PERHAPS it’s is because there is an election on the horizon that some MSPs can’t put party politics aside or see that some issues are more important than their petty squabbles.

The debate this week on the Transplantation Bill should have been about the merits of an opt out system of donation and whether or not it would increase the number of available organs.

For many it was. During the debate there were impassioned speeches from SNP, Labour, Tories and LibDems from differing perspectives.

But they were from a minority of the overall number who flood the chamber at decision time to vote on the Bill.

With the narrow margin on which the Bill was defeated every single vote mattered in this case and if two who voted against voted for, it would have been a different outcome.

If they all vote on the merits or otherwise of the Bill it is fair and democratic.

However, if some voted on political grounds or allowed their judgement to be clouded by the personality of some arguing for then it is far from fair.

Sadly there seems to have been an element of that and given the small margins the Bill seems to have been lost to petty politicking.

SNP MSPs including, but not exclusively, Kenny Gibson and Stewart Stevenson gave thoughtful, considered speeches in favour of continuing with the Bill to the next stage and amending where necessary.

Christine Grahame, similarly gave a very articulate account of the legal implications on which she opposed the Bill and why, while she wants to see more donors, it would be wrong for Scots law.

They followed probably the best speech Anne McTaggart has given in the Parliament in her five years as an MSP.

When MSPs who are mostly intelligent, articulate and principled people are allowed to speak their own mind it shows parliament in a positive light and demonstrates politics can be a force for good.

Sadly when party politics barges into a debate like this it has a negative effect.

If some SNP MSPs who were undecided before the debate were convinced not by the arguments of their colleagues but by tribalism, perhaps they should consider another career.

Perhaps there are some who because they are allowed a free vote on their conscience on so few occasions are unable to exercise it properly and have to fall back on the ‘them and us’ divide to make up their minds.

It is the last refuge of the weak willed lobby fodder who bend their will too easily to their party bosses.

They do themselves, the Parliament and the country a disservice.