 | 'People think it is a great opportunity but actually it is difficult. You have to make the difficult choice about giving up a job with no guarantee of any long-term future whatsoever.' Former SNP MSP Irene McGugan, 1 st April 2006. |  |
| 'People think it is a great opportunity but actually it is difficult. You have to make the difficult choice about giving up a job with no guarantee of any long-term future whatsoever.' Former SNP MSP Irene McGugan, 1 st April 2006. | |
THE building may be dodgy, but the £52,000 salary isn't bad. The flexible working arrangements - such as 12 weeks a year 'recess' - are pretty attractive as well. But no one in the SNP, it seems, is ready to become an MSP.
Two weeks after the untimely death of Nationalist MSP Margaret Ewing, the party is in the bizarre position of struggling to find a candidate to fill its privileged ranks at Holyrood.
Ewing's Moray seat is to be fought by a serving Nationalist MSP, Richard Lochhead, in a by-election later this month.
The thorny problem for the party is that, despite the salary and perks, no one has yet declared themselves ready and willing to take over Lochhead's vacant parliamentary seat.
The embarrassment has occurred because of the Scottish Parliament's much-criticised 'list' system, from which over a third of MSPs are drawn.
Candidates are hand-picked to represent their parties, and are parachuted into power if their parties win enough votes on the second proportional representation vote.
Unlike under the first-past-the-post system, they do not have to face the electorate in constituency battles.
Lochhead was the sole list MSP in the north-east region for the SNP. The rules declare that if a list MSP quits during a parliament, the next in line on the list steps up.
The trouble is that none of the other seven candidates chosen by the SNP in the north-east appears to be available.
Numbers two and three on the list are already at the parliament, Brian Adam having won the Aberdeen North constituency, and Shona Robison having secured Dundee East.
That leaves the way clear for number four, party secretary Alasdair Allan, except he is aiming to become the SNP's candidate at next year's election in the Western Isles.
Allan has thus declared that he is focusing his fire elsewhere. "I will be doing nothing to prejudice my candidacy for the Western Isles," he told Scotland on Sunday.
Next in line is Andrew Welsh. Yet he, too, is already an MSP, having won Angus in the 2003 election.
The path is therefore open for number six, Aberdeen SNP activist Maureen Watt. However, friends say she would be unwilling to leave her native north-east for a job at Holyrood. She told Scotland on Sunday: "I don't have my bags packed - put it that way."
If Watt were to decline the job, number seven would be called in, former MSP Irene McGugan. She, too, however, appears to be hesitant about a return, claiming: "I am not making any plans. People think it is a great opportunity but actually it is difficult. You have to make the difficult choice about giving up a job with no guarantee of any long-term future whatsoever."
That would leave the man in last place, Angus councillor Ian Angus. He was unavailable for comment last night.
The farce was seized upon by critics of Holyrood's electoral system. One SNP MSP said: "Maybe we should put it on eBay. The other parties sell peerages for cash - why shouldn't we sell seats?"
A possible solution is now being proposed which would involve Lochhead delaying his resignation as an MSP until Thursday this week, when the SNP is due to announce its candidate for the Western Isles.
If Allan loses the candidacy, he would then be free to take up the north-east list seat vacated by Lochhead.
He is thus in the peculiar position of knowing that only by losing the contest to fight for a Holyrood seat (for the Western Isles) can he guarantee becoming an MSP (for the north-east region).
The Tories are also welcoming a new face this week as a result of the by-election. With list MSP Mary Scanlon contesting the Moray seat, she has resigned, handing the seat over to next in line David Petrie - a teacher at Lochaber High School in Fort William.
Petrie is likely to only to have a year in the job, until the 2007 elections, when it is expected that Scanlon will be placed ahead of him on the list - thus taking the seat back.
Nevertheless, Petrie said: "I am really looking forward to the challenge."
On the electoral system which has promoted him, he said: "It is odd, and I am sure it looks strange to the public."
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