The Damned Disunited
“Well, I am quite nifty on the dancefloor, sir!”
This curious lie was the best I could come up with as I shifted uneasily in my seat, aware as I was that my new boss wasn’t bearing witness to a first impression he’d care to remember.
“Look, I’m not interested if you’re good at your job” he said, “I have dozens of guys who are good at their jobs. If you want to impress me, if you want to get anywhere in this business, you need to show me what else you can do.”
It is not often that I’m reminded of this brief meeting with a man whose name I cannot remember, but today was one of those days, and Twitter, as ever was the provocation.
Steve Paterson, an MP whose name I must admit had also long departed my memory banks was dragged into a debate, which was ostensibly casting Alyn Smith MP as cherrymander in chief. You see, poor old Steve had failed vetting and in his stead swooped Alyn to a seat ripe for the plucking.
Now here’s the rub. Was Mr Paterson good at his job when MP between 2015 and 2017? Well, I don’t much care. There were another 50-odd SNP parliamentarians who I am sure would have been declared by all as ‘fine constituency MPs’.
What else can you do Steve? Can you impress me?
Perhaps he failed vetting simply because it was decided that actually Steve didn’t offer all that much. Maybe such machinations are considered an anathema who hold grassroots party democracy close to their hearts, but as I often say in jest, but also with a tinge of honesty, “sometimes democracy is overrated”. And I’ll tell you one reason why.
Right now in Holyrood the SNP have 61 MSPs. In 2007 they were elected with a mere 47. From such select bands a First Minister assembles their team. Nicola Sturgeon currently selects 26 MSPs to become Ministers and Cabinet Secretaries to run such Government Departments as Health, Education, Housing and the like.
Yet we still haven’t counted the Chief Whip, ex-Ministers who have either stepped down or have been stepped down and on top of that various committee convenors.
What are we left with? Not much at all. And when you begin to realise that Nicola Sturgeon is just a few resignations away from having literally nobody else other than John Mason to appoint as Minister for [insert horrifying prospect of your choice], well, let’s not got there.
If you are an MSP who sits in parliament for year after year, but are not trusted to represent the party in the media, not trusted to take on a brief, not trusted even to chair a committee, ask yourself, are you really good at your job?
And for the benefit of the doubt, I was not talking of the blonde-haired Mr Dornan (25). While not a Minister, James was often on the tellybox — all six foot of him, and you know what, I suspect he is quite nifty on the dance floor .
