Holyrood parties face big challenges and the constitutional issue is central to them in differing ways
IT'S time. Time for a change. Time to move on. This is the last column from this writer which will appear in this position in this paper. A new and extremely challenging role on the business desk awaits.
Sadly, it means no time for the glorious se
lf-indulgence of expressing a weekly opinion on the affairs of the nation.
The world of politics is a continuously fascinating one. There is always something new. Political parties take power and always, in the end, lose it. Politicians' fortunes ebb and flow. Plots and conspiracies abound. Policies evolve and change.
Over time, the decisions made by our elected representatives really do "make a difference", a phrase politicians use frequently, to the lives of the poor, long-suffering voters whose interests they are supposed to represent. Politics matters.
And having spent many years at both Westminster and Holyrood as a reporter – and worked, albeit for only a year, on the "dark side" as a special adviser to former First Minister Henry McLeish – politics had become like a drug. It is addictive, hard to kick. It induces an urge to go back for another hit. And another. And another.
But it is time to confront the addiction, something that counsellors will tell you can only be done if the subject wants to. This addict does, and reporting the world of business, vital to the success of this country, will be a way of remaining "clean".
Departing for new pastures is traditionally a reason to reflect. The temptation is to look back, to muse on what might have been, to settle a few old scores along the way. It is a temptation best resisted. What's done is done and cannot be undone.
So, instead, let us look forward to what could be and what should be in politics as it relates to Scotland. Few people would dispute that the election of an SNP government at Holyrood last May has given the Scottish Parliament a much-needed injection of democratic adrenaline.
It has been a theme of these columns that a Labour and Liberal Democrat administration grown stale and tired has been replaced by a party which was finally fit to govern, and prepared to do so.
Alex Salmond has had a rumbustious start to his premiership, resolutely refusing to be taken for granted by Westminster politicians, bristling on behalf of Scotland at every sleight, real or perceived.
A naturally belligerent politician, Mr Salmond tempered his style during the election and has generally resisted what even some of his party colleagues admit is a tendency to descend into hubris.
Mr Salmond's approach has, so far, been remarkably successful. The public seem to like his spikey approach to Westminster, his assertion of Scottishness, and appear to blame Gordon Brown, not the First Minister, for the chilly cross-Border relations.
In domestic policies, the SNP has been populist and is popular as a result. John Swinney's astute handing of the move to freeze council tax across Scotland has gone down well with voters, as has the initiative to reverse accident and emergency unit closures.
It has been, to use another theme from these columns, populism with a purpose, the purpose being to persuade the voters of Scotland that, first, the SNP could run the country under the devolved powers, but to reinforce the message that what the nation requires is independence.
And what strikes this columnist most about the time spent directly covering – or when engaged on a Westminster beat, merely closely observing – Scottish politics, is that the constitution question that has underlain modern Caledonian discourse remains.
Despite the best efforts of first Tory and then Labour politicians, much of Scottish politics still centres on the constitutional. The status of Scotland as a nation within a larger state, and the conflict and the anomalies that this throws up, makes that inevitable.
The consequences of that are uncomfortable for all of the major parties. For the SNP, there is the grave danger of conflating their current popularity with support for independence. They may be popular, but polls shows no desire for separation from the UK.
The Achilles heel of the Nationalists is the fundamental belief that many, though not all, have: that support for independence equates with patriotism. It is a mindset which deep, deep down simply cannot comprehend that one can be a Scottish patriot and not support independence. It is a weakness over which the SNP has yet to be properly confronted.
The test for the other political parties is, if anything, greater. They must find a way of demonstrating both that devolution can evolve – more power for Holyrood seems inevitable now – and make a convincing case for the retention of a United Kingdom.
So as a column is for the expression of opinion, here is a penultimate one: it is my belief that Scots do not want to end the Union, merely to modify it, possibly quite radically.
This will mean that Scotland will have to shoulder a greater responsibility for running her own affairs, including raising more, if not all, of the money that is spent here. That process may not be comfortable, but it will be worthwhile in the long term.
And one final opinion offered sincerely to those politicians who must make the case for a new Union: they should take their inspiration from the insight of John P Mackintosh, the late Labour MP for East Lothian and pioneer of the home-rule movement.
His simple, eloquent words, carved into the threshold of the Donald Dewar Room at Holyrood, read: "People in Scotland want a degree of government for themselves. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise institutions to meet these demands."
The full article contains 978 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
