The Summer Whip

Well, it's time for MSPs to go on their hollybobs (though many went early and missed Her Maj - orf with their heads, and so forth), so it's time to look at who was taking a mid-term inset day as well.

The Top 5 is as follows: Trish Godman finds herself MIA for a total of 42 votes, making her the most absent MSP. However, about a third of them were occasions where her fellow DPO Alasdair Morgan was in the chair, and it may have been considered bad form to vote. Even so, taking that into account, she'd still be in the Top 5. Second is John Farquhar Munro, with 41, while third is Margo MacDonald, who let's face it, can pretty much come and go as she pleases. Fourth is Irene Oldfather, while fifth is Des McNulty. Only Margo was in the last collection.

SNP

The SNP get the attendance award, with a rate of 97.12%, up on last time. The absences are:

18 Michael Russell
12 Nicola Sturgeon
11 Alex Neil
9 Bill Kidd
Shona Robison
7 Alasdair Morgan
6 Roseanna Cunningham
Nigel Don
Richard Lochhead
Dave Thompson
5 Anne McLaughlin
Alex Salmond
4 Keith Brown
2 Jamie Hepburn
1 Bruce Crawford
Christina McKelvie

The cohesion rate has dropped slightly however, and the lost of the top spot in that department will be a cause of some unease to Whips. Alasdair Allan, Angela Constance, Joe FitzPatrick, Kenneth Gibson, Sandra White and Bill Wilson have all rebelled once.

Labour

Labour's attendance rate has increased slightly to 90.2%, while their attendance ranking has gone from fifth to third. it's still pretty weak reading, but progress is progress. Barring Trish Godman, Irene Oldfather and Des McNulty, here are the other absentees:

19 John Park
16 Elaine Smith
15 Marilyn Livingstone
Elaine Murray
14 Karen Gillon
Cathy Peattie
Richard Simpson
13 Margaret Curran
12 Cathy Jamieson
11 Wendy Alexander
Tom McCabe
Jack McConnell
9 Hugh Henry
8 Claire Baker
Duncan McNeil
7 Rhona Brankin
6 Sarah Boyack
Helen Eadie
Iain Gray
Andy Kerr
Ken Macintosh
Pauline McNeill
5 George Foulkes
Lewis Macdonald
Frank McAveety
4 Karen Whitefield
2 Patricia Ferguson
Peter Peacock
1 Malcolm Chisholm
Rhoda Grant
Paul Martin
Mary Mulligan

Cohesion has also improved slightly to 99.79%: Malcolm Chisholm, Patricia Ferguson, Charlie Gordon, Andy Kerr, Paul Martin, Jack McConnell and David Whitton are the rebels.

Conservatives

The Tory attendance rate has gone down to 95.7%, giving them second place. The absentees were:

14 Jackson Carlaw
11 Annabel Goldie
8 Nanette Milne
6 Alex Johnstone
5 David McLetchie
4 Jamie McGrigor
3 Margaret Mitchell
2 Ted Brocklebank
1 Murdo Fraser
John Lamont

And they are the most cohesive group with a rate of 99.92% with only Margaret Mitchell breaking with the party line on a single occasion.

LibDems

The LibDem's 90.08% attendance rate puts them in fourth place and is a hefty drop compared with last time. Leaving JFM aside, here are the missing members:

19 Tavish Scott
Nicol Stephen
11 Jamie Stone
10 Mike Rumbles
9 Jim Tolson
8 Liam McArthur
4 Mike Pringle
3 Margaret Smith
2 Jim Hume
1 Ross Finnie

Their cohesion rate is also the lowest of the Big 4, though with only 16 MSPs, it's far more vulnerable to small-scale rebellions/lapses in concentration. All the same, it's still managed to go up to 99.65%, and only four MSPs have voted the 'wrong' way: John Farquhar Munro, Hugh O'Donnell, Nicol Stephen and Jim Tolson.

Greens and Margo

The Greens' attendance rate has fallen very heavily to 87.5%. If memory serves, Patrick Harvie chose the wrong week to be ill and missed 18 votes. Robin Harper missed two, though the Greens aren't victim to any splits.

Neither is Margo, though as she only has one vote, we wouldn't be aware of it if she did. Having said that, her attendance rate is only 51.25%, so she isn't using that one vote very often...