Andrew Whitaker: Loss of John Park leaves Holyrood the poorer, as his life before politics gave him an edge

THE surprise resignation of Labour MSP John Park from Holyrood last week was widely viewed as a loss to both his party and the parliament as a whole, with politicians of all sides praising his contribution over the last five years.

However, Mr Park’s decision to leave politics to take up a job as a full-time organiser for the Community trade union may be more significant for Labour and Holyrood than many perhaps have realised.

Mr Park was left somewhat on the margins after rather harshly taking the bulk of the blame for Labour’s disastrous election campaign last year, when he had been handed the role of campaign co-ordinator by the party’s then-leader, Iain Gray.

After spending a year on Holyrood’s backbenches, Mr Park may have had enough and perhaps didn’t view another three-and-half-years of making faces at the SNP the best use of his time.

Mr Park was probably one of the few politicians from Labour or any other party to come from a genuinely working-class background, having started out as an electrical apprentice at the Rosyth dockyard in the late 1980s, before later becoming a shop steward at the site.

The benches of both Holyrood and Westminster are packed with political professionals – people who have largely followed a career path from university to political adviser and then to parliamentarian. Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband are examples of this route into frontline politics.

True, there are figures at Holyrood who genuinely had a life outside before they came into politics, such as Iain Gray, who worked for Oxfam carrying out overseas work, and Alex Salmond who was an economist before standing for election.

Holyrood, like Westminster, is also littered with lawyers, with senior MSPs including justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, former Conservative leader David McLetchie and Nicola Sturgeon all coming from the field.

But Mr Park is one of the few figures to have been elected to the Scottish Parliament or Westminster in recent years who actually worked in a field not seen as a usual route into Holyrood.

Other exceptions include Labour education spokesman Neil Findlay, who worked as a bricklayer, a housing rights adviser and teacher before getting elected to Holyrood last year.

Central Scotland SNP MSP John Wilson is perhaps another example, having previously held the post of director of the Scottish Low Pay Unit – a position that arguably gave him some idea of the financial struggles many families face.

However, such examples are few and far between and it is perhaps because Mr Park was from a different background to many other politicians that his departure last week saw him praised by figures such as Holyrood presiding officer Tricia Marwick, who told MSPs that the Labour politician had been a strong voice for working people in the parliament.