Taking in the all responses to the England and Wales Green Party move to elect a single leader  in Caroline Lucas makes me wonder whether the Scottish Green Party should follow suit.  Jim Killock notes that the move has got the LibDems worried down south, and whilst I haven't been been party to the internal debates in the run up to making the decision to switch it is pleasing to see that English and Welsh Green Party members seem to have returned from their conference with an incredible optimism.

Historically, Greens have been committed to gender balance, and this has been reflected in the Scottish party by the co-convener structure, where one is always a man and the other is always a woman. This is a fine principle, but in practice I don't think it really works. For example, at the moment Robin Harper MSP is one of the Scottish Co-convenors and the other is Alison Johnston,  an Edinburgh Councillor. The principle of co-convenorship is undermined by the fact that these two people have completely different public profiles and levels of influence. You could almost argue that Alison is defacto, a deputy leader anyway.

In this day and age, whether we like it or not, personalities are important in the politics game. Writing this post, I discovered that it's easier to find out who the various people are on the Scottish Green Party Internal Committees than who the party co-conveners are. It was also hard to find out what the party is up to at a local level, despite the fact that Scottish Greens are having a tremendous impact at this level. This gives the impression that the SGP website is more for insiders than potential supporters. Having a single leader, whose face is writ large on the front page of the main SGP website would help potential supporters and journalists identify a human face to the party. It would also help to dispel the perception in some quarters that the Greens are a 'fringe' party.

I don't see any reason why the party cannot retain a commitment to gender balance by ensuring that a male and female must be in the leadership team, whilst moving to a leader/deputy leader structure. Afterall, if it means more Greens get elected....