THE Herald Scottish Politician of the Year Awards have been paused for 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, so the judges have looked back on 21 years of winners to choose their best of the best.
This week’s retrospective continues with the Community MSP of the Year, a relatively recent category that grew out of the free spirit and political impact awards, and recognises those MSPs who go the extra mile to help their constituents, even if means crossing their party.
The judges chose two-time winner Jackie Baillie as the best of the best.
The Labour MSP for Dumbarton has had plenty to fight about, and hasn’t been afraid of defying her party in the process.
The Vale of Leven Hospital in her constituency has loomed large in many of her battles, as she sought justice for the families of 34 patients who died after a Clostridium difficile outbreak, and tried to maintain services.
She also helped secure cystic fibrosis drugs for her constituents in a campaign that had national ramifications, and pressed for answers into the Cameron House hotel fire that killed two men in 2017. And while her party was voting to scrap the Trident nuclear deterrent, she doggedly stuck up for workers at Faslane Naval Base where it is based.
It is no coincidence she is one of only a handful of MSPs to have held their seat continuously since 1999, and the only one in Labour to do so, despite a series of vigorous SNP attempts to dislodge her. She wins the best of the best for an unstinting and undiminished commitment to her constituency.
Also commended was Andy Wightman. One of the sharpest MSPs at Holyrood, the former scientist and land reform expert has had a big impact since being elected for the Greens on the Lothians list in 2016.
Besides raising allegations of bullying at George Watson’s College, he was quick to spot the downside from the explosion of short-term letting firms such as Airbnb, with Edinburgh communities disintegrating up as more and more flats were taken over by landlords and transient tourists.
In 2017, he memorably told the Holyrood chamber how residents of the capital’s Old Town had been forced to endure “very audible sex parties” in their tenements.
The government is now empowering councils to regulate short-term lets.
After he resigned on Friday and became an interim Independent MSP, Mr Wightman's considerable skills may now benefit another party.
Like Ms Baillie, many of Neil Findlay’s fights as a Labour MSP for the Lothians have centred on a troubled hospital, in his case St John’s in Livingston.
He won the award for pushing to keep the children’s ward open, a fight that continues to this day. He also fought against a new flight path to West Lothian which had been trialled by Edinburgh Airport without proper consultation.
He has also been a tireless campaigner on behalf of women suffering the agonising side-effects of mesh implants, and was instrumental in securing the recent pardon for Scottish miners unfairly convicted during the 1984/1985 strike.
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