Seriously, where is she?

Following on from my last post, when I noticed that Elaine Smith hasn't voted in Parliament since 8 October, the plot thickens: the most recent sign of activity that I can find from the MSP for Coatbridge & Chryston is this press release dated 29 October on her website.

Which begs the question: what in blazes did children at Carnbroe Primary School do to her? Is their P7 class particularly feral, or is there something else occurring?

Of course, it's going to turn out that it's health-related, and I'm going to feel incredibly guilty (as well as embarrassed for not knowing), but the fact remains that the people of Coatbridge & Chryston have, in effect, been without a Constituency MSP for two and a half months.

Now, according to Section 9 of the Scotland Act, when a vacancy comes to the attention of the Presiding Officer (i.e. when a Constituency MSP resigns, dies or is disqualified), there's a three-month time limit on holding a By-Election to fill it, unless a full Election is due within three months of that deadline.

Of course, the PO has not been notified of any official vacancy, but a de facto one now seems to be in effect, and it can't be filled until either Elaine Smith returns from wherever she is, or officially resigns. And then it could take up to three months for her to be replaced!

This is a massive flaw in the system: whatever the reason, she is not discharging her duties effectively. Even those MSPs on maternity leave this session (Angela Constance, Karen Gillon and Shirley-Anne Somerville) have found their way to the Parliament at crucial moments. But Elaine Smith has not. She is not in a position to do her job, and in any other walk of life, some sort of cover (or even a full-time replacement) would be arranged.

But the people of Coatbridge & Chryston have to wait until 2011 to replace her. Maybe it's time that we started thinking about some sort of provision for a recall vote, or a method of Parliament triggering a By-Election.

This isn't a campaign against Elaine Smith in particular: this could be any MSP for any Constituency, in any Party. But she's the first one to just vanish like this since the Election, and the fact remains that it shouldn't be any MSP at all, for any Constituency whatsoever, in any of the parties in Parliament. It shouldn't be happening and it's time that rules were looked at, for the sake of the people of Coatbridge & Chryston, and for the next constituents (wherever they are) who find themselves suddenly deprived of their representative and with no prospect of a replacement.

But in the absence of any likely change to the law, I'll settle just to know where she is and how she's doing.

Mev Brown does it again

A few weeks ago I considered the future of NHSFirst, the party led by Mev Brown. Brown was the Tory candidate in Edinburgh East in the 2005 Westminster Election, an Independent in the Livingston By-Election a few months later, the UKIP candidate in Edinburgh Council's Murrayfield By-Election a few months after that, and the NHSFirst candidate in the Moray By-Election following that. Now it transpires that in Central Scotland, NHSFirst will stand on a joint ticket with Scottish Voice, the Party Political equivalent of Seinfeld (the show about nothing).

Meanwhile, while we're on the subject, Julie McAnulty revealed on my other blog, Scotland Decides, that she won't be standing on the Central Scotland Regional List after all: she'll be concentrating on the Constituency Vote in Coatbridge & Chryston. Also, the BBC report that retiring surgeon David Smith will be standing as an Independent health campaigner in Glasgow Cathcart. Oh, and I haven't heard what, if anything, Jean Turner thinks of NHSFirst.

Now, think about this: the independent health campaigners include Jean Turner, a former GP, Julie McAnulty, who I'm pretty sure is in effect a carer for her parents, and David Smith, a retiring surgeon. The NHSFirst candidate include a serial candidate and outgoing Labour member of Glasgow City Council Gaille McCann, and they now have backing from a former Tory donor. In short, NHSFirst is attracting political types, while those who have a link to health and/or the NHS stay as independents. What does that tell you?