Party hacks block path of talented mavericks

Lord Sewel, a Labour peer and former adviser to Donald Dewar, the late first minister, said two days ago he believed outside experts should be appointed as ministers to "widen the pool of talent" in the Scottish Executive and Scottish Parliament.

Yesterday, he went further and warned of the increasing dependence on "career politicians" and of how this was restricting policy debate and development in Scotland. He said some politicians started as party researchers, or constituency or parliamentary workers and then went on to become MPs, MSPs and junior ministers.

He told BBC Scotland: "We must, I think, try to find means by which we harness the ability of people who don’t want to be career politicians but who can make a real contribution to public life."

Lord Sewel did not identify who he meant, but he was clearly aiming at least part of his criticism at the Labour benches, where many of the MSPs have come through local government and the unions, with some of them knowing very little about life outside politics.

This narrow field of vision, combined with the party-list system which the Tories and SNP rely on to get their MSPs elected, appears to have led to a greater reliance on party patronage than ever before.

With party leaderships in overall control of selection, the main parties appear to have slipped into a safety-first mode - selecting dull, but loyal, candidates, rather than attracting talented, if inexperienced, mavericks from outside.

Commentators agree there is an abundance of talented people in all walks of life in Scotland, from business to the arts and from the voluntary sector to education, but most will never go near elected politics.

Sir Fred Goodwin, the chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, is, arguably, Scotland’s most successful business figure - he has turned RBS into one of the world’s biggest and most profitable banks. He has also done more for Scotland than almost anybody in the land, say many, by keeping the RBS headquarters in Scotland and ensuring the bank is defiantly Scottish. Yet, he has shown no inclination to go into politics.

The same is true of a host of other business figures and entrepreneurs, including Sir Tom Farmer and Tom Hunter.

In the arts, there is Peter Mullan, the award-winning film-maker and a high-profile supporter of the Scottish Socialist Party, and David Hayman, the film star who has done work for the SNP.

Neither has put himself forward to the Scottish Parliament, even though each of them would improve standards in the chamber and bring a more worldly and experienced perspective to proceedings.

One leading lawyer, who did not want to be named, said he did consider running for the Scottish Parliament in 1999 when there was the feeling that the traditional backbiting and antagonistic political system was being broken down, but he would not do so now because Holyrood appeared just as destructive as Westminster to those involved.

Jack McConnell, the First Minister, refused to be drawn into the argument yesterday, insisting through a spokesman that the Executive was making real progress and that he saw no need to change the system.

However, Duncan Hamilton, one of the top SNP MSPs during the first parliamentary session, said there was a need for a change and it was up to the political parties to lead it.

Mr Hamilton, who chose to leave parliament last year at the age of 29 to become a lawyer, said:

"The party structures are very resistant to fresh people, particularly the Labour Party, but it’s not exclusively a Labour problem. The very nature of party activism is to spend hours leafleting. They are very resistant to incomers. They tend to think, ‘Why should I give up my position to someone who has just arrived when I have spent 15 years knocking on doors in the rain?’ Anybody who suddenly comes in is going to be immediately suspected of being a fly-by-night."

Mr Hamilton said the resistance to change among activists was not challenged by the party leaderships because the last thing they wanted to do was start a battle with their own people.

He said politicians had to have a sense of vocation and had to believe they could make a difference, otherwise there was no point in them even getting involved. It was impossible to persuade outsiders to become politicians unless they had that vocation and were prepared to take the brickbats as well as the plaudits, he added.

Mr Hamilton said Scotland had the opportunity with the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 to forge a new sort of politics, but it had failed to grasp that chance, making it much more difficult to change the system now.

"There was a moment in 1999 when 120 of the 129 MSPs were new politicians. That was the moment to change the culture. Having not done so then, we now have people with careers invested in the system, so it is much more difficult," he said.

Allan Hogarth, of the business organisation CBI Scotland, said it was up to the political parties to make themselves more open and accessible for non-activists to get involved.

He said: "The challenge for the political parties is to open up their channels to allow people from different backgrounds to progress within them and to avoid the selection process being based on who has been to most jumble sales and who has knocked on most doors."

However, Bill Speirs, the general secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, said he was annoyed with people who complained about the lack of talent in the Scottish Parliament but who failed to stand for it themselves.

He did not believe there was anything wrong with the quality of MSPs and said: "If people are moaning about the lack of talent, they should have the guts to stand. The electorate has shown it is prepared to elect a pensioners’ representative and a health service campaigner. If they feel so strongly about the lack of talent, they have the means to correct it."

The Scotsman welcomes the opinions of anybody who wants to get involved in this debate. Send your e-mails to: [email protected]

SIR FRED GOODWIN

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND

Sir Fred Goodwin has arguably done more for Scottish business than anybody else, turning his bank into a world leader.

BRIAN MCMASTER

DIRECTOR, EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

In the past 13 years, he turned the Festival into the world-famous event it is, defining Edinburgh as a cultural mecca.

TOM HUNTER

ENTREPRENEUR

The retail entrepreneur and property speculator is a regular and generous donor to charity, giving away more than 100 million in 12 months recently.

PROF SHEILA MCLEAN

PROF OF LAW AND ETHICS IN MEDICINE

An expert on cloning, human fertilisation and organ retention, Prof McLean would provide valuable expertise on scientific dilemmas.

SIR TOM FARMER

ENTREPRENEUR

Possibly Scotland’s most successful entrepreneur, having sold his Kwik-Fit chain to Ford for 1 billion. He would provide the business insight often lacking in the Executive.

PROF JOAN STRINGER

PRINCIPAL OF NAPIER UNIVERSITY

Prof Stringer was the first woman to head a Scottish university and is well known for her socially inclusive approach to education.

PETER MULLAN

ACTOR AND DIRECTOR

Mr Mullan has been a high-profile backer of the Scottish Socialist Party and is also one of the few Scots to command respect in the film world with his gritty dramas.

DAVID HAYMAN

ACTOR AND DIRECTOR

Mr Hayman is one of our most successful actors, with parts in several Hollywood blockbusters. He backs the SNP and has campaigned against Dungavel.

MARY DICKSON

MANAGING DIRECTOR FIRST SCOTRAIL

Ms Dickson is the most powerful woman in transport after her ScotRail bid. She would bring much-needed talent to transport policy.

ROBIN COOK

MP FOR LIVINGSTON

The former Foreign Secretary is one of Scotland’s political heavyweights. A transfer to Holyrood would bring gravitas and status to the new parliament.

DUNCAN HAMILTON

TRAINEE LAWYER

Mr Hamilton was regarded as one of the most talented MSPs in the parliament before he quit to become a lawyer. Holyrood needs to attract people like him back.

DONALD FINDLAY QC

LEADING ADVOCATE

Despite his association with the No-No campaign in 1999, Mr Findlay is a formidable debater with a sharp, legal mind - he would bring authority to the chamber.

Why we need to get off the treadmill of political careerism

WHAT can be done to attract more talented and experienced people into politics?

First, the political parties have to change the way they select candidates.

The usual way of getting elected as an MSP is to show loyalty to the party at a local level, work hard as an activist, raise money and help during campaigns.

This may show the requisite commitment to the party but it means that almost all candidates in winnable seats are long-time party activists, councillors or party workers. Outsiders - however talented - rarely get a look in.

If the main parties were more flexible it might inspire leading figures in business, the arts or academia to get involved.

The parties are prepared to stretch their usual procedures for exceptional candidates. The SNP would be quick to find a safe seat or a top place on a party list if Sir Sean Connery suddenly expressed an interest in standing for the Scottish Parliament.

The Labour Party has parachuted in numerous supposed high fliers into winnable seats for Westminster and the Tories would no doubt find someone to move aside if Sir Malcolm Rifkind or Michael Forsyth decided to have a go at Holyrood politics.

If the parties can do this for exceptional candidates, surely they can do the same for talented outsiders who show they have something to offer.

An alternative route might be to halt the treadmill of political careerism - particularly prevalent in the Labour Party - which starts with students getting involved in politics, moves on through research jobs and junior party positions and develops through local government, ending up with MSPs who have done nothing except politics in their lives.

Those who bring the experience of a life outside politics to their job generally speak with more authority and less party political baggage than those who have only lived within the political village.

It would be relatively easy to change the rules to prevent anyone from standing for the Scottish Parliament unless they have had at least five years experience of life outside politics, in all its forms.

A more radical route could be to change the electoral system, to reward those parties with a spread of candidates from different sectors of Scottish life.

Until now, elected politics has been based on a purely geographic model - MSPs (and MPs, councillors and MEPs) are elected by voters in a defined area. What if the constituencies were retained to keep the MSP/voter link but the list system was completely overhauled to reward those parties with a spread of different candidates from different sectors of Scotland?

Parties could get an extra seat if they selected, say, a range of teachers, health service professionals, business people, farmers, fishermen and pensioners in winnable positions on their lists.

Another option might be to allocate extra seats to particular sectors of the economy, giving a list seat to a representative of the fishing industry, one to a representative of traditional industry, one to farming and so on.

The rise of special interest groups, like the pensioners’ parties, has shown that the public is growing tired of the old party political divides and that interest groups are gaining ground.

The spread of apathy and alienation from the political process can be laid at the door of the main parties.

They need to reform themselves or reform the system. Otherwise the voices warning of a dearth of talent in the Scottish Parliament will only grow louder and louder.