Friday, May 24, 2019

Great Britain and Historical Perspective: Episode II

Episode Two in this saga brings us to the Scottish Parliament, where the assigned topic is clearly restated in the introductory paragraph of my essay that follows. I enjoyed the visit and greatly appreciated the time given by Scottish National Party MSP David Torrance. I would rate the experience 5/5 on TripAdvisor. (For the record, my mention of New Coke predates the announcement of a promotional re-release in cooperation with Netflix and Stranger Things and the subsequent issues with the marketing website.)

Is the Holyrood parliament a kinder, gentler political institution? No. Yes. Maybe. Probably. How can we really tell? If I’m speaking on general assumption and basic empirical observations, I would have to say that the nation has achieved this aspiration. Unfortunately, any verdict on Scotland’s success would be predicated on an incomplete assessment of the parliament in Edinburgh.

Before discussing the shortfalls in the validity of this discussion, we must first explore the body against which Holyrood is being compared. The British Parliament at Westminster has an established history of unbecoming behavior and partisanship. MPs are notorious for interrupting the speeches of their peers by jeering insults and childish retorts. Due to the male-dominated history of the chamber, the atmosphere carries the odor of a college fraternity with sexual innuendo freely wielded for cheap laughs.

Given the substantial importance of the business conducted and the increasing involvement of women in Parliament, the continuation of such behaviour is counterproductive nonsense that borders on parody. Provided the desire of Scotland to demonstrate some sense of superiority over England, it stands to reason that they would seek to establish a legislative body on the premise of civility, even if such a bar should only present a challenge to those prone to tripping.

The experiences of today provided little useful evidence of the kind, gentle atmosphere that Scotland pursues in the chamber, but there were moments that illustrated the efforts being taken to promote it. The legislated pursuit of honesty (or more likely pivoting and/or obfuscation) during floor debate described by MSP Torrance can serve to prevent legislative prevarication from legitimizing and perpetuating public untruths. Unfortunately, as seen from the Tory minister in Topical Questions, the penalty of public apology has become a cudgel wielded as a means of branding a rival MSP a liar, simply providing a new avenue for partisanship.

The chamber experience was also of little use for evaluating the nature of debate, as only a handful of MSPs were even present, with our group likely outnumbering them by double. As experience has shown, civility is quite easy in small groups, as the quantity of different opinions is often too low to even generate friction. As population size increases, the emotional entropy of a room tends to exhibit an exponential increase, so any vitriolic or boorish remarks would be most likely in a full chamber. Provided this consideration, the MSPs in attendance found an opportunity or two to jeer at the responses provided during questioning, which does not speak well to the prospective behavior during a debate session.

The age of the New Scottish Parliament (hopefully more successful than New Coke) presents the ultimate limitation on the capacity for evaluation of performance. Although twenty years is as old or older than most of our group, it is still younger than the movie Titanic, and people are still arguing about Jack and the door. As with many attempts at change, the early results are often promising due to the focused effort to meet or exceed the established goal, as anyone on a diet can understand. Even if I was provided an opportunity to properly observe the behavior of the full parliament in session, I wouldn’t feel comfortable declaring their objective achieved, but I might feel compelled to ascribe failure should their behavior warrant, as the varnish of change would likely have worn off by that point.

Although I am skeptical of the current body’s potential for civility, I applaud their effort as miles beyond anything in Westminster. The act of setting a goal for civil inter-member decorum exceeds expectations for any legislature, as “gamesmanship” and “resilience” are the historical sword and shield of the floor. In the Scottish parliament, they are attempting to replace those with “honour” and “dignity”. In success or failure, they shall stand alone on the high road, having shown the determination to try.

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