Party Hack.

"THE SNP has been accused of cronyism after appointing party member Graham Houston to chair the Scottish Qualifications Authority. Mr Houston is leader of Stirling Council and a leading member of the Scottish Nationalist Party."

Mr Smith thinks that perhaps the time has come to take politicians out of the process of appointing senior public sector officials. Maybe the process should be handled independently by a group of qualified HR professionals who make the decision not on the basis that someone is a party hack, but actually on the basis they can do the job. But Mr Smith also thinks that the bleating from Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians is totally hypocritical given that they got away with it during the first right years of devolution in Scotland and they never listened to opposition concerns in appointing their party members to well paid public sector jobs.