Not the best of reviews for the Scottish Parliament’s new Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick, in the ‘Black Dog in Holyrood’ column in today’s Scottish Mail on Sunday.
The column reads: “With so few checks and balances at Holyrood and little effective opposition to the SNP’s thumping majority, the one figure who can exercise any control over Mr Salmond is the Presiding Officer.
“Yet the SNP’s Tricia Marwick shows no sign of standing up to her party boss, allowing him to twitter on about everything from the Supreme Court to Scotland’s fruit growers until First Minister’s Questions had to be extended. Salmond aides naturally thought Miss Marwick was ‘very good in the chair’.”
Readers shouldn’t be too concerned about Cowdenbeath-born, Marwick, not standing up for herself amid criticism flying in from many media quarters.
She was, after all, before entering politics, a professional media communicator as public affairs officer for Shelter Scotland from 1992 to 1999 – becoming an MSP that year as a member for the Mid Scotland and Fife region.
The Cross Bencher column, in the Scottish Sunday Express, was more sympatheticto Marwick. It stated: “Well, why did anybody ever think the new Presiding Officer, Tricia Marwick – a good, decent SNP backbencher if ever there was one – would have the bottle to stop Alex Salmond in mid flow?”
