Oh dear. I’m afraid I must take issue with Fraser. He claims that last week’s budget entertainment at the Scottish Parliament demonstrates the weakness of minority government. Maybe so, but I’d prefer to see it another way: minority government protects the public from the worst excesses of parliamentary rule. And where Fraser considers last weeks’ events a “fiasco” and a “shambles” I see them as nothing more than politics as usual.
Sure, there was some horse-trading as the SNP tried to find the 65 votes it needed to pass the budget. But this is normal. Has Fraser ever had a look at the House of Representatives in Washington? There was plenty in the budget the Grenn party disapproved of (roads!) so why on earth shouldn’t they ask for a sweetener in return for their support? This may, as Fraser says, be the “tail wagging the dog” but it seems preferable to the kind of parliamentary dictatorship we see at Westminster.
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