The rivers flooded last weekend, and it felt a bit like the north of Scotland had been cut off. Which, in turn, felt like a metaphor for our current political predicament.
Who cares about the north? I mean REALLY cares.
In the Outer Hebrides, we’ve been feeling kind of cut off for a while. The ferries don’t sail, and the government doesn’t listen. And it’s hard to see that changing.
The moderate excitement of last week’s by-election victory by Scottish Labour in Rutherglen and Hamilton West is unlikely to herald a new beginning.
Billed as seismic by the victors, it felt more like a hairline crack to me. I’m not sure it will change much in Rutherglen and Hamilton West far less here.
Will Labour listen to highlanders and islanders where the SNP has failed to do so? I confess to a certain pessimism.
But then everything feels tired right now in Scotland, doesn’t it? Perhaps it’s the sheer weight of having to face up to not one but two out-of-touch governments that’s getting us down.
Perhaps it’s the telling circularity of that Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election result.
The constituency has changed hands too often for it to be a bellwether of anything other than the inability of any of our political parties to address their constituents’ needs.
It is pitiful – though also quite instructive – to observe that end-of-day feelings engulf both the Westminster and Holyrood governments at once.
Tories ‘wanted to be put out their misery’
Watching the Tory conference in Manchester last week, one felt they almost wanted to be put out of their misery.
Like a puppy biting its own tail, they longed for a human to intervene, say ‘No!’ firmly but kindly, give them a clap and encourage them to curl up and have wee nap. Like a five-year nap maybe.
In Scotland, meanwhile, we could enjoy the spectacle of both Labour and the SNP drawing all the wrong lessons from the by-election.
Labour saw it as an end to the ambition of independence – or the politics of division, as they prefer to call it – while many SNP activists thought they’d been tonked because the party wasn’t talking about independence enough.
It seems to me that it had nothing to do with independence. In fact, the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election perhaps marks the end of voters being guided by their constitutional preferences in the polling booth.
The result was more about the current Holyrood administration’s arrogant obsession with pushing through policies that sound good over a guava and goji berry smoothie in an Edinburgh juice bar but don’t work in practice.
Highly Protected Marine Areas. The Deposit Return Scheme. The Gender Recognition Reform bill. Short-term let licences. These are all policy areas that could have been addressed in a more measured and sensible way had not our politicians been driven by a kind of boggle-eyed zealotry. Or to put it another way, had not the Scottish Greens been exercising undue influence in government.
We perhaps feel these failures more keenly in the Highlands and Islands where parts of the economy are fragile anyway. Much has been written about the now-canned HPMAs.
But the unnecessarily complex and expensive short-term let licensing scheme has the potential to take out local businesses too.
And to anyone who feels gleeful about that – and there are such people – no, those businesses won’t all be run by rich people from the south of England (who are in any case entitled to run businesses).
Many of them will be run by local residents struggling to make a decent living in an environment that has already been made much more challenging by ongoing infrastructure failures, such as the not-yet-dulled A9 and the seldom sailing ferries.
Given the different political complexions of the Holyrood and Westminster governments, it’s actually kind of weird how symmetrical their infrastructure failures have been.
Sunak abandoned the idea the north of England should have good transport links
By cancelling HS2, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is both abandoning the idea that the north of England should have good transport links and sending a message that GB Plc can’t do big infrastructure projects.
Inadequate roads north and shambolic ferry services tell the same sorry tale about dear old Scotland.
It’s tempting to say that things can only get better. Sadly, that’s not true. But democracies do have a way of purging themselves – and we’re long overdue for a deep clean in both Edinburgh and London.
When it comes, the challenge for the likely victor will be to govern for everyone. Looking north will be a huge part of that.
In Scotland, there will be another task. To recognise that the ambition of independence, which is not defined by any one political party and may not guide disgruntled voters at the next election, is legitimate and should not be met with insult.
Otherwise – and the Labour Party would do well to remember this – no dice.
Fiona Rintoul is an author and translator
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