So Alex Salmond is going to give all his surplus wages to a trust fundto support good causes. All well and good, but to my mind the question remains why is he still hanging onto his Westminster seat at all? So far, I've got to say, I think he's doing a relatively god job as Scotland's first minister, but this issue, whenever it comes up does rankle a bit.
His standard defence seems to be that he fought the election in Gordon on the basis that he would keep both seats until the next general election, so the voters knew what they were getting when they voted for him. However, it's not the voters of Gordon who are being short changed at the moment - its the voters of Banff and Buchan who elected him to serve them at Westminster. I don't know how often Mr Salmond has been to Westminster since he became First Minister - I suspect not often, it at all. I would also be interested if he is able to maintain constituency surgeries in both constituencies. And the thing is that when he was elected to Westminster the voters on Banff and Buchan weren't informed that he would be standing for Holyrod as well for a different constituency, so they are being denied proper democratic representation.
I can see no reason for the holding onto this seat. Its not like the SNP would be in any danger of losing a by-election in that particular constituency. Its going to continue to be a PR disaster for him and the only reason seems to be that he said he'd hold both seats, so he's going to or maybe he can't bear to give up control of the seat or his links to Westminister (I needn't point out the irony there). Maybe its all about power? The whole thing is beginning to smack of the worst kind of pride and egotism.
8 comments:
"pride and egotism"
from Alex Salmond? No, surely not...
Such sarcasm, Rupert, such sarcasm.
Your cynicism is misplaced.
For a start, anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to the actual detail of the bruhaha over the double salary thing will have noted that he has a legal obligation to accept both pay cheques.
Secondly, if he thinks he can adequately represent his constituents at both Holyrood and Westminster then the ONLY people who can tell him otherwise are those very same constituents. Have you bothered to ask them?
Thirdly, many politicans proceeded to sit at Westminster and Holyrood simultaneously from 1999 to 2001. Some better than others. Tony's precious Lib Dems and their leader at the time, Jim Wallace, didn't do it so successfully. He was absent for something like 700 days on the trot at Westminster until he deigned it ok to pop down and make an exit speech.
Rant over.
Oh, it is so easy to wind you up matthew...
And i was pretty sarcastic wasn't i? But i wasn't really having a pop at salmond in particular, it could have been any of them ...
I think most of them do a pretty good job, but there is always a tinge of pride and egotism in there somewhere too...
I can't believe for a single second Rupert that you WEREN'T having a go at our dear leader.
In what sense has he done a good job so far? He has been fiscally irresponsible and squandered resources on sops to the soft left (just as I predicted he would). That's hardly what I would call good leadership.
Regardless of your factless assertion, he did try to cancel the blasted trams but everyone else ganged up together. (That being a great example of PR democracy we'll ignore for the moment).
Much though I'm tempted to leave arch-Salmond hater Anthony and president of the Salmond Appreciation society Reilly to slug it out, I feel I must follow up on a few of Matthew's points:
(1) Firstly, I notice that even you fail to offer a single reason for Salmond to keep his Westminster seat.
(2) Your point about Jim wallace is noted. (As an aside, my political sympathies are far more Green than Yellow at the moment. V. disappointed in Menzies Campbell, and in Scotland Lib dems don't seem to know what they're doing). However, you seem to imply that some MSPs managed two jobs successfully - I challenge you to name one. I think the best any of them managed was about a 30% voting record at Westminster and this was at the cost of a similarly dismal Holyrood record (figures may be off a bit - going from distant memory). The point is that nobody thought it worked.
In fact, I'd say nobody ever really thought it was going to work. I suspect it was only allowed in the first place to avoid the prospect of 20-30 simultaneous by-elections after the first Scottish elections, which would have been in no-one's interests. That's history - it shouldn't be the case now. And that was with politicians representing only one constituency - Salmond has two to deal with.
(3) You say the only people who have a right to complain are his constituents. As one of the three jobs he is trying to juggle is that of first minister, I must disagree. Furthermore, having run his campaign in a presidential style bid for first minister, I would argue that he has given all voters in scotland a right to examine all his public office holding.
(4) And most crucially - I think this issue will hurt his government. The other parties know its a weak-spot and will repeatedly use it to damage him and distract from other issues. The facts may be on his side, but you and I both now that in our day and age enough dirt will stick and thats what people will remember. If there was a good reason to hold the other seat, then I would back him sticking it out, but I've yet to hear one, so it becomes pride and folly against his own best interests and the interests of the government, which affects us all.
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