We don’t need George: we have hope

Where were you for Bradford West?

Like many others, I was loitering on Twitter, having picked up around midnight that a shock might be in the offing, lured by promises of an announcement around 1.30 am.  By 2.30 we were virtually chanting “Why are we Waiting”.

Some of us were doing so from behind our fingers.  Say it ain’t so, was our refrain, that the Georgeous one was making yet another comeback.  At times like these, I breathe a big sigh of relief to find myself not alone, not the only woman (in particular) immune to George Galloway’s oleaginous political charms.

The result was no less jaw-dropping for all that.  To take a near 6000 majority in a seat dominated by one party since 1974, toss it aside and produce a36.8% swing on a turnout of 51% is awe-inspiring.  You don’t have to like the man to be impressed.

In the days since, there has been much head-scratching, chatter and spin.  Yes, this looks bad for Labour and makes Ed Miliband even more like the hapless Wallace than before.  If he cannot find himself the political equivalent of Gromit and soon, then he will go the way of previous Labour party inventions.  This by-election defeat – for defeat it was for the incumbent constituency party looking to hold the seat at a time when the government has had a spectacular run of bad luck, headlines and decisions – acts as a legbrace for his electoral ambitions.  He approaches all future by-elections with this one dragging on his momentum: if he can avoid other such defeats, it will be removed but in the current climate, that seems a very big if.

And yes, this result is a damning indictment of mainstream establishment politics.  A majority of electors in Bradford West – from all backgrounds, demographics and circumstances – voted a plague on all their houses;  the silence of the non-voters only added to the cacophony.

In this by-election, the voters lashed out:  feel our pain was the message.  The fact that the airwaves and press pages have been dominated by politicians and commentators in England failing to do just that does not augur well.  Expect more Bradford Wests until someone, anyone gets the message.  We must hope that one of the more mainstream, or at least acceptable, parties does, otherwise the chasm between the current political class and the electorate might well be filled than a much more odious and empty political vessel than George Galloway.

Of course, we can, here in Scotland, sit smugly and point to Mr Galloway’s abject failure to secure a seat at Holyrood in last year’s parliamentary elections.  Some might say that the canny Scots can see through the equivalent of a political charlatan (I, of course, could not, for fear of the litigious Mr Galloway’s lawyers).  What he was offering in 2011 was largely similar to what he offered the people of Bradford West in this by-election, so how come they bought it and Glasgow didn’t?

It’s a complex one.  Scotland has had its fair share of firebrand politicians swimming against the prevailing political current, Glasgow more than most.  Perhaps the electorate was just tired of being offered more of the same, knowing that ultimately one maverick does not a movement make.  Riding on the reputation of Tommy Sheridan might not have been such a smart move.  Yes, he retains a small and uber-loyal band of supporters and promoters, but there are an awful lot more people who feel betrayed.  Here was someone who set himself up as a man of the common people, in touch with their concerns and values, who proved to have the same feet of clay as many in the political mainstream.  Many decent Glasgow folk who would like to see the establishment knocked down and different rules brought into play were nonetheless, disgusted at the shenanigans of Mr Sheridan and the impact his behaviour has had on the left of Scottish politics.  To invite comparisons with Tommy might not have been the smartest move George ever made.  The folk of Glasgow had seen and heard his likes before and for whatever reason, this time refused to buy into the rhetoric.

The strong support political parties enjoy from the Asian community in Glasgow is another reason that George’s kite failed to fly. There was no gap within which for him to slide, as there has been in other areas with a strong and populous Muslim community.  Most of the community leaders and many ordinary voters who could help lead a Galloway bandwagon are already engaged with Labour or the SNP.  The existence of crossover between the SNP and George Galloway (and other politicians of the old Scottish left) on issues like defence and foreign policy – with Galloway’s longstanding principles in these areas his most redeeming quality – removes the need for Scottish voters, with or without an Asian background and the influence of faith – to choose a person over a party.

Perhaps the reasons are less to do with personalities and platforms, and more to do with the prevailing political culture in Scotland.  Many of us, this burd included, have been puzzled at the lack of outwardly expressed anger of the Scottish population at all that has gone on since 2008′s financial crash.  There is no doubt that inwardly we are all seething:  it does not take long for any conversation to get round to dissing the bankers, the Tories, the cuts, the costs and the general state we are in.

But we do nothing.  We Scots who can and do march and protest better than anyone else on these islands – see Make Poverty History and Not in our Name, never mind Hands off our Water back in the day – are largely not.  We have been underwhelmed by the Occupy movement and refused to join the rioters of last summer.

Could it be because we have hope?  Despite its current dominance of the Scottish political scene, the SNP has not yet earned mainstream status.  Yet.

There is still an element of voting SNP in rejection of the established way of things, in the knowledge that while the party has worked out how to join the political congregation in its Sunday finery, underneath it might still be wearing something more risque and rather less traditional.  (Those of you reading this while eating breakfast might not want to visualise how that metaphor works for the FM…)

But I think Scottish voters might like that frisson, the fact that they know they are not casting a vote recklessly but still with the prospect of something more radical.  The SNP no longer represents an empty, negative protest vote:  it offers the prospect of something much more positive.  Their core message in recent times of hope not fear is not just an electoral theme but a way of being that is slowly and surely convincing the Scottish people to choose something its own political destiny.  Moreover, by offering a positive alternative – the bizarrely square circle of doing things differently in Scotland by not doing anything different at all from what we know and cherish  – the SNP has shut down the opportunities for political opportunists like George Galloway to seize an electoral moment.

His contrasting fortunes in Glasgow and Bradford West show how far Scots have travelled politically in the last few years, how our path is now a very different one from English politics in particular, and how we are on a journey that the Scottish people show no signs of wanting to end just yet.

The fact that we have not yet decided what our final destination is means that we live in the most exciting of times, for the best of reasons.  We are indeed travelling hopefully and we alone can determine whether or not it is better to arrive.

Could the SNP be losing its charm?

You might find it hard to believe, but this here burd has been hovering over devolution since its inception/reconvening in 1999.  I really have seen them all come and go, heard it all before, and am often amazed at having any smidgeon of idealism left.  I do – I have plenty, probably more than it deserves frankly.  One day, I’m sure, I’ll be stuffed and mounted in a suitably obscure nook and cranny in Holyrood.  This burd woz here.

The earliest days of the Scottish Parliament were like an adult version of How do they do that.  Suddenly a sharp and invasive light was being shone on the workings of government and politicians were lining civil servants up to explain themselves and their arcane workings.  Learning to be accountable – or at least to give sufficient semblance of it so that the parties and their sniffer dogs would go away – was something they learned fast.  They had to.

There were a number of stushies and scandals in the early days.  The biggest was something or other to do with exams and the SQA.  I’d go and google it if I could be bovvered but it is a sign of how things were in those frantic early times that the headlines were dominated for weeks by an issue that caused the nascent Labour-Liberal Democrat administration no end of pain but which now, few can remember the detail of.  Whatever, accountability for errors was demanded and truly received.  Various mandarins’ heads appeared on plates, the quango was reformed and we all moved on.

It’s hard to believe – it’s the kind of tale that historians will recount incredulously, I feel – that we lost a First Minister due to nothing very much at all.  Henry McLeish fell on his sword not because  of double accounting of office sub-lets, rents and parliamentary allowances, but because he could not explain himself on the telly.  I can recall his appearance on BBC Question Time with every toe-curling utterance;  by the time Dimbleby had finished with him, I was literally in the foetal position.  But to have an FM resign over this?  Yep, welcome to the bright, new shiny dawn of Scottish politics where we expect whiter than white and the ability to string a sentence together.

Then we lost a Conservative leader over claiming the odd taxi erroneously for parliamentary responsibilities when he had in fact been on party business.  That little episode was accompanied by the frantic rustling of expense claims all over the old PHQ (it’s now the Missoni Hotel) as staffers and MSPs combed through years’ worth of theirs.  There was also an awful lot of emptying of piggy banks as rogue taxi journeys were suddenly repaid.

When McLetchie finally did the decent thing and took the fall so no-one else had to – good job really or we might not have had an MSP left – the collective sigh of relief was tangible.  No one, least of all McLetchie who seems like a pretty honourable and straight up and down man to me, had ever claimed a taxi journey not quite for purely parliamentary business deliberately;  but that wasn’t the point.  Blood was scented, the political hack-pack got its dander up, and a resignation became inevitable.  In Scotland, like the best, wee country in the world we had become, we like our scandals wee as well.

Over the years, everyone settled down into a rhythm and it all became rather anodyne.   And something key changed the political dynamic, in that the SNP decided to focus on the pursuit of power instead of settling for harrying in opposition.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Once in power, the SNP, having largely forged its political craft in opposition, knew exactly the kind of pitfalls and traps it had to avoid.  Its ability to manage the agenda was made easier thanks largely to the redoubtable and remarkable talents of Kevin Pringle, for whom sleep and holidays are anathema.  Labour, meanwhile, has struggled to work out which way up one opens the box marked opposition and changes in the ranks of political journalists and the loss of specialist correspondents, as well as introspective concern for their own industry’s fortunes, seemed to sap the media’s energy for political dust-ups.

All these – and many more – factors have conspired to provide the SNP with a charmed life.

How else to explain how the SNP escaped unscathed from having the most MSPs, including high-ranking government ministers, of any of the parties to use (and some might say, misuse) the parliamentary allowance scheme which allowed them to purchase flats in Edinburgh, pay the mortgages at the taxpayers’ expense and then sell them, pocketing the often huge capital gain in the process.  Some deigned to offer to pay the capital gains tax – has anyone bothered to check if they did?  We did nothing wrong was the cry at the time, but it didn’t seem very right either.

Currently, we have a brew of incompetence and intransigence of potentially enormous proportions in the failure of the education system and its serried ranks of vested interests to implement in any meaningful fashion the Curriculum for Excellence.   A few weeks ago, the Education Secretary assured us the final and vital phase relating to a switch in exam qualifications would go ahead.  Then he was forced to throw some money at it to help make this happen and now, he has had to offer schools the opportunity to delay if they need to.  Today, the teachers’ unions are bleating for still more concessions.

This is the major flagship education reform of our time.  It is huge and has been nine years in the making.  Work started on implementation as soon as the SNP came into power, five years ago.  And still we are not ready.   To be fair to Mike Russell, he inherited this mess rather than made it and is doing his best to sort it out.  But failure to get this right threatens the life chances of a generation of Scots – it is that serious.   And yet, no one has suggested that heads need to roll.   He is clearly deploying a policy of appeasement in order to get the job done but surely at some point, there needs to be accountability.  The problem is that having learned how to be accountable, many have spent these middle years of devolution mastering the art of how to bury the evidence and get away with it.

Health might prove a turning point.  This week, we’ve had not one but two stones skimmed across the political pond, and they are creating a bit of a bounce.  In the Health Secretary’s back yard, Labour alleged that old people were being left to shiver without blankets in hospital.  Nonsense cried the Government, but then Labour presented the First Minister with Exhibit A – the pensioners in person – this week in Holyrood.  One example does not a scandal make, but if Labour can find more hospital patients experiencing the same indignities, they might be on to something.

If they want to land a blow on the Health Secretary, they have their work cut out.  What’s the best way to diffuse a potential timebomb?  Announce it yourself.   Hence, Nicola Sturgeon, whose political streetsmarts were always way beyond her relatively tender years, laid bare the false accounting of waiting times going on at NHS Lothian and condemned it utterly.  Labour is now asking for an audit in other health board areas.  Deliberate massaging of key health policy is unforgiveable and if there has been wholesale fraud – in its truest sense – then an awful lot of senior health managers and chairpersons might want to start clearing their desks.

At last, Labour is showing small signs of getting its act together in being able to nose out potential scandals that might stick.  To date, the Scottish Government has shown huge skill at delivering on manifesto headlines, even if the reality behind the scenes is much less clearcut.   It has bossed the news agenda to a remarkable degree (despite what the SNP rank and file might think); its attitude to government enthused many government officers and that helped things along.  This gloss, in particular, is wearing thin and implementation “issues” are starting to appear.  Crucially too, the SNP has also enjoyed a very large dollop of luck.

So far, the wind has been set fair for this Scottish Government;  it will be interesting to see how it copes with a change in direction and these, and other as yet unidentified, squalls on the horizon.

Old war horses dragooned into service for the Union

So the Tories go to Troon and launch Friends of the Union.  A little like the Village Green Preservation Society but without a decent choon or chorus.

And who should they haul out of retirement to lead the shebang but Auntie Bella?  She made the best joke of it herself so I won’t even bother trying.  And it’s a role she’ll be well suited to, given that she spent years trying to flog a hopeless cause to an indifferent and unresponsive electorate.  If anyone can save the Union, it won’t be Annabel Goldie.

The Liberal Democrats have also unveiled their secret weapon.  Charlie Kennedy, another former leader of these parts, will be leading their line just as soon as he can make it back to Scotland on a plane.  Something he’s had a little difficulty managing in recent weeks.

And apparently, in the red corner for Labour will be Alistair Darling.  Another of mature years with plenty of experience and time on his hands, now he’s not running the country’s finances into a black hole.  Oh and Gordon Brown has deigned to put in the odd appearance, which is more than he does at Westminster these days.

Of course, all the Scottish leaders are saying that actually they will be in charge.  That’s enough Chiefs for a war council;  in fact, they could end up with more chiefs than indians at this rate.

But isn’t it all so predictable?  Where are the fresh faces to lead the charge to defend the Union?  Or rather the anti-independence campaign, for while they might like to think they are pro-Union I’ve yet to hear a decent argument to be made for staying put.  Instead, what we’ve had is the sad, old usual scare stories and some soundbites amounting to stronger together.

And this lot come with baggage, tonnes of it.  Every utterance and appearance might remind people of their past successes but also of their failures and their parties’ failings too.

I want – and wonder if I’ll wait in vain – for a surprise.  Yes we have a long way to go and yes they are all only getting going.  But go on, just this once, spring one on us.  A name.  Someone new.  Someone with something positive to say about the cause of preserving the old ways. Please.

Already the SNP has its campaign in place and is starting to roll out the supporters.  For sure, it will be the same old at the forefront but the difference is that Alex Salmond is not yesterday’s man, he’s the current leader of his people (all of them, that’s in his party and in the country at large).  He and his team are weel kent faces because they have a role to play in running the country.

But there is a strategy in place to make their yes vote campaign look more like a movement, gathering momentum and people as it goes, rather than a raggle taggle bunch playing their old instruments largely out of tune.  There is no sense of coherence about the anti-istas’ message or theme or how they are going to go about it.  Instead, there appears to be a smug reliance on the current poll ratings, showing just how much work the SNP and others who are pro-independence have to do to get to the mountain top.  Not big, not clever.

So while they rest on the poll ratings, the SNP is getting on with it.  There are new folk pledging allegiance to the independence cause.  Shiny ones too.  Ones that make some of us ooh and ahh, or at least raise our eyebrows.  A steady trickle of folk crossing the rubicon and coming out in favour of going our own way.  Cameron MacNeish was first out of the blocks, joining a pretty starry cast already lined up.  There’s big Sean of course, Elaine C Smith, Alasdair Gray and David Hayman.  More recent converts (or at least, declarers) include James Cosmo, Martin Compston, David Greig, James Robertson, Liz Lochhead, Iain Banks and Lou Hickey.  Even Kyle Falconer – the lead singer of Dundee’s finest, the View – has come out in support.

The thing about all these celeb supporters is that they actually say why they support the cause.  In Falconer’s case, it’s because he thinks it will be good for Scotland’s music industry.  People and purpose:  it’s an intoxicating mix.

Unlike the old war horses who think because it’s aye been that this will be enough.  Of course, a group (groupie?) of celebs and artists does not a mass movement make.  But expect more new faces to pop up between now and 2014 to pledge allegiance to a yes vote.  Some of them might even be ordinary voters, and it will all contribute to the big mo’.

Meanwhile, those arguing for the status quo increasingly look like their namesake band – yesterday’s men, trudging out the tired old hits, trying not to look out of place in among the bright young things on stage, and stretching those waistcoats across their expanding waistlines in the hope that they can make it through one last gig without popping a button. Or worse.