How to be an opposition

Yesterday the parliament voted to approve First Minister Alex Salmond’s nominations to be Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers for the SNP Government.

It’s become fairly regular that the opposition parties put in a motion to remove one of the nominated Ministers, speak to their amendments with a bit of humour and then remove their amendments before the vote and abstain. Brain Taylor observes the proceedings very well here.

Murdo Fraser spoke well for the Conservatives amendment and had a wee dig at Richard Lochhead (and Mike Russell) while Tavish Scott also spoke well for the Lib Dem amendment having a go at John Swinney, who was in the adjacent seat to him.

In both cases it was the deputy leaders of the respective parties who done their bit. For Labour it wasn`t their deputy who spoke but Jack McConnell. Jack though didn’t have an amendment to speak in favour of, he tried to make out that Labour were above such things. That, though, is not the whole story. I`ve heard the actual reason for there being no amendment is that Labour simply weren’t familiar with the system or the deadlines for doing things like amendments. Having never been in opposition they’ve had the civil service to do these things for them to date.

McConnell also went on something of a rant about the committees and why Alex Salmond shouldn’t try and scrap them. This was very puzzling indeed given the committees of the parliament are the responsibility of the parliament (via the corporate body) and not the Executive. No doubt whoever replaces Jack as Labour leader will have a better grasp of how parliament actually operates.