STEPHEN DAISLEY: Unfortunately for us, he's a much better Dons fan than a health minister
Sporting an Inspector Clouseau tache, Neil Gray himself was under the magnifying glass as he tried to explain taxpayer-funded limo rides to watch his favourite footie side.
He professed himself ‘happy to accept the opposition parties’ calls for a statement on these matters today’, while exuding the kind of joy you only see in men who have spent an entire Saturday afternoon in Ikea.
‘It is a matter of regret to me,’ he told MSPs, ‘that by attending four Aberdeen games, I have given the impression of acting more as a fan and less as a minister.’
It’s a matter of regret to the rest of us that he’s a better Aberdeen fan than he is a health minister.
‘I should have ensured that I went to see teams other than Aberdeen,’ he ventured.
Or, and I’m just throwing this out there, you could have done some work. Not that meeting with sporting officials isn’t part of ministerial duties.
It’s just that if these jaunts were about that, we might expect some of these highly necessary meetings to have taken place at, say, cricket matches or curling tournaments or sports other than the one Gray is so very keen on.
Still, nothing wrong with taking time out of your job as an MSP to show an interest in the football. Unless, of course, your name is Douglas Ross.
A mustachioed Neil Gray yesterday
Gray apologised for his ‘error’, though he seemed to regard that error as one of optics rather than poor judgment.
By way of defending his actions, he listed the various matters he had discussed during these matches: ‘the work of the SPFL Trust’, ‘sports chaplaincy services’, ‘the issue of pyrotechnics at football matches’, ‘planning for the European Championships in Germany’, and ‘Mental Health Awareness Week’.
Where did he find the time to watch the actual football? I don’t know where his political prospects stand now, but if Gray pays that little attention to the play on the pitch then he has a long career ahead of him as a commentator.
The star of the statement was not Gray but Labour MSP Paul Sweeney.
Observing that the health secretary ‘clearly wasn’t keen on joining the infamously long queues at Mount Florida train station after these fixtures’, he enquired: ‘What efforts is the Scottish government taking to improve public transport links to the national stadium for those who do not have the benefit of a chauffeured ministerial car?’
A serious policy question asked with claw-sharpening cattiness. That’s my kind of politics.
Then Patrick Harvie shot up with an angle the rest of us had missed: limos are cars and cars are bad.
‘If he’d attended all these matches and travelled by bus, I wouldn’t have the slightest problem with it,’ he told Gray.
Aberdeen's Graeme Shinnie
When he was a minister, Harvie was able to ‘get about without relying on them except in exceptional circumstances’.
Unfortunately, ‘a great many ministers treat chauffeur-driven cars as the default expectation’.
By now, there were murmurs of dissent issuing from the SNP group. If Harvie had his way, ministers needing to travel would be handed bus fare and a timetable for the Number 22.
Earlier in the day, Russell Findlay had pulled on his tackety boots and gone a-shinkicking over Gray’s travel arrangements.
This scandal reeked of the Michael Matheson affair, the Tory leader claimed. ‘The SNP has substituted one shamed health secretary for someone who is even less serious,’ he said.
Findlay demanded to know: ‘What is it with SNP ministers taking taxpayers for a ride?’
John Swinney said he expected his ministers ‘to engage with a variety of stakeholders in events and gatherings around the country’.
It’s just a coincidence that these stakeholders were holding their stakes at fixtures featuring the health secretary’s favourite team.
According to Findlay, Gray was ‘more interested in football freebies than in doing the job that he is paid for’.
Has he seen how the bloke’s managing in the job he’s paid for?
The taxpayer should buy Gray a solid gold seat in the dugout at Pittodrie – anything to keep him away from the health service.
