David Maddox: Lubrication and fetishes make the Holyrood world go round

It must be something about the Nationalists, because two MSP motions of late have added a little colour to the humdrum of Holyrood debate. Livingston MSP Angela Constance has declared an interest in lubricants, while her West of Scotland colleague Bill Wilson wants an end to fetishism.

But before the "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" stuff goes further these motions are on the economy rather than any (ahem!) outside interests

Ms Constance's motion is actually congratulating a firm in her constituency called Specialist Lubricants which has carried out some pioneering work and developed eco-friendly packaging. It has just won a massive contract with Tetra Pak, so has not only helped to save the environment but made loads of money in the process, which goes to prove that capitalism and environmentalism are not mutually exclusive.

Mr Wilson meanwhile has latched on to an academic paper by economics professors Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, which calls for an end to GDP fetishism. It believes that measuring economic success through gross domestic product alone ignores work/ life balance and happiness.

This could be dismissed as leftwing nonsense, but, interestingly, this approach has been accepted by the right of centre French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

It should be said though that Green MSP Patrick Harvie was there first and made a call for a national "happiness indicator" when he became his party's co-convener (joint leader in normal parlance).

Anyway here are the motions for your perusal:

Angela Constance (Livingston) (SNP): Congratulations to Livingston Firm Specialists Lubricants S3M-04825: That the Parliament commends Livingston-based Specialist Lubricants for its pioneering eco-friendly packaging solution that has led to a multi-million pound contract with the global packaging firm Tetra Pak; acknowledges the importance of its development of a more environmentally friendly solution to the traditional soap and water based lubricants systems; pays tribute to the pioneering development work that has resulted in a product that has been proven to save millions of gallons of water each year in bottling facilities worldwide, and wishes the company and its workforce well in future developments and expansion of its customer base as a result of this contract with Tetra Pak.

*S3M-4867 Bill Wilson: Ending the GDP Fetish: That the Parliament welcomes the recent report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, contributed to by economics professors Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz and Jean-Paul Fitoussi, which calls for an end to "GDP fetishism"; believes that an economic approach focused on ever-increasing GDP to the detriment of other factors is unsustainable and has been disastrous for the wellbeing of individuals and the environment; agrees with the report that a new indicator of progress is needed, one that considers issues such as environmental protection and work/life balance as well as economic output, to rate a country’s ability to maintain the sustainable happiness of its inhabitants; notes that, were such methodology to be used, and, as a result, GDP took into account outcomes and not just financial inputs, the United States of America’s apparently large economic lead over France in terms of its GDP would be greatly reduced due to France’s high-quality health service, welfare system and long holidays, all of which contribute to the wellbeing of its inhabitants; commends French President Nicolas Sarkozy for his response to the report, not least his statement that "the [present economic] crisis doesn’t only make us free to imagine other models, another future, another world. It obliges us to do so", and his instruction to France’s national statistics body, Insee, to update its methods in accordance with the report’s recommendations, and calls on the Scottish and UK Governments urgently to follow his lead and to encourage other countries to do so.