We Can all Agree Over a Drink?

After the intrigues of politics in Dundee some consensus may well be light relief. Yet, consensus doesn't necessarily bring about good politics or good policy but, for now, it sounds quite nice and, for that, I'll settle.Holyrood was ushered in with much fanfare that this would be part of a new politics. New politics seemed to centre around the idea that adversarial politics was the old, bad stuff, and so consensus was the new way forward. Even the shape and arrangement of the debating chamber was meant to indicate a move away from the face-off of the green benches at Westminster. But, it was never to be, simply because it was an attempt to manufacture consensus. Interestingly, the fact that so many of the leading figures of Holyrood of the time cut their teeth at Westminster meant that the infamous Westminster style was carried over into the chamber. Many felt that the failure of new politics was a failure of the process but, should we not have just realised at the time that it is the very lack of consensus that makes politics interesting.

There were a few questions that, I think, went unanswered: firstly, what is the point of politics without a competitive element, without the realisation that people disagree. In fact, disagreement and competition in politics is arguably the only way things can ever get better. Dundee would be a prime example; the other parties sought to unite around their commitment to unionism and tried to manufacture a consensus. A consensus that suited the maintenance of the Labour status quo. So, secondly, when the government, or administration, of the day talk about the importance of consensus, are they really not just talking about the importance that their position should not be opposed, and that such a position should not be open to question?

It's not to say consensus doesn't naturally break out as it seems to have done with the Labour and SNP on this occasion. But, doesn't manufactured consensus not serve only to stifle democracy. Arguably, the Iraq War was built upon consensual politics, with the Tories in support and the media indulging themselves in a so-called 'Baghdad Bounce'.

George Robertson thought devolution would kill the independence movement 'stone dead' as he put it. I just wonder if Labour's plan was to engrave the stone with the word 'consensus'. It's interesting, finally, that Murphy says that his role is to empahasise the importance of consensus in, his words, 'petty' Scottish politics. Perhaps, flying off to China before Salmond could is a demonstration of this consensual approach (he really rose above 'petty politics' with that little escapade, no kidding!).But, then again, it is arguably at Westminster where the greatest consensus has broken out. Tories are Labour, Labour are Tories, and expenses claims are filed alongside one another in perfect harmony. Perhaps manufactured adversariness is more damaging than manufactured consensus ... I wonder ...