David Maddox: The Butler did it!

Labour MSP Bill Butler (pictured) has just intervened in a debate on health board elections to ask Tory MSP Jackson Carlaw what sort of champagne he was drinking.
Whilst Mr Carlaw gives the appearance of being a man of great extravagance, it perhaps is a bit rich from a man who has just made the headlines for trying to claim back a £1 charity donation, even if it was an accident. Mr Carlaw was either too gentlemanly or ill-informed to point this out.
But, to be fair on Mr Butler, he is entitled for some leeway because today's debate on the first stage of the bill to allow direct elections to health boards and its probable conclusion is the culmination of many years of hard work on his part in spreading democracy in Scotland.
His attempts to get direct health board elections were thwarted by his own party in government who were unwilling to take on the opposition to the idea from Scottish NHS boards themselves. The boards seem to believe that they should only be held to account by the health secretary.
With this bill being put forward by the SNP the principle of a minority of board members being elected will be tested in a pilot scheme imposed on an unwilling health board.
Any reporter who has dealt with local health campaigns (hospital closures, maternity unit closures etc), will know that health boards throughout the UK, not just Scotland, have a woeful record in having meaningful consultation with the public and being properly accountable to the people they serve.
So perhaps Mr Carlaw's champagne should be used to toast Mr Butler.