Scotland deserves better

I knew it was time for me to leave the Scottish Parliament press corps when I was in Deacon Brodie’s Tavern one night and pulled into a game of “name the top ten sexiest MSPs”. On my first day there, September 2000, the journalist next to me was in trouble for headbutting a politician in the pub the night before. It’s an unusual place with antics that make Westminster look like a nunnery: I remember one set of political awards where a Labour MSP drunkenly set fire to the curtains and was imprisoned.

I feel sorry for the poor members of the general public who come into contact with these MSPs – primarily through the Petitions Committee. It’s chaired by Frank McAveety, who forgot to turn his microphone off when leering after a member of the public. He said to his colleague:-

“There’s a very attractive girl in the second row. Dark… and dusky. We’ll maybe put a wee word out for her. She’s very attractive looking. Nice – very nice. Very slim. She looks kinda – she’s got that Fillipino look. You know – the kind you’d see in a Gauguin painting. There’s a wee bit of culture for you.”

I feel a bit sorry for McAveety, who is one of the nicer guys in that place. But to fools like me who wished for devolution, thinking that ten years later it would bring maturity to a new generation of political talent – what a comedown. Scotland – a wonderful, ingenious country – deserves so much better.

PS. A Gauguin painting is featured above. Also, the BBC has run a shot of the gallery – you can just make out the lady to whom McAveety (a former culture minister) was presumably referring.