Dr Norrie MacQueen, head of the politics department has been a regular commentator in The Herald over the last few weeks, assessing the role of the UN during international crisis. Writing for Contact, he looks at the second election to the Scottish parliament on 1 May, traces the rise and fall of University friends and takes an overview of the new political landscape.
Well, it wasn't much of a campaign. It certainly didn't do much to seize the national imagination, and the voters stayed away from the polling booths with huge enthusiasm. The war didn't help but beyond that there wasn't very much to build a campaign - or voter interest - on. The manifestos of the four main parties seemed almost interchangeable. But we have our new Parliament and Executive now, and regardless of voter apathy, it will shape the future for all of us as individuals, for Dundee as a city and for the university.
The outcome has been fateful for some close to the Politics department over the last parliament. Tutor Neil Glen's loss of his Dundee City Council seat (by a nail-biting eight votes) was offset by his wife, Marlyn Glen's election to Holyrood at the top of the Labour list for North East Scotland . Another good friend to the department in recent years, John McAllion, moves on after unexpectedly losing his Dundee East Holyrood seat. Dennis Canavan, well-remembered by us from some lively sessions at the Burn, is back as independent for Falkirk West. George Reid, who has been a great help in developing the department's links with Holyrood, has become Presiding Officer. He replaces our recent guest, Sir David Steel, who promised us some real revelations once free of the enforced discretion of his office. Mary Scanlon, a Dundee alumnus who gave a terrific welcoming address to our Politics intake this year, is also back at Holyrood via the Conservative list for Highlands and Islands.
Among the party leaders who visited us during Alex Wright's 'New Scotland, Politics' lunchtime lecture series during the last parliament, Alex Salmond isn't one any more. Tommy Sheridan, though, kept his Glasgow list seat for the SSP - and saw its representation grow six-fold in this election. David McLetchie would no doubt have liked to have done the same - but had to be satisfied with 'upgrading' his list seat for the Edinburgh Pentlands constituency. Jim Wallace has also enhanced his party's position in the new parliament and is now a deputy First Minister with much greater political leverage than before.
What about the broader picture? The gap left where electoral excitement failed to appear has meant that media commentators were a bit lost for an 'angle' on the election. What they seem to have come up with is the claim that the growth in smaller party and independent MSPs is some sort of defining moment for the entire devolution project - the writing on the wall for big party dominance at Holyrood.
Well, up to a point, perhaps. But it might be as easy to argue that the growth in 'marginal' representation at Holyrood should have been much, much greater if that was what the country really wanted. Shouldn't it have been the case that the 'list member' element of the Holyrood voting system (along with the 'third decision' on May 1st - for the local council) should have produced a more dramatic departure from Scotland's four party system?
There was every sign that voters now knew how the poll actually works. I expect I wasn't alone in using it to break the tribal grip that used to fix my cross in one box in election after election. Admittedly, the war helped in this process of 'dealignment', but this time, for the first time, I voted for three separate parties on the day (or rather two individuals who happened to represent parties and one other party). And, it would seem obvious that younger voters, who are much less troubled by their political genes than those of my age, would have been even more likely to use the system to its fullest.
But what was the result - what is the fabric of the supposed new political world? Out of 128 seats at Holyrood (73 of which are from the 'proportional' list) a total of 17 are not held by the major parties. Moreover, of the four independents among these, two built their careers in established parties with which they later parted company. Nor do the 17 form any sort of 'bloc' other than in the negative sense of not being part of the big four. There is at least as much separating them from each other as there is between them and the established parties. A few barricades short of a revolution, then, I would suggest.
Still, the possibilities of a more radical second parliament at Holyrood still look good. Predictions at this stage are tricky - if not professionally reckless. I recall the department's September 1999 conference on the prospects for the first parliament where a most distinguished scholar of Scottish politics announced with indomitable confidence that the Executive coalition would collapse 'by Christmas'. Nevertheless, here goes: