In praise of... "elected dictatorship"

The Greens in England & Wales have elected themselves a leader, the - in my view anyway - yummy mummy Caroline Lucas MEP (eat your heart out Sarah Palin). This is of course their first leader, replacing the previous system of dual Principal Speakers, which comes from the same impractical school of thought as making two people equal chairs of a committee.

Ms Lucas is also the Westminster candidate for the Greens in Brighton Pavilion, where the Greens won 22% last time, with the incumbent Labour MP - now standing down - on 35.4%. This is therefore their great hope to finally return an MP of their own. For the sake of progressive politics in the UK Parliament I sincerely hope they are successful. (The SNP may once have had a councillor in Brighton, but they don't have a candidate.)

Up here in Scotland of course the Greens eschew - read 'can't raise the money' - to fight either Westminster or Scottish Parliament constituency contests, except for in isolated cases. Their one constituency candidate - Martin Bartos - ran in my own Glasgow Kelvin last year and took a respectable, if distant, third place. I suspect that if they had actually run 73 constituency candidates they might have found it possible to talk themselves into the TV debates and held a few more of their seats, but that's a hypothetical. I also suspect that if they 'did a Brighton Pavilion' on Edinburgh Central, where they actually topped the regional vote [edit - in 2003] (albeit in what was by the classic definition a six-way marginal), it might bear fruit after a few elections.

Like their southern counterparts, the Scottish Greens also have a dual leadership, or some constitutional contrivance reminiscent of leadership at least. Right now those are Robin Harper, the loveable uncle, and Alison Johnstone, an Edinburgh councillor who I am slightly embarrassed to say I once literally bumped into without recognising.

I think there is an obvious leader for the Greens sitting working away in the form of Patrick Harvie, but I suspect the soft greens who really only care about reintroducing the beaver might object to someone with firm and commendable views on social issues. He is also the last Green I as an outside observer would expect to come out in favour of a single leader.

But the question for me is how can the Greens expect anyone to trust them with political authority if they themselves think they can't even trust a single one of their own to lead their party without her or him turning into the party equivalent of a dictator? The English & Welsh Greens have grown up and might see one or two MPs returned as a result.

In the interests of broadening debate in the Scottish Parliament - and snipping off a Lib Dem or two - maybe the Scottish Greens should consider doing the same.