A nice piece written in the Herald about Robin Harper and the run up to the election.

Having a whale of a time on way to Holyrood

Beneath Robin Harper's tough political skin is an old-fashioned enthusiast, finds ROB CRILLY

THANKFULLY the photoshoot ends before anybody asks Robin Harper to kiss the whale. Lucy, a 30ft inflatable whale, has been brought to Leith Shore to highlight the Green manifesto commitment to turn Scottish waters into a whale and dolphin sanctuary.

So for the best part of 40 rain-drenched minutes, Robin Harper has been holding up placards and petting a huge plastic mammal.

Not hugely dignified behaviour for the Green party's principal speaker, sole member of the last parliament and, until March, Edinburgh University rector.

As we board Mr Harper's election battle bus - well, the number 16 to Princes Street - he sets out the difference between this election and the last and how it feels to have become the public face of the environmental movement in Scotland.

"From my point of view it has been very, very different," he says. "It has been a bit like jumping out of an aeroplane and wondering if your parachute will open.

"I've always been very much a hands-on campaigner, wanted to know everything that's going on, but this time as the principal speaker for the party and the person to do all the press work, radio, television, articles for the papers, and so on, it has meant that I've had to devote most of my time to national campaigning.

"Happily, we have three times as many people campaigning in Edinburgh as last time and they are doing extremely well." His trademark enthusiasm is backed by polls that put the Greens on 7% of the top-up vote, enough to see Mr Harper returned with four or more colleagues.

The Green leader disembarks to find a wet and windswept Princes Street.

Shoppers and officeworkers are striding for shelter with an umbrella in one hand and a shopping bag in the other. It is not promising territory for a politician with a pocketful of pledge cards to deliver. He is barely visible beneath his own brolly and waterproofs.

The breakthrough is heralded by a girlish squeal: "Ooooh, Mr Harper, how are you?" It is one of the pupils from his pre-politics life as a teacher - the first of many.

Each time a card is taken, or a voter pledges support, he turns with a huge grin and an incredulous comment: "He took one. I didn't think he would," or "Did you hear that? How many is that now have said they will vote for us?"

It takes all of 20 minutes to get rid of 100 cards, although most of the time is spent catching up with former pupils, old friends, and sometime colleagues. It is a good morning, partly the result of a higher public profile since winning a seat in the 1999 election.

"Back then, people only recognised me on my own patch. I think the neighbours thought it would be nice to have an MSP in the street. Now, even in Glasgow walking down Sauchiehall Street, people were saying hello and good luck in the election," he says.

"Even two years into the last parliament, the change was noticeable. Little old ladies would jab their brollies at me, saying 'I know who you are. You're the Green man. They didn't know my name, but my face and Green went together - even without the scarf."

The Dr Who scarf is absent today even though it has been part of the Harper wardrobe for 20 years. It is still deployed on school visits and frosty mornings, but Mr Harper knows there is a fine line between keeping your neck warm and political gimmickry. "You don't want to be typecast as a fluffy Green," he says in his agreeable, slightly fluffy way.

"Certainly I have survived full-scale, professional treatment if you like on television. I have been treated in exactly the same way as the other party leaders. And it wasn't a question of surviving it - I thoroughly enjoyed it.

"Surviving as a teacher in Crookston in Glasgow and Braehead in Fife, the interview doesn't hold as many fears as people might think."

But beneath the tough political skin is an old-fashioned enthusiast whose optimism sits close to the surface. So if Tony Blair is the trendy vicar, then Robin Harper is the friendly vicar - a slightly stooping figure with a broad grin, just as comfortable manning a tombola and breaking out the organic Battenburg as taking on Messrs McLetchie, McConnell, and the rest.

Only once does the grin disappear. In Morningside, at the start of the day, a passer-by keeps passing by only to hurl an insult over her shoulder. "A lot of people react like that. They think we are all in it for the money," says Mr Harper, looking for all the world like a crestfallen politician - if such a thing is possible.

It isn't long before normal service is resumed with Mr Harper bounding through his plans for May 2.

"We plan to push at open doors. All the parties are green in their manifestos, so we have a big lever to use in the parliament, making sure they live up to the promises."

The Green programme will be a mix of back bench legislation - improving energy conservation in homes among other things - and scrutinising the executive's policies.

He is still talking as we cross the road. A motorist has to stop to let the ambling figure - juggling mobile phone, umbrella, and handful of pledge cards, a satchel balanced over one shoulder - pass. She beeps her horn.

Mr Harper scrambles to the pavement and reaches for one his most severe putdowns: "Well, she obviously doesn't know her Highway Code."

Proof that sometimes nice guys win.

April 29th


Links of interest:


           The Scottish Green Party

        The Lothians Region Green Party web site


                   The Herald