NOTEBOOK by BILL HEANEY
Billy Connolly once described the then brand new Scottish Parliament as “a pretendy wee parliament”.
The Big Yin said it was an excuse for the real thing, despite the many, many millions of ££££ that it cost to get a Spanish architect to design our very own monument to democracy at Holyrood.
As regular readers of this Notebook know, I have been covering its affairs since its inception.
And, God help me, I even worked there for a time in the First Minister’s office.
It was far from the best place I ever worked in, and my term there ended predictably over an expenses scandal.
Not over my expenses, but my boss’s, Henry McLeish, who was pinned to the wall for failing to declare rent he had received from a legal firm for leasing them part of his constituency office to interview coal miners with claims for having contracted silicosis while working down the pits.
There wasn’t much money involved, even less than it would cost Labour-controlled West Dunbartonshire Council to keep Balloch Library open. Much less.
But Henry didn’t have any friends who were prepared to help him out of the hole he was in and he was laughed at in the parliamentary chamber when he failed to express satisfactorily how the situation had come about.
David McLetchie, who was then then Tory leader in Edinburgh, jibed: “I suppose a big boy did it and ran away.”
The truth is that Henry’s late wife was in charge of the accounts in his office. She had been very ill and she was unable to keep up with the work.
If only he had explained this then Henry would probably never have been forced to resign, but he didn’t tell the powers that be what they were dealing with was a Westminster matter.
That there should be an inquiry down there and when the details, including the full amount of what had not been declared and what money was due to the Treasury, Henry would pay that in full.
The figure involved was, if I recall rightly, less than £40,000, which is a pittance when you see the £ millions that are squandered by politicians at every level of government.
However, politics is a rough, tough business. Politicians are only too willing to step over the corpses of their so-called friends who continue to fall from grace in one scandal after another.
If it’s not money that’s involved then it’s sexual impropriety usually caused by the fact that politicians have a big hit for themselves. Hubris walks tall at Holyrood.
Once they have won an election they consider themselves both untouchable and infallible, and their sense of humour exists only when the joke is on someone else, never on them.
Scottish Conservative Leader Douglas Ross says SNP health secretary Michael Matheson “cannot continue to hide” from questions that remain in relation to his £11,000 iPad data expense claim.
Douglas is calling for parliamentary time to be set aside this week to allow for “full and frank” questioning on the scandal and has requested a ministerial statement be made by the Falkirk West MSP.
He says that the health secretary spent the weekend “dodging scrutiny” by failing to appear on the BBC’s Sunday Show and giving an ‘abrupt’ answer when he was doorstepped by the Mail on Sunday.
First Minister Humza Yousaf – to whom Mr Ross has written to over his involvement in what is being portrayed as a scandal – and Deputy First Minister Shona Robison also failed to appear on the flagship political show.
Mr Ross says a “significant” number of questions remain “wholly unanswered” by the health secretary following the “severely” limited time for questions after his personal statement last week.
He claims the public lost faith in Michael Matheson after he was shown to have lied to the press, despite knowing his children had used the parliamentary device for “personal purposes”.
The “personal purposes” in question turned out to be a Celtic v Rangers match and a few other games which were played over the Christmas and New Year period when the Mathesons were in holiday in Morocco.
The Tory party’s chief whip Alexander Burnett will push for the statement to be agreed to at a meeting of the Parliament’s business managers tomorrow (Tuesday).
Scottish Conservative Leader Douglas Ross said: “Michael Matheson might have run up this eye-watering bill, but he cannot continue to run away from this scandal.
“He – and the other most senior members of the SNP Government – spent the weekend largely avoiding scrutiny and clearly hoping this scandal will just go away.
“That is wishful thinking when we know that the health secretary lied to the press and public over whether this parliamentary device had been used for personal purposes.
“His personal statement last week allowed a severely limited time for questioning. A significant number of questions remain wholly unanswered. That is why my party is calling for a substantial amount of Parliamentary time to be set aside to allow Michael Matheson to make another statement and for us to be allowed extensive questioning to get answers.
“The public have lost confidence in the health secretary at a time when our NHS is bracing itself for its worst winter ever. The whole government is distracted by this scandal, with Michael Matheson cancelling visits and interviews last week because he doesn’t want to be questioned on this.
“Until he resigns, or Humza Yousaf does the right thing and sacks him, my party will continue to use every method possible in Parliament to hold Michael Matheson to account for his lies and lack of answers.”
Have you ever heard so much waffle in all your life?
The Scottish Tories and their fellow parliamentarians who support them on this witch hunt need to get a life – and a sense of humour.
I laughed when I heard what had happened. That the boys were watching the fitba’ on the telly and nobody knew nothing about the SIM card for the i pad not having been re-set to roaming for travel in foreign parts.
What happened in Morocco was unfortunate but funny just the same. It could have happened to a bishop or a moderator or even a politician.
It did happen to two bored teenagers on a family holiday in foreign parts desperate to see their favourite match on the television.
Their hugely embarrassed father has covered the cost. It’s time Douglas Ross and the Tories – and the others, of course – blew the whistle for full-time on this.
A quote from the Bible might be apposite here: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.