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Brian Adam has always been interested in politics; he first
visited the Houses of Parliament with his father when he was 12
years old and joined the Socialist Society as a university student.
However, that was not the beginning of his political career; as a
science student he did not have time to devote to party politics
and found the Socialist Society too left wing. A year after he left
university he joined a trade union where he has been secretary and
treasurer in his local branch for 25 years.
Brian joined the SNP in 1974 - he was looking for a political
party that stood a chance and went to hear Michael Foot, a man he
admired greatly, speak in Aberdeen. He decided that although the
rhetoric was wonderful it was not relevant to his life - so he went
to the local SNP office and asked to the see the manifesto. It was
the run up to the 1974 election, he recalls that just about
everything in the manifesto was precisely what he believed in - it
was about equality and fairness and independence for Scotland - and
it was a sharp contrast to the things he had heard from Michael
Foot the night before "so I joined then and there and I've been in
the SNP ever since." Brian acknowledges that on economic policy he
is probably on the left, on social policy he is not. He takes quite
"a traditional view of family life and the need for society to
support and nurture it and to create a climate where it is
encouraged and not denigrated."
His first elected position was to Aberdeen District Council in
1988, and he was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
He has been representing the same part of Aberdeen continuously for
21 years first as a district councillor then as a city councillor,
then as one of the regional MSPs and now as the constituency MSP.
Brian reflects that the bulk of the work, as it always has been, is
dealing with individual casework. This is the reason he got
involved with the union and the reason why he became, and remains,
involved in politics.
It is not surprising to hear that Brian is committed to Scottish
independence, he believes that it is easier to organise things that
are representative, accessible and transparent on a small scale
rather then have your representatives 400 or 500 miles away. He
didn't completely subscribe to a socialist philosophy because it
was too closely connected with centralisation and nationalism
"there's nothing wrong with things that are done at a national
level but it needs to be responsive to local needs as well as a
national strategy. When you are delivering services and doing
things for people it is for folk as individuals as well as a
collective thing and that's where I part company with the ideas of
state control".
"I would like to live in an egalitarian society; I think that is
a view that is reasonably well accepted in Scotland. I'm not
certain that it is quite the same at a UK level." Brian thinks that
"Scotland is a country where it is possible to do these things, and
if others then want to follow our lead or want to adapt what we do
then I am quite happy to cooperate with them and help them achieve
that." He maintains that the more local the decisions that are made
the better and the more decisions that individuals can make the
better. However he warns that decisions must be altruistic. For him
the selfishness he saw in the 1980s and 90s encouraged the
development of a get rich quick society which consumed all the
value of the North Sea oil and privatised industries. He "would
prefer to allow people to make as many choices as they can for
themselves on the basis that they are going to make good choices
and not bad choices, but when we all collectively make bad choices
then we have pay up - and we're doing that right now." He continues
by suggesting that financial delivery schemes, such as PFI, are
about having something now that we cannot afford. And that, thinks
Brian, removes real choice from people.
"Churches have a role to play in politics with a small p, but
not with a big P" Brian goes on to suggest that its an absolute
disaster if you end up with churches taking party political
stances, but its quite reasonable for churches or faith groups of
any kind to advocate for things they believe in, as long as they
don't try to impose their views on others. "I think for many, many
years the default position in terms of politics in the UK was
Judeo-Christian values. I'm not sure that that is the case
anymore."
When asked about the reality of being Chief Whip the immediate
response was that in his experience the role of a whip is not like
Francis Urquhart, the Chief Whip in the political thriller
"House of Cards". He describes being a whip as a
management role, for example one of the first things to be done
after the 2007 election was to assign the offices. He explains that
this is a challenging task given the people who get involved in
politics. Each MSP office in the Parliament has a 'thinking pod',
these vary in size. "I had one member, who shall remain nameless,
who requested of me a 'big bum seat' because she had a big bum. She
didn't have a big bum but I gave her what she wanted because she
was so cheeky." He explains that, while it sounds trivial, this is
the kind of people management that the job of Chief Whip involves.
Much more difficult, in Brian's view, is how to assign the places
on committees - particularly when some people need to have two
committees, a third of the SNP group are government ministers and
so cannot be on Committees. "It's an even bigger challenge when, as
well as being expected to win votes as a government in the
Parliament, we also have to win them in Committees. We don't have a
majority on any of these things so getting the right people with
the right skills on the right committees is the job of the chief
whip."
Brian explains that if members of the group take positions which
are not in line with the party policy or the group that has to be
dealt with, however he is grateful that his colleagues give him a
relatively easy time of it. He sees his job as to encourage rather
then discipline, however he acknowledges that this is not how
everyone sees it. Brian was intrigued by a story by an Edinburgh
based paper that implies that he was one of the hard men of the SNP
and maintained iron discipline and questioned whether that
discipline could be maintained.
The Scottish Parliament has recently passed the Climate Change
(Scotland) Bill, an area of work in which Brain has been involved.
Emphasising the international nature of this issue Brian described
a report from the Church in Bangladesh where the effects of the
climate are likely to be particularly severe owing to the low lying
land. He emphasises that we do in our country affects not just us
but the rest of the world as well.
"We still are the developed world where we have a much greater
share of resources and use a much greater share of resources than
elsewhere in the world. That's not to say that I am absolutely
scrupulous about everything that I do, but I am aware of it." Brian
responded to a briefing from Eco-congregations in Scotland asking
for legislation to require the government to have proper community
engagement. He decided to "take up cudgels on behalf of the
Eco-congregations in Scotland" and is delighted that the government
intend to go down that route. Brian went on highlight that the law
is just a piece of paper unless individual people feel bound by it
or make it happen. He finishes "there is general acceptance across
the board in politics in Scotland that we must show leadership here
- but there's no point in showing leadership if you haven't got
anyone following you."