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Master of understatement and Presiding Officer of the Scottish
Parliament, George Reid acknowledges that "people don't like what
it has cost, but they recognise the money has been spent and they
want us now to get on". He says that Holyrood has been quite a hard
experience and that he has spent the last year "simply willing the
building into existence". He hopes that they can now get on with
things because "we can't live in the past all the time".
Despite all the trauma he feels that Holyrood (George is a
stickler for 'Holy'rood; you may say 'Holly'rood - both are
acceptable) has been built to a pretty good standard. He also
points out that Holyrood is not a building but a "village, a
collection of buildings, which was intentional as "power these days
is always layered and shared". He reports that the best vantage
point to view Holyrood is from Salisbury Crags (cue for an SCPO
expedition!). From there it is easier to see what the architect
Enric Miralles said about Holyrood being rooted in the soil of
Edinburgh. And this is what appeals most to George Reid about the
new building(s) - "it is the land of Scotland that endures forever
and it's fused with the Royal Mile, which is the history of
Scotland, and I like that. I think land and history fused on one
site is a challenge to all of us".
He enjoys the irony of "sitting in Queensberry House, the home
of the Duke of Queensberry who signed the Treaty of the Union
giving away the Scots Parliament, and here am I today, in this
little office ... which was his inner sanctum, bringing life into a
new democracy in Scotland. I think it is very pleasant". Asked if
this gives him a sense of revenge, he says it doesn't; it simply
completes the circle.
It's hard to talk about the new building and not bring up how
the media have portrayed its inception. For his part, the Presiding
Officer isn't about to go beating with sticks the majority of
journalists who "are doing their best". He says that it is
perfectly right that the media hold politicians up to scrutiny, but
he feels that they have a duty to report facts as they actually
are. Therefore it frustrates him when a very small number of
journalists report "a tiny dribble which wet a carpet" as "an
enormous amount of water rushes into Parliament" - and completely
disregard the facts that the Parliament's own media office have
made known to them.
George himself is no stranger to the machinations of the media
having worked as a reporter, television presenter and producer in
his time. In fact it was "a mistake" that diverted him from his
media career into politics. It was when he was in the process of
moving from STV to ITN that he was asked "if I would plug a gap for
the SNP in 1973 in the month of December". He phoned Sir Jeffrey
Cox (ITN editor) and said "do you mind if I come a month later
because the SNP would like me to fight an election?" "Are you going
to win?"; "no, not a hope - a Labour majority of 10,000". But he
won. So, despite not having planned his new career, he became the
MP for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (he only ever fights
elections in Clackmannanshire because it is where his family have
lived for hundreds of years). He was elected in both the February
and October of 1974 but was defeated in 1979; he doesn't regret
that, as "the writing was on the wall".
He then worked for the BBC before accepting an invitation to
become the Director of Public Affairs for the International Red
Cross in Geneva in 1984. He worked for the Red Cross for fifteen
years ("I was away during the Thatcher years and some might say
that was a reasonable thing to do"). He observes that he did more
good in those years than he has ever probably done in politics. And
this is no surprise when you consider that he was part of major
relief and reconstruction operations in disaster and conflict
zones. He says that any regrets that he might have would probably
be to do with not having done more in his Red Cross years.
After returning to Scotland in 1996 he re-engaged in politics
and was part of the Consultative Steering Group which drew up the
blueprint for how the Scottish Parliament would operate. His
biggest political highlight was "being elected to the first Scots
Parliament in 300 years". Although ambitious for his country, he
says that he is content with what they have got. He also feels that
the Scottish Parliament is a completely different sort of beast to
Westminster; it is more European in style, as it has (by and large)
adopted a conversational rather than confrontational way of working
(reflected in the new building), has a "rainbow" political spread
of parties thanks to PR, and MSPs feel free to come to work in
Saville Row suits or jeans.
Now that the MSPs and parliamentary staff have flitted to
Holyrood he believes that the Parliament must get on with building
"a sustainable Scotland which competes in a global world". This
translates into: "No-one owes Scotland a living. If we don't make
the money, we can't build a compassionate country. So we have to be
focused on a society of wealth creation - there is nothing wrong
with that. It is what we do with the money that matters". He
believes that Scotland should be egalitarian and compassionate,
but, to achieve this vision, Scotland has to be able to compete
globally.
When asked if he sees a role for the churches in his vision for
Scotland, he replies that he thinks Scotland needs "more turbulent
priests. I think at times the Church is terribly cautious". He goes
on to say that "there is not much point in having a nice prosperous
consumer Scotland unless there is some ethical value to it. That is
the job of the Church - to poke, to prod, to question, to deal with
fundamental Christian values. When you come through the gates of
Queensberry House you can speak to infinity but "if you have not
got love, you have nothing" (the text from 1Corinthians 13 is
engraved in stone in the entrance, in Scots).
Away from politics, it turns out that George has "an
extraordinary interest in Balkan history" - it's what he studied at
St Andrew's University. In his time free from Parliamentary and
grandfatherly duties, "you will find me tucked up reading quite
abstruse books on Bulgarian or Roman or Macedonian politics and I
intend, if I am spared, to do quite a lot about that". As a result
of this interest he would have quite liked to have sat down with
Trotsky, who despite, or perhaps because he was a very nasty
person, had a "febrile and fascinating brain". He would also have
liked to talk to Clement Atlee. He admires Atlee because "he did
the business"; the man was not grandiose but brought in a raft of
social reforms transforming the quality of life in Scotland
declaring fair shares for all, and in addition to that was "a tough
little man, too, you know".
George's personal motto is not to be a tough little man but it
is something that he has borrowed from a seat across the road from
him, erected in memory of a woman called Mary who it says "always
tried to do her best": "you can't do much more than that".