This is the wrong topic for playing at party politics

Columnist

Friday 18 May 2012

Just to confound us, Holyrood decided to be serious.

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SKETCH Ian Bell

Not content with a mature debate between Alex Salmond and Johann Lamont, the Parliament turned its collective mind to the issue of child protection. This is, of course, the very definition of not-funny.

Ms Lamont was slightly, but only slightly, party-political. In 2009, the First Minister told the chamber that Scotland's inspection regime was the best in these islands, and perhaps the best "anywhere in Europe".

Events, suggested the Labour leader, indicated otherwise.This might well be the horrible truth. The tragedy of Declan Heaney and the case of "family 10" should worry anyone. Was it right or fair, however, to talk of Mr Salmond and "his" system, or "his best inspection service in Europe"?Critics will tell you the First Minister takes any credit going for success, and dodges any blame for a cock-up. It seemed a stretch, nevertheless, to link an allegation of systemic failure to "his" inspectors. Mr Salmond doesn't actually run your local social work department.He spoke the obvious truth, in any case, when he observed, not for the first time, that: "No place in the world can ever provide 100% guarantees for the safety of children." Ms Lamont would have been on firmer ground had she observed that, such being the case, a little less boasting would be in order. Instead, she wanted to paint the First Minister as vainglorious. It was the wrong topic for that purpose.For fun, we had to rely – a novel idea – on Ruth Davidson and the Tories. I'm losing count: was that the fourth or the fifth time she has asked whether the First Minister thinks his phone was hacked by agents of "Sir" Rupert Murdoch?And was it the umpteenth time Mr Salmond has appeared to say Lord Leveson's inquiry enjoys a prior claim on his time, one superior to anything the Parliament of Scotland can muster? It's a topsy-turvy world. Here was the Tory defending Holyrood's honour. Here was the Nationalist taking shelter behind choices made by Labour at Westminster. Ms Davidson got no answer, in any event. Someone – possibly named David Cameron – will probably invite her to give it a rest before long. That just leaves the rest of us to wonder why our First Minister is guarding his tongue.Predictably, the real sensation will come if it turns out that Mr Salmond was never hacked, or even invited to phone a friend.

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This is the wrong topic for playing at party politics

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