I had always thought that there was a respected conduct of 'playing the ball and not the man' within professional politics so it was with some surprise and not a little dismay that I read that there have been calls for a vote of no confidence in Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary.The charge seems to amount to a prisoner escaping from an open prison, an unfortunate incident of course, but as Magnus Linklater puts it, "the notion that Mr MacAskill had forgotten to lock the cell door, and was therefore personally responsible, did not carry the conviction needed to make the charge stick."
I am immediately reminded of a spate of escapes back in 2004 when then Justice Secretary Cathy Jamieson struggled to prevent the security firm Reliant from losing track of a number of criminals. I don't think there was a suggestion from within Labour that Cathy should have resigned then and consequently the suggestion that Kenny should resign now on the back of one escape is bizarre.
Richard Baker has described Kenny MacAskill as "not fit for purpose". A rather undignified choice of language from a Shadow Minister if you ask me. Plus, I'd have thought Richard might have chosen to show a little more respect than that to a Justice Secretary given Kenny is a fully qualified lawyer and set up his own law firm before moving into Politics whereas Mr Baker seems to have gone straight from being President of the NUS into the Scottish Parliament. If one of the two wasn't "fit" for something then I would suggest the latter.
And of course, this isn't the first time that opposing parties have called for resignations or apologies. The apples from this cart include the suggestion that Kenny MacAskill should have taken responsibility for lost information during the Glenrothes by-election.
Who was the Minister actually responsible for this error? Jim Murphy. And there was as little responsibility taken there as there were further calls for ministerial penance from within the Scotland Secretary's own party ranks.
So it all smacks of tired and childish student politics to me, being in a hole and choosing to drag your opponents down with you rather than try to pull yourself out on your own merit, on the strength of your arguments and policies.
And the buck has to stop with Iain Gray as the main challenger to the First Minister. He said in his maiden speech that there would be an end to playground politics and he has utterly failed to deliver. From ripping up manifestos to holding out report cards the man seems intent on gimmick after gimmick when I know for sure that he is capable of so much more.
I understand that it is difficult to get your message across via a fickle media without something eyecatching or sensationalist but some people in the Scottish Parliament are going to have to learn that you can't just flounce around trying to get opposing individuals sent off, you have to actually string a few passes together once in a while if you are going to get ahead in this game.
13 comments:
Yes, the problem with resignation calls is that there's so many of them that they tend to be forgotten:
"SNP justice spokeswoman Nicola Sturgeon said the assurances the minister had sought from Reliance amounted to "closing the cell door after the prisoner has bolted".
"It is time for Cathy to go," she said.
"Her role as minister was to ensure that Reliance were up to the job before giving them the contract not simply clear up the mess afterwards.
"She has now admitted that they weren't up to the job, they underestimated the scale of their task and responsibility for that can only lie at the door of Cathy Jamieson."
The Scottish Tories' justice spokeswoman, Annabel Goldie, backed the SNP calls.
"In my opinion she is going to have to resign because there is a huge question of public confidence in her political credibility," she said.
"We have got a convicted murderer on the loose at the moment, not recaptured. That is public safety and that is part of public confidence.
"I think her position has become untenable."
That's fine, I had no doubt there had been resignation calls back then, not that I was particularly interested in Politics back in 2004 so I didn't know for sure.
Two wrongs don't make a right though and if 'your' Justice Sec didn't resign after several escapes why should the current one escape after one?
If Labour's defence is 'you did it then so we're doing it now' it doesn't really help raise the standard of debate does it?
Good article!
The SNP also had the luxury of being in true, impotent, opposition with no resposibilities - its calls for resignations were purely that, calls. Labour has the responsibility of being in opposition to a minority government and could pull off a successful no-confidence vote in parliament.
Alex salmond is spot on to say that he cannot have the opposition picking his cabinet for him. Labour's calls are therefore irresponsible behaviour and crucially they're irresponsible behaviour from a party that is in a position of responsibility.
labour is talking mince
Remember there is an election on and "law and order" - the last refuge of the scoundral - is about the only thing labour can now talk about with even a semblance of credibility. They are good at locking people up!
Like an entire nation
Maybe a few of their comrades will soon be inmates - lock the door and throw away the key Kenny!
The reason everyone throws round the resignation card nowadays, and it has been going on for almost 10 years, is that politicians don't resign any more unless they are forced to, mostly by their own party.
If the recent Telegraph stories came out 15 years ago, I would think that after receiving the letter from the newspaper at around midday the day before publication, the resignation would have been in before the reply stating that "it woz in the rulz - ma wifey and bairns need me" had left the inbox.
Not sure what you mean by 'your' justice secretary, Jeff, my point was that when one side cocks up big time the other side will call for a head and vice versa.
Indeed, the rest of your post could be equally applicable to either side just by changing a few names etc around.
"Two wrongs don't make a right though and if 'your' Justice Sec didn't resign after several escapes why should the current one escape after one?"
Why should Kenny MacAskill ESCAPE after one? - Freudian slip there, Jeff; you obviously think he's guilty ;0)
Anyway, I don't think you can just count the number of escapes and evaluate politicians on that basis - putting a dangerous criminal like the 'Hawk' in an open prison was just asking for trouble.
Not that I'm trying to defend Cathy Jamieson while attacking Kenny MacAskill - the justice system was a shambles under Labour, and seems unlikely to change under the SNP.
Plus ca change.
Off-message I know, but was there a Council by-election in Glasgow yesterday? If so, result anyone?
Anon @9:58am
No, the next council by-election in Glasgow is the same day as the Euro Elections, in Drumchapel/Anniesland ward.
Stuart, you've misunderstood me on a couple of points, no doubt through my garbled language than any fault of your own.
I put the apostrophes on the 'your' to try to highlight that I didn't mean your personal one. Daft in retrospect, I should have just changed the wording.
As for two wrongs not making a right, when I say "wrong" I am referring to the calls for Ministers to resign over innocuous issues as being incorrect, I don't mean the perceived incompetence in prisoners escaping on a Minister's watch.
And you are right, adding up the number of escapees is a poor way of judging a person's ability in the job. But there was significantly more pressure on Cathy from the media than there was on Kenny so I just found it surprising that calls for his resignation arose, seemingly out of nowhere.
He didn't go to a knife summit and a prisoner escaped? Hardly reason enough to take to the streets. Mistakes will happen on anyone's watch and I think we need to seek out competence via other means.
Plus ca change you may say, but I daresay things were on balance pretty good under Labour and remain pretty good under the SNP so I agree with you, albeit from a half glass full approach.
Not comparing like with like in my opinion.
The issue with Jamieson's tenure, quite rightly in my opinion, was the competence or otherwise of Reliance - and she had a duty to make sure they were up to the job.
The record shows repeated incompetence and no real, positive action from Jamieson.
MacAskill has no real case to answer in that context.
It's not a question of two wrongs not making a right.
Labour were wrong to privatise custodial services and give the contract to a company that was not very good at it. There is no comparison with what Kenny MacAskill is being criticised for. He has not privatised any aspect of the prison service - quite the reverse.
Looking at the specific issue of prisoners absconding, the figures show that under Labour an average of 71 prisoners absconded per year. Under an SNP justice minister that figure has been cut to 16. 16 too many - but significantly less than 71.
Calls for Kenny MacAskill's resignation are therefore just bizarre unless Labour now think that being better at his job than his predecessors is a resignation matter.
Al Bundy
Thanks for info. Don't know where I got the idea.
How's Peggy and the kids?
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