In August the entire Labour team voted to condemn Kenny MacAskill for his compassionate release of Abdelbasat Al-Megrahi, the entire team that is except for Malcolm Chisholm.
In August, Malcolm also came out in strong support of minimum pricing:
Edinburgh MSP Malcolm Chisholm, the former Labour health minister, said the whole parliament should back minimum pricing.
" Most people recognise that some of the offers that are being made in supermarkets are a bit ridiculous, for strong ciders and suchlike. You just have to look at the evidence. In other countries like Finland that have had some experience of this, it can make a difference."
"I think everyone wants to look at the detail, but the principle is something that we, the parliament, should accept. I think in general the principle is a sound one."
Will lightning strike twice with the Edinburgh North & Leith politician voting against his party line in 3 short months? Will that mean he has to leave the Labour group and cross the chamber to the Nationalists? Will he even resign as an MSP?
I guess we will find out in due course....
Salmond vs Trump
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12 comments:
Well, I don't think voting against your own party on a few issues should be a reason to resign.
I can understand that you're feeling gleeful about this, though. Chisholm isn't the only Labour MSP who quite likes the minimum pricing idea....
...if they really wanted to, they could cause a lot of trouble for Iain Gray over this.
It's not long till the GE 2010, though, so I personally would question the wisdom of that.
Why would he resign as an MSP? I don't even think he'll necessarily vote with the government on this one: there's enough equivocation in the quotes you cite for him to oppose "the detail" of the bill without being a hypocrite.
I'm not saying for one moment that Chisholm 'should' resign, just that he might. There's surely only so many times you can vote against your own party and remain a part of it. Furthermore, given that the SNP's policy on minimum pricing has been totally consistent for the past 4 months, Chisholm can't reasonably make the comments above in Aug and then vote against the policy in Nov.
I stood outside Granton Primary with Chisholm during the Forth byelection. He comes across as very Labour old guard, the sort of person who refuses to leave New Labour because they feel Labour is still the traditional party of left-wing politics. I suppose he might have the whip withdrawn and sit as an independent, but I can't imagine him voluntarily defecting.
He implies in that quote that he hadn't yet inspected the bill closely. I reckon that gives him an out.
"There's surely only so many times you can vote against your own party and remain a part of it."
Sorry Jeff, but why should he be forced to leave Labour just because he doesn't toe the party line on some issues? Do we really want our politicians to be automatons who blindly follow edicts from the leadership, regardless of their own point of view? Surely we need a few mavericks adding to the political discourse, without facing calls to resign for doing so?
Well, since I'm getting it in the neck a bit here let me just say there is a back story to this one that i was trying to half-allude to.
The strong rumour goes that Malcolm is delaying his retirement as he's unimpressed with the Labour person who is lined up to take over.
Other rumours go as far as saying that his displeasure extends to wanting a strong winnable SNP candidate in place before he steps down.
So with all that allegedly going on in the background, i thought of resignations more quickly than i ordinarily would have.
Ooh, nice piece of gossip there Jeff.
So he's definitely standing in 2011 then? Foulkes is the only Labour MSP who's leaving, right?
I believe Margaret Curran intends to go to greener pastures.
I think it would be very hypocritical of Malcolm to vote against this now. There is nothing in the bill itself that should give him cause to vote against it - to say there is would just be an excuse.
Speaking as someone who has never met Malcolm Chisolm, I feel that I am able to say, with quite some certainty, that his primary thoughts, at this moment in time, will be learning how to jive to a professional standard before the big Jiving Championships in Oban this year.
This could all be wrong though.
Do you not need to believe in Independence to join the SNP any more?
Or do you take anyone who is simply left-wing?
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