Ruaridh Nicoll: Boyle gets it right

James Boyle has been a troubling man to have in charge of our culture. Scotland's Cultural Commissioner has said some horrible, even stupid, things. 'I walk out of rooms when people start talking about art for art's sake,' for example.

There was also last year's Creative Scotland Awards, when he mocked contemporary art.

So it came as something of a surprise when, 10 days ago, he released a report that Scottish artists can rally behind. At 280 somewhat erratic pages, it takes a little time to digest, yet its main recommendations sing through: £100 million more a year in government investment; a deputy Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sport, smooth passage for the SAC to transform itself into a new body, Culture Scotland, and even the suggestion that the Executive should convince Gordon Brown to offer Irish-style tax breaks on creative incomes.

After so much depressed comment about the commission's work, it's astounding. I have set myself the task of 100 lines: Never underestimate a maverick. Never un...

So what happened? When Boyle was given the job of re-creating Scotland's cultural landscape, of making the 'generational change' that would see us through the next 30 years, there was widespread groaning. Arts organisations need to be able to programme years in advance, and this was an unreadable man. People felt their future was in unsafe hands.

What emerged in the last year suggested much meaningless rhetoric, of the sort seen in recommendation 14: 'That the First Minister invites parliament to adopt an appropriate means of acknowledging the centrality of cultural life in Scotland.' This would sit next to other platitudes such as a child's 'right' to culture.

Now that we see those recommendations, they make sense, because they come mingled with the knockout ideas mentioned earlier. Boyle's vision is tangible, and he presents it in a report easily big enough to beat a sceptical politician to death with, both in its ideas and its weight. So how did he get here?

The answer is the brutal process of politics. When Boyle was given his task by Frank McAveety, then Minister of Culture, Tourism and Sport, he set up the commission's office in Edinburgh's Broughton High School. This was in order to stay at a distance from government.

The trouble is that distance is the same when viewed from either end and he found government backing away from him. McAveety was sacked. Boyle alienated Bridget McConnell, a power in the cabalistic world of local government, while her husband's Executive fought off the concerns of a disillusioned artistic community by poo-pooing the notion that they would have to do what Boyle suggested. This was 'Frank's thing'.

Boyle could have become depressed and faltered. Instead, every few pages, he quoted the First Minister, using sentiment after sentiment from the 2003 St Andrew's Day speech when McConnell said art should be at the heart of everything the Executive does. Then Boyle turned bully. He demanded that McConnell make a statement on his completed report by the coming St Andrew's Day.

To make a profound change, Boyle has realised he requires the unified backing of either the arts community or the Executive. He has plumped for the arts community, and now artists need to support this report.

Boyle is still unsettling, but perhaps the job of securing the future for Scottish culture required a man like this. Now we have to see what the Executive's response might be.

The breath of fresh air that the Scottish Socialists once brought to our dreary politics has digested down into an eye-watering whiff. Thursday's 'protest' in the parliament, in which Colin Fox, Rosie Kane, Carolyn Leckie and Frances Curran 'demonstrated', was straight out of Grange Hill. We voted them into parliament to give them a voice and there they were with placards, the last hope of the voiceless.

It seems any hope that they might provide scouring words to wipe the complacent smiles off the faces of our consensus politicians has faded, and winning an argument, this one about G8 protesters' access to Gleneagles, is not part of the plan.

Of course, there is one SSPer who can fight with words. The problem facing the party's other MSPs is there is a good chance they will get sent home at the next elections, and their erstwhile, naughty leader will return to his rightful place as the SSP's only elected parliamentarian. I have been wondering if, in order to escape this fate, there will be an SNP-style move to push Tommy Sheridan down the party list of candidates.

If there is, there's a good chance there will be no SSPers in Holyrood. That will be sad for those of us who like minority parties, but justice none the less. The presiding officer suspended the 'protesters' last week. If they don't get out and borrow some debating manuals from the library, come the 2007 election, the rest of us should expel them.

ruaridhnicoll@hotmail.com