Help Talking-up Scotland keep going

Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going

Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421

By Anonymous

I am stepping aside a little from the main thrust of this series of postings about the decision to locate what is now the QEUH on the former Southern General Hospital site, which is juxtaposed to the large Shieldhall sewage works.

What struck me reading the transcript of the debate was that the Scottish Parliament was conducting itself in the deliberative non-partisan way which was intended, when the electoral system was established and designed to make it difficult for any single party to attain a majority of seats. This meant that there would have to be negotiation and temporary alliances amongst members of different political parties to explore things more deeply and to reach consensus.

There was courtesy and respect amongst members, acceptance of valid points made by members irrespective of party. There was a preparedness to step away from dogma and ‘party purity’ and seek to find a common good. Yes, there were barbs, such as from Ms Elder, but they were asides and a bit of debating flummery.

Since 2007 much of that has changed, with the Labour Party in particular becoming oppositionist in practice as exemplified by people like Jackie Baillie, Johan Lamont and Iain Gray. We saw in that Parliament how people like Annabel Goldie and, even, Wullie Rennie were able to reach deals with Alex Salmond’s government. But, post 2012, when the SNP confounded the electoral system by attaining a majority, the consensus building approach fell away.

Although in subsequent Parliaments no party has achieved an overall majority, with the increasing number of seats being gained by the Greens, who favour independence, we have had a pro-independence majority and a fragmented unionist opposition who are all largely oppositionist, either little in common other than to oppose and blame.

Blaming is now the main strategy of all the opposition parties. It is unconstructive and it seems unlikely that the kind of consensual debate we had about the siting of the South Glasgow hospital will take place in the near future.

Tory support has split with the growth of Reform and we have a battle between right wing nastiness. Labour is shrinking because its oppositionism has meant it has never seriously thought constructively since 2007. And its leadership contest, with the misogynistic exclusion of Monica Lennon, is a debate between the two cheeks of Jackie Baillie’s arse.

Millie Main and the water supply has been the tragic distortion and paucity of Labour thinking, in seeking to blame the child’s death on the SNP. What the revelations about the siting of the hospital show is that if anyone, other than the biochemistry of cancer, is to blame for her death it is members of the Labour Party within Glasgow City Council in the early years of this century. And, yet, Jackie Baillie continues to blame because she has no other policy.

Help Talking-up Scotland keep going

Crowdfunder at: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/help-talking-up-scotland-keep-going

Or by direct bank transfer to: JOHN WATSON ROBERTSON Sort Code – 08-91-04 Account – 12266421