When it comes to pomposity, nobody in Scottish politics can compete with SNP president Mike Russell. A great comic archetype in the tradition of Captain Mainwairing or Hyacinth Bucket, Russell combines a thwocking great dollop of self regard with a devastating lack of self-awareness.
As such, it was hardly surprising to see Russell clamber up on his high horse when it came to the matter of an expenses claim for £11,000 of mobile data lodged by Scottish Health Secretary, Michael Matheson.
Isn’t the real damage caused by dishonest politicians?
After the Scottish Conservatives highlighted details of the amount run up by Matheson during a week-long family holiday in Morocco last new year, Russell tweeted: ‘Unspeakable horrors in Gaza, impending ceasefire vote, their party planning to leave ECHR and plenty more around that should engage & absorb all those charged with representative responsibilities – yet this is where the Tories in Holyrood prefer to wallow.’
By Saturday morning, Russell had developed his ‘thoughts’ on the matter in a piece for the pro-independence newspaper, the National. What we were witnessing, he wrote, was an attempt by the Conservatives to ‘dismantle Scottish democracy’. Meanwhile, in the real world, the facts of the Matheson case are troubling, indeed.
When it emerged, almost two weeks ago, that the Health Secretary had charged taxpayers nearly £11,000 for use of his parliament-provided iPad during a holiday with his wife, Susan, and two teenage sons, he was adamant the costs were entirely associated with parliamentary and constituency work. First, Minister Humza Yousaf backed his man to the hilt.
When these assurances didn’t make the whole messy business go away, we were told that the problem had arisen because Matheson had failed to change the sim card on his device. Funnily enough, the suggestion that this accounted for such extraordinary costs did not put things to rest.
On Friday 10 November, Matheson announced that he had decided to repay the money claimed for the data. Both he and Yousaf maintained that the costs had been legitimately incurred and that the sim card thing was to blame. But this didn’t make the matter go away, either.
Eventually, on Thursday just passed, Matheson made a personal statement to parliament. In it he admitted that the massive data charges had been run up by his two teenage sons who had been watching football matches.
And this might have drawn matters to a close if Matheson’s statement hadn’t revealed he’d been dishonest about the matter. In his statement, the Health Secretary told MSPs he’d learned the truth about things on the evening of Thursday 9 November. This meant that he had lied to the press when asked, on Monday 13 November, whether his data charges included any personal use. Matheson told this lie to at least three different journalists.
There are questions, too, for Humza Yousaf. Matheson told the First Minister about his sons’ use of the iPad on Tuesday 14 November. Yet, a day later, Yousaf was still sticking with the sim card explanation.
This is not, as Mike Russell would like us to believe, some trivial matter. It is entirely possible for anyone – politician or punter – to be concerned about Gaza and the ECHR while also believing it important that MSPs are beyond reproach when it comes to their expenses claims.
As for his laughable suggestion that what we’re seeing is an attack on democracy, isn’t the real damage caused by dishonest politicians? In fact, ‘Scottish democracy’ would benefit from the departure from office of Michael Matheson, a liar.
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