Sketch: MSPs have squawkward conversations

“I take these concerns seriously,” a government minister sombrely declares in the chamber of the Scottish Parliament. MSPs are discussing an issue that’s become “polarised”, he adds, so it’s important to find “common ground”. It will require a “coordinated national approach”, members are told, but the government is keen to work with local government, businesses, and communities.

It’s a profound and critical statement. These are, after all, difficult times. Communities should not have to put up with “persistent noise” or “aggressive” behaviour or “damage to property”, the minister says with all the solemnity the topic deserves.

It is no laughing matter. The seagulls have become a real problem.

This is agriculture minister Jim Fairlie’s defining moment. Is being an MSP everything he dreamed it would be? Is this the topic he hoped to focus on when he was invited into government?

It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious

Fairlie goes on to insist action is being taken “at pace”. Well, sure, gulls are speedy. They have wings.

It’s why he convened a gull summit. Not a summit for gulls, you understand, but to talk about them. Though it did include “key stakeholders” so maybe gulls should have been invited. Nothing about us without us, right? Maybe that’s who Douglas Ross is referring to when he moans about it being a “sham” summit.

“Are you going to listen? Are you going to listen?” Fairlie shouts across the chamber at Ross. Easy, now. Ross has already set the cat among the birds once and forced a ministerial resignation.

Taking a breath, Fairlie gets back to his feet. He recognises the “strength of feeling” in the room, not least his own. That’s why it is time, he announces, to move “from reactive control to preventive management”. It doesn’t sound like a good time to be a seagull, does it?

“Individual households” must start to take responsibility, he says. Is he condoning a vigilante approach to tackle gangs of gulls? No, there will be “regional roundtables” around the country instead. Roundtables which may or may not include a banquet of four and twenty seagulls baked in a pie.

One major problem, he continues, is the “significant gap in our understanding of gull behaviour”. You’ve got to be the bird, act like the bird, get into the mindset of the bird to truly understand what they want. After all, if it walks like a duck…

Failing that, it’s possible to apply for a gull licence, he says. A licence to gull. So much for ending violence against women and gulls.

The self-crowned gull guerrilla Douglas Ross is incredulous at some of the proposals that came out of the summit. He tells the chamber attendees were told that, “to deter the gulls, when you’re walking down the high street people should walk around waving their arms because it would stop the gulls swooping on you”. He raises his own arms and waves them around, for the visual learners in the room.

Clearly not one of them understands the complexity of a bird’s brain

Alternatively, people could try to “draw eyes” on food containers because “gulls are scared of being stared at”. And people should take photos of nests with a newspaper next to them to confirm the date – like some sort of weird hostage situation.

“It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious,” he adds. I beg to differ. This is all very, very funny.

“The jokers on the other side there are clearly not taking this seriously,” Fairlie hits back. On the summit, he insists the people who “needed to be in the room” were there, not those who are only interested in “grandstanding” like Ross. Does grandstanding often include mimicking those dancing, inflatable tube men?

Fairlie continues his diatribe, discouraged the matter isn’t being treated seriously. “Yes, they talked about googly eyes on takeaway boxes. Yes, they talked about waving their arms in order to distract birds. Yes, they also talked about staring at seagulls because seagulls do not like eye contact.

“They [the Tories] can sit and laugh, they can sit and joke about this, they are the ones who brought this to this chamber – so if they want to have a serious discussion, let’s have a serious discussion. Clearly not one of them understands the complexity of a bird’s brain.” Burn.

Yet, it’s true that not everyone in the room considers the issue to be very serious. SNP MSP Christine Grahame says the solution is simple. “No food, no urban gulls. That’s it.” Has the government tried starving the seagulls?

Grahame is at the end of her feather… er, tether. The Tories have forced MSPs to use “precious parliamentary time” to talk about seagulls, instead of more pressing matters. “Can this be the last time we use our valuable parliamentary time talking about gulls? It is making a mockery of this place.” Who gives a flock?