What won't show in your parliamentary monitoring

Good briefings are skimmable

When I was writing briefings for politicians before I was elected, I was like, ‘This is awful, I didn’t have enough time to write this.’ And then it turns out the member of parliament also might only have 10 minutes to write their speech using that briefing. The pace of parliament is hard: something I would usually spend a day on, you have to do in five minutes.

The briefings I have found really helpful include a few clear key points we’d want to come out during the debate; particular points we’d like to see movement from the Scottish government on; quotes from people who are experiencing whatever the issue is, or an amalgamation of what the organisation is experiencing in that area. And statistics are not unhelpful either. The main thing is it needs to be skimmable.

The 30-minute meeting culture is extractive

There’s this culture of 30-minute meetings with stakeholders which feels extractive to me. I remember when I was on the other side, working in and around the Middle East, especially on Yemen. You’d come in and meet a decision maker, and they’d be like ‘Tell me the one thing you need me to do on Yemen.’ Everyone just panics because there isn’t just one thing to do on Yemen. I’m worried about becoming that: asking people to tell me what to do, when actually there’s no reason why that grassroots organisation should understand how parliament works.

The heft of large organisations

What’s a shame is that it’s the larger organisations with the greater capacity, and dedicated public affairs or policy people, that can turn briefings around fast. What it means is that I don’t then hear in the same way from the grassroots organisations that, for the kinds of issues I want to talk about, are probably more important. I can’t ask grassroots organisations to send me briefings—we get told what the debate is one day ahead of the debate. So how do I get that kind of useful feedback loop so grassroots organisations are feeding in useful things I can then use? I don’t know what the answer is.

Use the attack as the frame (don’t tell the framers)

I really appreciate how Zack Polanski has dealt with attacks. Let’s say the media do lots of anti-Polanski messages, like ‘Zack wants to legalise all drugs, isn't that nonsense?’ He’ll use that in his own communications, and be like, ‘This is what everyone’s saying about me, and this is our process for legalising drugs, and why we want to do it.’ He repeats the frame and then leads it as the foundation for his argument. That’s quite brave, it’s a hard thing to do, but it does seem to be working.

What won’t show up in your parliamentary monitoring

What you find in parliamentary debates is that people are looking around at you and nodding, and I’m looking around at people from other political parties and nodding back at them. We’re building relationships nonverbally; we’re making eye contact and being like, ‘Yeah, what you’re saying is helpful to this, we’re on the same page here’.

You would never get reporting of ‘these members of parliament were nodding at each other’, or ‘Dawn Black and Kate Nevens nodded at each other’, but it’s really meaningful. It says more than what was actually said. I wonder how often that is the case, and how often the media warp our view of what politicians are doing and how they’re thinking.

It’s the media who toxify politics

I remember the Fawcett report about how toxic Westminster is for young people. I was worried about how toxic it might feel within the Scottish Parliament: this is a space for decision makers and people with power. Actually, I’ve found the feel of parliament outside of chambers very welcoming and inclusive, and that includes the Reform MSPs. While we may be disagreeing in the chamber, it doesn’t feel like anyone shouldn’t be here. The only people making any of us feel we shouldn’t be here are the media.

A new majority brings a new culture

I wonder how much this is impacted by there being a lot of new MSPs. We have the largest group of new MSPs ever, it’s a majority, 60-something. Maybe we’re bringing in a different culture, maybe this has always happened, I’m not sure. But maybe because we’re all sort of testing the waters and being like, ‘How do we do this?’, maybe we’re doing it a bit differently.

There’s a bit of solidarity in that we’re all learning together. We don’t quite know what we’re doing… am I supposed to do this way? Who am I talking to? What button am I pressing right now? The presiding officer and deputy presiding officers are also being very kind about us not quite getting it right yet, not quite having the systems down yet.

→ N.B. Kate was elected to the Scottish parliament in May 2026.

What is an effective political argument?

Is it about bringing other politicians along with me? Is it about bringing the public along with me? Is that then saying something the media will pick up and run with, for better or worse? Is it about saying things others aren’t willing to say? I wonder if there’s a time and a place for all these things. There’s not one effective way of making a political argument, there’s different ways for different reasons.

Thank you to the 130 of you who have referred colleagues to this newsletter. The views expressed in Policy Unstuck interviews are those of the interviewee, and do not necessarily represent Cast from Clay’s view. You can read our editorial guidelines for more information on the goals, process, and formatting of this series.