Sketch: Parliament elects a new presiding officer

The vote for a new presiding officer is more or less a search for the most reasonable person in Parliament, so you can see why it took so long. In fact, the vote seemed to take forever.

Proceedings began with the outgoing PO, Tricia Marwick, gently explaining the rules, with the air of someone trying to stop over-eager primary school kids from smearing crayon all over the walls.

“Members should remain in their seats until I invite them to collect their ballot papers,” she said, telling them, “Members with surnames from Adam to Gilruth should collect their ballot papers from the desk to my left”. At this point she paused and pointed to show them which way was left.

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“Members with surnames from Golden to McDonald should use the desk at the back,” she said, showing them which direction the back was. It was the opposite of the front, she told them.

“And members with surnames from McKee to Yousaf should use the desk to my right,” she announced, pointing to her right, before adding somewhat apologetically, “They told me to do this.”

Still, at this point things were going pretty well. Humza Yousaf, who has the surname Yousaf, went to her right. George Adam, who has the surname Adam, went to her left. And obviously, it would be very easy to make a cheap joke about all this, to pick the SNP or Scottish Labour and say the elected members don’t understand the ideological difference between left and right. But that would be unfair.

Actually, it was nothing to do with ideology. It’s just that after five years of dealing with MSPs, Marwick genuinely didn’t believe they could follow basic instructions. Which was very silly of her. Everyone laughed. Then Jackie Baillie went the wrong way.

None of the candidates had a majority after the first round of voting, so they had to go again. Showing tremendous patience, Marwick continued. “Members should use the same voting procedure as before,” she said, adding, “I am not going to do my air hostess bit again and indicate ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘in the middle’.”

To be fair, at least an air hostess would tell you where the escape routes are. By this point the process had lasted far longer than anyone expected. People chatted. Families watched on from the gallery. Nicola Sturgeon wheeled around in her seat. Halfway through the process a phone went off in the press gallery. Its owner was unable to turn it off. With a bitter irony, the tune was ‘Things can only get better’.

After three rounds of voting, though, finally we had a winner. Ken Macintosh stepped up, smiling, to the front of the chamber. Marwick gave him a hug, whispered something, then gave him another hug. She told him being presiding officer was “the best job in Scotland”.

Macintosh looked delighted, as well he might. This was a momentous occasion, with Macintosh the first PO from the Labour party, the first PO from the West of Scotland, and the first PO to look so much like a well-meaning camel. So, what did this new era have in store? What was there to Ken? What should we Make-intosh of it all?

He started off with an apology, explaining that since the election he had warmly congratulated two members of the Parliament catering staff, a BBC journalist and a special branch officer working for Prince Charles, after believing they had been elected to Holyrood.

Which is slightly worrying, but then maybe that is just Macintosh’s default response to meeting anyone new. After all, why take the risk?

Continuing, he added: “I will probably relocate your region or your constituency to another part of Scotland.” To be fair, that sounded less threatening at the time than it does written down.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. Macintosh was soon confronted with the most tedious ordeal a PO can face: he had to oversee the election of a new presiding officer. Worse, he had to oversee the election of two deputies.

Kenneth Gibson was eliminated in the first round. After the second it was Christine Grahame, who was heard to mutter “story of my life”, before realising it had come out much louder than intended.

There was another lengthy wait while they voted. By this point even Macintosh looked unsure of whether running for PO was a good idea.

After that Macintosh moved to the next count, before realising the chamber was yet to vote. MSPs howled. Macintosh laughed nervously and babbled, “Sack the Presiding Officer!” Nice try, Ken. You’re stuck with it.

After that, apparently near-hysterical, he threatened to hold another election. Next he announced, with tremendous gravitas: “I declare the election for the second Deputy Presiding Officer open.” His deputy (who they were replacing) reminded him they hadn’t finished electing the first one yet.

Linda Fabiani and Christine Grahame eventually won. It lasted about four rounds in the end. It was sort of like X-Factor, but with broken telephone lines, and a far greater reluctance on the part of the candidates to promote the humiliations inherent to their backstories.

Even Macintosh looked relieved as he reassured members, “this is a unique voting system, which is used once every five years.”

It’s true, things can only get better.