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Election 07

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Bureau of opportunity

  • Brian Taylor
  • 9 May 07, 05:08 PM

Amid the miasma of speculation at Holyrood, here's something vaguely approaching a fact.

We've found out the members of the new Business Bureau. What do you mean you couldn't care less?

The Business Bureau runs things at Holyrood. In a hung Parliament (and this one isn't so much hung as permanently suspended), the folk who run things are important.

The Bureau decides the timetabling of business - in essence, what's brought forward and when. Parties with at least five members (tough luck, you Greens) are entitled to sit on the bureau.

Their voting clout there reflects the strength they have in the chamber.

The new Bureau will comprise - David McLetchie for the Conservatives; Cathy Jamieson for Labour; Tavish Scott for the Liberal Democrats; and Alasdair Morgan for the SNP. Big league, all.

Former Tory leader, two Cabinet Ministers and a very senior SNP front-bencher. T. Scott and A. Morgan are there on a temporary basis.

Just one snag. They don't have anyone yet to take the chair at their meetings - because that's the Presiding Officer. We should know that name on Monday. If I hear it before, you'll learn it very shortly afterwards.

Equality for all?

  • Mark Devenport
  • 9 May 07, 03:24 PM

Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness are hosting their first joint reception tonight. Stressing the inclusive approach of their new Executive, the function is devoted to representatives of different ethnic groups.

But over at Westminster the Ulster Unionist MP Lady Sylvia Hermon expressed concern about the rights of another kind of group. Noting that the First Minister is also Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church, which teaches that homosexuality is evil, she wanted assurances that the rights of young gay people will be protected.

Peter Hain told her the existing laws made it impossible to discriminate against anyone on grounds of their sexuality.

Day One

  • Mark Devenport
  • 9 May 07, 02:46 PM

Started my day on a building site on the Lower Ormeau Road in Belfast, following Margaret Ritchie on her first day as Social Development Minister. She toured the development, which should provide homes for nearly 200 families. At one point the snappers got her to stare down the barrel of a cement mixer - it should provide them with a novelty shot for the morning's papers.

Over at the Belfast Royal Academy the Education Minister Catriona Ruane was staring down a microscope, before disagreeing with some pro grammar school types on the merits of academic selection.

Nigel Dodds, meanwhile, has been mixing with robots. Not his DUP colleagues but the robotic research being conducted at a new centre at Magee College in Derry.

We should have more of this stuff over the coming days, before the honeymoon period gives way to the tough decisions which accompany attaining power

Dignity on display

  • Brian Taylor
  • 9 May 07, 01:44 PM

It was Walter Bagehot, I believe, who divided constitutional politics into two sections, the dignified and the efficient.

As I recall, the dignified stuff was the flummery designed to impress the citizens while the efficient was the work, often behind the scenes, where the real business was settled.

I'm probably traducing Bagehot's tome shamefully, for which apologies to Walter, his heirs and successors.

Anyway, the dignified element was fully on display at Holyrood today - for the swearing in of our new MSPs.

Still a bit to go before we can down to the efficient aspects.

I rather like the swearing in ceremony. It contrives to be decently dignified - without being at all pompous or silly.

New and returning members take the loyal oath in English, repeating it in sundry other languages according to choice. Today we had Gaelic, Scots - and Urdu from Bashir Ahmad.

Labour members wore red roses - but were of course outnumbered, just, by the Nationalists with McDiarmid's "little white rose of Scotland" proudly displayed on their outfits.

But still no government. And still no Presiding Officer. Exceptionally, that latter decision has been deferred to next week.

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