FORYSTH SAGA

"As the Scottish Parliament sits only one and a half days a week on average, why cannot we get rid of all 129 [MSPs] altogether?" - Lord Forsyth


I was labouring under the misapprehension that this odious little toad of a man had been banished from my world for good now that his kind had been driven from Scotland. Not so. He’s popped up like a persistent pluke, this time lecturing us about democracy from the benches of the House of Lords (!) and arguing for MSPs to be replaced with their Westminster counterparts.

Now Scottish MPS are now the equivalent of a constitutional appendage rotting softly by our side. Severance would be no bad thing and would likely save the torso. But Forsyths snide remarks mark a departure from the pleasing silence him and his mad former boss have been sworn to. Is it because an election’s coming up people like this are slithering out from underneath their stones?

Lord Forsyth – you’ll recall - was one of the main forces driving the Yes! Yes! vote that delivered devolution. Since then the Tories have had to re-invent themselves as ‘really supporting devolution’ but it’s a thin charade that gets less convincing by the day. That the putrid columns of the Scotsman is filled with this rubbish is depressing, a greyness lifted only by the realisation that the Tory party is an electoral liability lurching to the right in a desperate bid to steal back voters from the BNP and the UKIP.

A spokesman for the Scottish Conservative Party has tried to play down the impact of Lord Forsyth’s remarks saying: "These are Michael Forsyth’s views. The party here is committed to devolution and committed to making it work."

Okay, we believe you. Still it makes you think, if the Tories were to be elected in a confused Blair-backlash and a coalition of Middle England, things could get interesting between Holyrood and London.