Fuck Donald Dewar, Henry McLeish, that nyaffy wee shite stain of a machine politics placeman who resigned as First Minister over an expenses scandal is the real symbol of Scottish politics and devolution. Like the Scottish parliament, McLeish tried out for the premier league (Leeds United), but ended up in the second division (East Fife). Similarly, like so many of the mediocrities that have sat and sit as MSPs, McLeish is a public sector man born and bred given after football he taught Town and Country Planning, which would add a potentially quaint aspect to it all if planning didn't involve local council jobsworths disruptively imposing Stalinist notions of a good life on the rest of us give or take pocketing backhanders for pushing cheeky wee property developments through on the QT. And does anyone have any memory of him ever no coming across as utterly average at best?
So for me the life history, behaviour, values, experience and "achievements" of that curly heided muppet tells us all we need to know about the true nature of the forthcoming Scottish elections. It’s like fer fuck sake when you think about the candidates, like I have no idea who the Labour lot are individually, but am guessing en masse it's a load of career shifter brains who are the son of or married to someone with clout in the Labour party plus some former teachers who couldn’t get promoted before they fired themselves into being councillors. And fuck only knows about the Tories also, like is it the usual shiteload of scrabblingly, upwardly mobile chancers, Bearsden/Morningside respectables plus the odd aristo? LibDems? Who cares given they’re gonna get utterly fucked, which just leaves the SNP.
Now to be fair Alex Salmond stands out a mile in the parliament compared to pretty much everyone else, except that’s because by British standards he’s middle ranking as opposed to an utter fucking no-mark i.e. its no that he’s that good, rather its that the rest of them are so utterly fucking shite. Aside from him though fuck knows, like besides Alex there are some genuinely interesting figures, but also some utter mental SNPers who, from personal experience, unthinkingly go the whole hog on blut und boden notions of nationality. Plus, there’s some public sector jokes who’ve fallen for the SNP as standard bearers of the Scottish social democratic tradition/to the left of Labour shite and all that. As to what that leaves the answer is fuck knows (and certainly not they wee arrogant, smug Green bastards let alone Margo McDonald).
So yeah, the Scottish election is looming, one where the reality and the future have already been determined by the credit crunch, which the candidates will presumably have a sound grasp of both in terms of its causes and consequences for the electorate. More than that, I'm sure they’ll be able to articulate what that means in terms of practical policy measures as opposed to moaning on about Whitehall being mean to all us Jock Tamson's Bairns and how that means they can't throw as many taxpayer fivers at things as they used. Alternatively, the forthcoming election, the calibre of the candidates involved, the debates and associated examples of mediocrity will provide ample evidence as to why the idea of an independent Scotland is a big fucking, scary joke.
(What actually makes it scarier AND more tragic is things like the
Institute of Governance at Edinburgh University where serious attempts by reasonably clever people were made at providing a devolved Scotland with the intellectual infrastructure needed to be well devolved really. You wonder what the academics there actuallty think about it all, like are they
too nationalistic to see, are they ever hopeful that one day some political prince - but no one of they Italian types - will come, do they simply cringe in-between filling out funding applications or are they so ivory towered as to no give a fuck?
Christopher Harvie will have a view I'm sure).
