How far does someone have to be pushed before they can no longer stand the policies of their party, or decisions of the company they work for and quit?
The Labour Party’s clamour for Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as Deputy First Minister and Health Secretary is understandable, but only in the political sense. She made a rare, but bad, blunder in sending a letter to Glasgow Sheriff Court asking the judge to consider an alternative to custody for a serial fraudster.
Assessed against her record as Scotland’s best Health Secretary since Donald Dewar’s choice of Susan Deacon in the first Labour/LibDem Executive, it is hardly a reason to call it a day.
Experienced and sensible Labour back-benchers acknowledge how good she is in the role and there would be repercussions if she went. She has been responsible for an NHS delivering improved waiting times and providing a better service. Many civil servants and bureaucrats who have had to work harder would be delighted to see the back of her, but would the public?
Labour’s tactic in going for the jugular has damaged Ms Sturgeon, though other opposition parties would have preferred to string out the torture and keep it current during the General Election campaign. If Labour wins power at next year’s Holyrood election, the choice of her successor will be interesting. The Labour benches are not overflowing with talent.
How does her mistake – and, in the sane section of the SNP (thankfully, the majority) there are those who recognise that is what it was and not a press conspiracy – compare to the other large-scale scandals of the last year? How many MPs rushed to resign after being caught in the expenses scandal? Why are so few facing criminal charges and so many being allowed to stand down at the election to get the biggest pay-off possible? How many of the bankers who brought the UK to its knees while acquiring massive bonuses and pensions have resigned? How many doctors whose negligence or incompetence leave patients dead or in agony get off with a slap on the wrist?
This week’s headline resignation was Alistair Watson, the chair of Scotland’s biggest transport quango, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, who stood down after becoming embroiled in an expenses row.
Mr Watson and the SPT’s chief executive, Ron Culley, have travelled the globe at the taxpayers’ expense and Mr Watson, who resigned on health grounds, is now paying the price of public scrutiny. He will, doubtless, make his case in due course but he is not alone. There are still too many old-style councillors who think there ought to be some perks in a job which, for many years, was largely unrewarded. They don’t realise that attitude went out years ago and, when councillors started to be paid, it became unacceptable.
The trouble for MPs, councillors and others is that cheating was unofficially sanctioned. When governments decided it would look bad to accept big pay rises, they told MPs to make up the difference by exploiting the allowances system. That’s why some of the more idiotic, self-indulgent or simply greedy among them thought it OK to claim for duck houses or having a moat cleaned.
In many professions, where overtime is not paid, people working beyond their contracted hours or taking calls late at night or on days off were told to “put it on expenses”. Try that now and it will be a resignation issue.
For most people, the consequences of resigning are huge: loss of earnings when families have to be cared for and bills paid. Those who resign through choice for moral reasons deserve respect. Those forced into it because they have exploited the job for their own benefit do not.
And those who have made a mistake, such as Ms Sturgeon, deserve to have it viewed in the context of what they have achieved before the mob starts baying for their heads.
