Let's be honest, 48 MSPs not turning up to see the Queen is pretty bad.
Mind you, there have been so many '10th anniversaries' for the Scottish Parliament of late I wonder if it was some sort of secret cross-party protest.
The worst offenders were the Greens with a whopping 50% of their numbers not turning up. Ok, I'm being facetious here given that their numbers stretch to a mere two but they did have the ignominious prize of the only party that didn't have their leader present given that Patrick Harvie was moving Constituency Office. The Scotsman suggests it is one of the "weakest reasons" for non-attendance. It doesn't sound too bad to me, there's only so many days in a summer recess after all and Patrick has the 20th, 25th and 30th anniversaries to look forward to at least.
The Lib Dems performed their usual unnecessary subterfuge. After John Farquhar Munro being in Germany for 'health reasons' during a potentially embarrassing vote on independence (he was actually giving a speech on the health industry), this time it was Alison McInnes who couldn't make it due to a dental appointment although that was later changed by a Lib Dem spokesperson to 'personal reasons'. I don't want to pry, but it shouldn't be too hard to get a story straight and stick to it. Perish the thought the Lib Dems would provide a bar chart to show us how many of their MSPs were actually there. 'Only the Lib Dems turned up to see the Queen!'. It doesn't bear thinking about.
Labour churlishly boasted of having the highest number of MSPs present in the Chamber.
A rather hollow claim when they only had 29 out of 46 MSPs there. Perhaps they were practising how to positively spin the numbers in advance of certain by-elections and the GE itself?
The SNP were a bit more clear cut, half the party just doesn't like the queen and, consequently, half the party didn't show up. Christine Grahame, you'll be shocked to learn, was the most outspoken of the absentees.
"I had no intention of being there and I made my position clear before the event. I do not want to be seen as a hypocrite. I do not believe in the aristocracy running our country."
Fair enough I suppose but the Tories didn't fancy the Scottish Parliament but we don't see them out the back with brickbats trying to take down Enric Miralles' edifice every other day. They turned up and got on with it. And is there a duty to represent one's constituents at such a shindig? Perhaps, not that I'll be checking if my representative Malcolm Chisholm was there or not, even if it is a particularly short commute for my MSP.
I guess, all in all, you don't invite someone to your home and then not bother to show up. There was a collective responsibility on all MSPs to make a bit of an effort to be there, particularly given they have known about this since October.
But, to be honest, the Queen should have rolled out of her throne a long time ago to give Charles a decent stint with the crown on his head so my sympathies for Her Majesty are minimal at best.
Maybe we should just ask Billy Connolly to do the 20th anniversary party, that would ensure a full house.
Merkel, the great Eurosceptic
1 minute ago
7 comments:
i think billy would get an even poorer turnout
I hope Billy does to the 20th, then we can have a double celebration.
20 years of the parliament and 20 years since Billy said something funny!
What service would MSPs be performing for their constituents if they turned up to listen to whatever old bobbins Downing Street has written for HM? Surely the ones who were actually at work should be commended for not wasting their time patting themselves on the back at yet another taxpayer-bankrolled shindig.
We live in a free society, (so we think,) and paying fiety to the Monarch is not compulsory. Is it any wonder that the number of MSPs staying away because of their ideology was very small compared with the number who were on, other business.
Vast numbers of the Scottish public do not support the Monarch and see her and her family as symbols of imperialism from a bygone age. This present queen should be the last one, the rest of her family ought to be given their redundancy notice as hundreds of thousands are now having served on them. Prince Charles and Camilla should never be allowed near the throne, they are a very poor example to our people, and a very expensive one.
Key bored warrior:
Monarchist or Republican, when someone is invited to come and speak, you show them that you are grateful that they've given up their time to accept your invitation, and ultimately, to afford them the same respect that you would afford any other human being who comes to speak.
If the MSPs were happy enough to make an oath to the Queen, then they should be happy enough to spend some time listening to her give a speech.
The republican point of view is an honorable one which has been accommodated (effectively) at swearing-in, etc. It would have been better for those-of-principle to ask for a complementary event to be held. I'm sure there were a few republican mums and dads whose 10-year olds would have loved it.
Anon - they're barred from taking their seats unless they take the oath. I don't know where you get the idea that they were all "happy enough" about this - many of them, vocally, were not.
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