New Statesman Scotland

It ill becomes a Roman Catholic cardinal to start throwing teddy out of the cot just because he doesn't get his own way. Which is what His Eminence Cardinal Tom Winning seemed to be doing when he reviled the Scottish Parliament as an "utter failure" for persisting with its plan to scrap Section 2a (or Clause 28 as it is better, if inaccurately, known) and sticking to a "politically correct" agenda. Umbrage was duly taken. The Church of Scotland denounced Cardinal Winning for risking "damage to relationships between those who serve the nation politically and those who serve the nation in the churches", while the renowned parliament-backer Canon Kenyon Wright (Episcopalian) chided the Pope's man in Scotland for his narrow view and gross exaggeration.

And while Labour MSPs were keeping their heads below the parapet (fearful of the West of Scotland Catholic vote), the Tory whip, Lord James Douglas- Hamilton, did not hesitate to enter the fray. He dropped a note to His Eminence to say that, while he shared the concern over the way the Scottish Executive seems to have ignored public opinion, he was "naturally concerned by the implication that the Scottish Parliament as an institution is somehow to blame".

Cardinal Winning's remarks strike this diary as a case of the (ecclesiastical) pot calling the (parliamentary) kettle black. The Scottish Parliament may be having some trouble getting its act together, but it has only been at it for a year. The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has had about 1,500 years to do the same and seems to be failing dismally. Church membership is haemorrhaging, Catholic school rolls are collapsing, schools are being closed and fewer and fewer young Scots are showing any enthusiasm for the priesthood or the nunnery. "Utter failure" seems a reasonable description for the state of the institution over which Cardinal Winning presides.

Meanwhile, back at that hole in the ground at the bottom of Holyrood Road. The Scottish Parliament's corporate body is now advertising in the public prints for a "Project Director" (their capitals) to see the Miralles masterpiece to completion. Through a firm of Glasgow-based headhunters, the parliamentarians are seeking a "dynamic individual" with all the "necessary professional qualifications and experience" to see the building up and running "within budget and to the specified quality". The wage being dangled in front of potential building-trade miracle-workers is £60,000 a year.

But what is interesting about the job ad is the length of the aforesaid miracle-worker's contract: three years. As job applications and CVs are to be in by the end of June, and allowing a couple of months for interviewing and holidays, the Project Director is not likely to be in place until, say, September 2000. Which means that their contract - and the building programme - will run until September 2003. Is that when we can expect to see our new parliament building? After the next Scottish general election?

Still on the subject of building sites: just what is to happen to that prime piece of city-centre real estate on which stands the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary? And can it be true that, because it is littered with A- and B-listed buildings, it will be sold on to developers for the knock-down price of £10m? This diary would like to bet that, when the time comes to start developing the site beside the Meadows, it will be found that the listed buildings are not quite so important architecturally and/or histori-cally as was once thought. Or that they are stuffed with deadly blue asbestos which cannot be removed without demolishing the buildings.

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