidin' offah-sur."

Every time he speaks, it's like the storm scene from The Wizard of Oz. It's not just the volume, it's the fact that every one of his syllables takes about ten seconds to pass.

He blustered: "Wuvv got tae delivurr fur Scottish stew-dents and dump the SNP!" Yeah-yeah, we hear yah.

After a brief hiatus, while onlookers collected blown away notebooks, wigs, false teeth and so forth, we'd to endure the absurd contrast of Marilyn Livingstone (Lab) mumbling into her pullover the contents of a typed speech.

When someone tried intervening, she squeaked: "I would like to move on and I will come back to that point." This, word for word, is what all the duffers are told to say. Needless to say, she never came back to the point.

Bob Doris (SNP) displayed kung fu hand movements – claw, finger-strike, backhand punch – as he made his point, which was: "Like everything else in life, funding has to be identified." Fair point. Here's 50p, son, get yirsell a cup of tea.

Karen Whitefield (Lab), a living indictment of the Scottish education system, said: "Can I comment briefly on the New Horizons task force?" All together now: Naw!

Ken "Mr Spock" Macintosh (Lab) attempted logic when he said replacing a 500 loan with a 500 grant still did not increase the amount. Er, yes, but it's still a grant, not a loan. Perhaps, on this logic, Ken would like his salary paid as a loan?

He went on to bemoan the hardship of student life, while calling for wider access to it. You point out the fundamental flaw in his logic, will you? I'm going to read my novel.