It’s what they do that counts

Sir, – Why does Holyrood seem to produce no great orators in the Westminster fashion? I thought Alex Bell was unfair to the members of the Edinburgh parliament,

(The Courier, December 14) not least because it is only 18 years old, whilst the House of Commons has centuries of tradition.

The Commons also has very strong links with the Oxbridge culture, where debating and its procedures were elevated to iconic status.

The people who drew up the modus operandi of the Scottish parliament wanted it to be more business -like and inclusive – more of an emphasis on actually getting things done.

They rejected the more out of date aspects of the club atmosphere, the arcane methods in both of the London chambers.

More importantly there is little doubt that passionate oratory is now seen as obsolete in the digital age.

Great speeches need a sense of occasion and a subject matter that the vast bulk of the population is actually concerned about – an attentive audience.

Winston Churchill, Aneurin Bevan, Michael Foot, Enoch Powell, Martin Luther King Jr, John F Kennedy and Barack Obama understood this.

It would be interesting to know how any of them would stand up to modern television debates or interviews.

Today the message of a great orator tends to be drowned out by more and more technology.

At a time when the public are concerned to see things actually get done, they may well look at the chamber that tries to do that, rather than the one that simply promotes verbiage.

Bob Taylor. 24 Shiel Court, Glenrothes.