Unfitting end for radical Tory MSP whose style will be sorely missed

Published on Friday 11 November 2005 01:37

THE life of Brian, Monteith of that ilk, has not been dull. It was always said of Kenneth Clarke, a Conservative of a lighter Tory hue, that he would cross the street to join a political scrap. Monteith, it can be fairly said, is the kind of politician who would sprint across a dual carriageway to join a plot.

However, it would be grossly unfair to write Mr Monteith's political obituary solely in terms of his unmasking for doing what many others in his party - including those at a more senior level - were also doing: communicating to journalists in unflattering terms about David McLetchie, the then Tory leader. Monteith used the modern way, e-mail, and was "outed".

Other politicians, some of whom are hypocritically nodding their heads in agreement when new leader Annabel Goldie warns on future behaviour, are as guilty as the now ex-Tory MSP. Many journalists at Holyrood know who these other anonymous critics are but have decided that information given in confidence should be treated in confidence.

But leaving that matter aside, when the furore over Mr Monteith's forced resignation dies down, the Tory party in Scotland should consider what it has lost with the departure of its errant son.

MR MONTEITH'S progress from youthfully aggressive campaigner against the National Union of Students, through his time as a stormtrooper of the Thatcherite right, to his having the guts to be one of the few Tories to campaign against devolution after the party's 1997 electoral wipe-out, mark him out as a politician who was not afraid to swim against the tide.

Some hold it against him that he subsequently entered the very parliament he had led the last crusade against, but once a democratic body comes into being, then a democrat has a duty to seek election to it. And as a member at Holyrood for the past six years, Mr Monteith has been one of the more effective MSPs out of a group which has generally lived down to expectations.

As an intelligent chair of the audit committee he played a significant role in holding a high-spending but under-delivering Executive to account. As a frontbencher he was one of the few Conservatives who could hold his own in debate, think on his feet and command the chamber when he spoke.

Latterly, when he retreated to the back-benches, he may well have - as his detractors claim - spent his time agitating against Mr McLetchie, but he also took a while to think the unthinkable; daring to be different.

One does not have to agree with Mr Monteith on, for example, the principle of fiscal autonomy for Scotland - the potential dangers in terms of the likely cuts in Scotland's budget are often conveniently ignored - but it is both logical and radical to argue that a party of the right should espouse such a policy.

In a Scotland which Ross Martin, a Labour stalwart but someone who also dares to think for himself, describes as being fed on bland, consensual, social democratic soup, Mr Monteith has shown that ideas can spice up the political menu.

Was he flawless? Of course not. Who in the numptorium, among the numptariat, or even, horror of horrors, in the commentariat can profess to be perfect, to have never made a mistake? Damn few, and they're a' brain-deid.

For all his faults, the Tory party, and the Scottish Parliament more generally, needs MSPs like Brian Monteith, someone who has brains and knows how to use them. There is no disgrace in that.

If, as seems likely, the political career of the bold, though sometimes rash, Monteith is at an end, the parliament will be a poorer place.

THEY probably won't be dancing in the streets of Raith on 30 November, but they will be doing the eightsome reel in Dushanbe. The capital of Tajikistan is one of just three locations around the world - along with Skopje, in Macedonia, and Belgrade, Serbia - where British embassies will be holding St Andrew's Day celebrations.

Kenny MacAskill, of the Scottish National Party, has described this situation as appalling, and he is right to do so. The First Minister, Jack McConnell, will have to work much harder to ensure that the oft-quoted benefits for Scotland of having the UK's diplomatic machine on our side include raising our profile.