I visited the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh today for the first time, in a building opened in 2004 and described as “the most modern legislature in the world”. On a tour of the building, it became apparent to me that this was a pertinent symbol of government abuse and disgrace.

When Catalan architect Eric Miralles stood to give his vision for the building of the new Scottish Parliament, he laid a tree branch on the table and said that that was his vision for the building. The building was to spring beautifully ‘from the earth’ around it, with ‘long fingers’ extending into the parkland beyond. Everybody seemed to love the idea, although the project was plagued by controversy from the beginning (for various reasons).

As I surveyed the building, I realised that it was anything but natural and beautiful. It is postmodern; composed of ugly, irregular shapes and random symbols in ghastly formations. On approach, there is no connection with the natural landscape of Arthur’s Seat beyond - it is instead a heinous blemish in that terrain. It lacks elegance, and because it tries so hard to be something that it is not, it lacks any sense of pride in human accomplishment. The building tries so hard to be everything that it ends up being nothing. In fact, it tries so fervently to avoid being a modern celebration of human achievement that it ends up becoming a hideous emblem of human mediocrity. It is as though Miralles was embarrassed to build something that stood, as New York’s World Trade Center did, a monument to human excellence, pride and performance.

Contrast the architecture of the two buildings: the Scottish Parliament’s unascertainability and the Twin Towers’ confident, magnificent statement. The one which cries in desparation, ‘Who are we? What do we stand for?’, the other which declared in a booming voice across the free world, ‘I Am The Shit.’ No wonder it was the target of choice for Al Quaeda.

I was told to use my imagination as I looked around the building; its diagonal lines and boat-modelled skylights and bent poles and indistinguishable cookie-cutter shapes stamped everywhere. What does my imagination have to do with it? Surely Miralles meant to create something in particular? Surely there was some kind of message to his art? Anytime I want I could go and stare at a whitewashed wall and use my imagination to come up with any number of bizarre interpretations, but it would be as interesting as, well, watching a whitewashed wall. I passed by a piece of modern art yesterday near the affluent Regent Terrace in Edinburgh which consisted of 40 empty plastic bottles from various bleaching products hanging from a ceiling. Draw your own conclusions, they say. My conclusion is that it damned-well isn’t art. The Scottish Parliament gave me the same vibe: wishy-washy, artsy-fartsy, namby-pamby, flaky-drakey nonsense, with a sense of unearned, fake profundity palpable in the whole exploit.

In short, I got a sense that the creators of this mangled monstrosity didn’t really know what they wanted to say. The plethora of voices ended up making the whole thing complex and odd and obnoxious. Interestingly, the way in which the Scottish Parliament is ordered as a legislature is not much different: unlike Westminster, it uses the additional member system - a form of proportional representation - to ensure that there are more voices in the political process than the people actually wanted: voices like the Scottish Green Party, the Scottish Socialist Party, and the Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party. Whoopee.

This centrist soup results in some stellar decision-making: one of the latest pieces of legislation to be passed by the Scottish Parliament was the smoking ban which recently came into effect; a law which purports to stop smoking in public places but which actually tells private business owners what they can or cannot do on their own blasted property (DON’T get me started). A bloody horrible law, about which fellow Libertarian Reason blogger Stephen Graham wrote last year in a definitive article at Grumpy Young Man.

In fact, it’s like everything about the Scottish Parliament: politically correct, socially timid, culturally paranoid garbage. Like the rest of UK lawmaking, the silly pandering to liberty-crushing lobbyists, the facade of a ‘modern social democracy’ and the absolute inability of those in power to believe something in principal and SAY SO are frustrating at best. The fact that, in “the most modern legislature in the world”, all indoor signs in English are appended in Scottish Gaelic (a language spoken primarily by dead leprechauns) was astounding to me. What the hell is the use in that? Surely there are more French-speakers visiting the building, for example, than Scottish Gaelic speakers? It’s a political gimmick, like the rest of the Parliament and its building, really.

And if you take nothing else from this article, let me reveal now what should be the most disturbing fact of the day: that the building was TEN TIMES over budget three years later than planned, costing over £431,000,000 (million) pounds - about $804,000,000 (million) dollars - yes, that’s $0.8 BILLION - all of which was paid for by the annoyingly placid taxpayers of Scotland, who are presumably too drunk to have noticed. The huge cost was the subject of an inquiry by Lord Fraser of Carmyllie (the project was originally estimated to cost only about £40m and people wanted to know what the hell had just happened).

I was astonished when I heard its extravagant cost, but maybe at least they’re pleased with the finished product, odious though it might be to the rest of civilised humanity? In a definitive answer to that question, an article appeared in March this year that, had I been Scottish, would have caused me put my foot through something valuable in a fit of rage:

“The Scottish Parliament debating chamber closed on March 2, when a 12-foot-long roof strut slipped from its metal housing and swung over the heads of elected officials. The semi-circular chamber, which seats the 129 members of the Scottish Parliament, was evacuated. Arup, the project’s structural engineering firm, was called in to inspect the 221-pound beam and a fractured bolt.”

Well, there we are then, my Scottish friends. Your tax money at work.

Giles Worsley, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said of the architect:

“Miralles loved metaphor, and the best one for this building comes not from nature but the cinema. When a film comes with a big name and high expectations attached, grossly over time and budget and with the publicity people peddling furiously you can be pretty certain it will be a turkey. And that, sadly, is the best way to describe the Scottish Parliament.”

I second that. The Scottish Parliament debacle is enough to make even the most loony leftie or most righteous rightie a spirited libertarian.

John Wright