We stood at the graveside with polished shoes on wet grass, squalls of rain driving into our faces, the words of committal from Canon MacLean being carried away by the gusting wind. We were laying to rest in Dalmally cemetery in Argyll my good friend and former MSP colleague Jamie McGrigor who passed away a fortnight ago.
Sir James Angus Rhoderick Neil McGrigor, Baronet, to give him his full designation, had served as Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands from 1999 to 2016. On stepping down from Holyrood, he then did a term as a local councillor in Argyll and Bute. His long record of public service was recognised by the large attendance on Monday, those present braving Storm Floris to pay their respects.
Jamie was someone perhaps best described as “a real character”, and some stories of his life were recounted at the funeral service. He was always a tremendous fun person to be with, ready with a joke or a tune and a self-penned bawdy song on his guitar.
He famously once took a flock of sheep to sell at Dalmally market, but whilst there accepted the offer of too many drams and inadvertently brought back his own flock. He learned that the way to avoid a repetition was to discretely pour over-generous whisky measures into his wellies.
Despite his Eton education and aristocratic background, Jamie had a real feel for the issues that mattered to his Highlands and Islands constituents, many of whom held him in great affection.
At the service we heard how one Lewis crofter was so taken with him that he named his sheepdog puppy Jamie McGrigor in his honour. He was so far from the stereotypical image of a modern politician, but that did not seem to have any negative impact on his popularity.
It was as I was driving to Dalmally on Monday that I heard the news through the car radio that Kate Forbes had announced she would be stepping down from Holyrood at next year’s election. This represents a significant loss to the parliament as a whole, and indeed to the SNP and the Scottish Government in which she currently serves as Deputy First Minister.
I shadowed Kate Forbes in her roles both as Finance Secretary and then leading for the Scottish Government on the economy, and I have a great deal of respect for her as an individual. She was popular with the business community, although it is fair to say that there are times when she struggled to reconcile her personal ambitions in the brief with her party’s track record on issues such as taxation and destructive legislation. Her departure leaves a significant hole at the top of the SNP, particularly in relation to the pursuit of a pro-business agenda.
A little like Jamie McGrigor, Kate Forbes is someone who holds views which might be politely described as unfashionable. When she stood for the SNP leadership after Nicola Sturgeon stepped down in 2023, there was an enormous media focus on her socially conservative views.
As a committed Christian, she opposes same-sex marriage, is pro-life, and is hostile to the SNP stance on gender reform. Her stated positions appalled many of her party colleagues who were trenchant in their opinions that this made her entirely unsuitable to hold office as leader of their party and indeed as Scotland’s First Minister.
Some of those who on Monday were expressing sorrow at her departure, such as First Minister John Swinney, were the first to condemn her opinions when she stood for the SNP leadership, proving they either have short memories or are the rankest of hypocrites.
Whilst Kate Forbes’ views on social issues might have appalled her parliamentary colleagues, they did not seem to go down so negatively elsewhere. She came within a whisker of defeating Humza Yousaf for the SNP leadership, despite the monstering she had received in the press.
And opinion polling at the time suggested that she was by some margin the public’s choice to lead the Scottish Government, demonstrating much more openness amongst the voters for someone who might hold unfashionable views, but nevertheless was not afraid to express them unapologetically.
Jamie McGrigor represented a very different party to Kate Forbes’ SNP, and he may have had few opinions in common with her. But he perhaps had a similar character, in that, like her, he was an individual who would not simply toe a party line but was prepared to think for himself. I suspect that today neither of them would easily pass candidate vetting for their respective parties. And yet they both proved to be successes in the fields in which they operated.
Holyrood has too few MSPs prepared to challenge the orthodoxy. We know, for example, that a large majority of the Scottish public were opposed to gender reform but, outwith the ranks of the Scottish Conservatives, it was only a handful of MSPs in other parties who were prepared to defy their leaderships to vote against the Gender Recognition Reform Bill.
Next year’s Holyrood election is likely to see one of the largest turnovers amongst MSPs that we have ever seen, not least because of the large number of SNP members who have indicated that they will be standing down, Kate Forbes being the latest.
We often hear about the need for parliament to be more ‘diverse’, which usually means that there should be more MSPs from varied ethnic and social backgrounds. Whilst that is a laudable aim, what we really need is more diversity in terms of opinions.
Amongst the new cohort elected next year, we must see more people of independent mind, who will at times be prepared to defy the party whips and stand up for what they really believe in. After more than a quarter of a century of devolution, it is the least that the public should be demanding.
Murdo's column was printed in The Scotsman on August 6, 2025.
