Why are today's Scottish politicians more appealing than the English ones?
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Version 0 of 1. Why are Scottish politicians better than English ones? By better, I mean more persuasive and more likable, and by the plural, I mean more than the obvious example, Nicola Sturgeon. Her predecessor Alex Salmond may have been less universally admired, but he too has made the Westminster leaders look awkward and false. Patrick Harvie, who leads the Scots Greens, is undeniably an improvement on his English equivalent Natalie Bennett, while the Scots Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, has become the most engaging Tory woman in Britain (a title previously held by the woman she replaced, the hard-to-dislike Annabel Goldie). Cameron and Miliband clearly feel they need to advertise their combative personas in case you haven’t noticed them – they tell us, hell yes they do, that they’re “pumped up” and “bloody lively” – which comes close to Arthur Scargill’s old out-of-body habit of referring to himself in the third person. Even a half-awake observer can detect the primitive thespianism in it. Of course, it may be that we find Scottish politicians more convincing simply because, outside Scotland, we see much less of them. Familiarity has still to breed its contempt. But it seems to me that other things may be at work. To imagine that they better represent their electorates, in the sense of exemplifying them, may be too simple: Harvie and Davidson, for example, are from sexual minorities and none of the four named above has children. (In that way, they contradict all the conventional wisdom about “the family” as a key ingredient in a politician’s public image.) Nonetheless, they have an intimacy with their audience that few politicians south of the border have established, perhaps because Scotland is a far smaller and more socially cohesive country, and one that tends to punish what it identifies – sometimes too readily – as pretentious or ersatz. Lady Muck’s ghost forever haunts Stoorie Castle as a warning to those who have got above themselves. Scottish politicians may have been helped, too, by learning their trade in the more sheltered and respectful environment of the Edinburgh parliament, which is a much plainer and more natural place than Westminster, as well as a less-scrutinised one. There, 400 miles from the political control and media obsession of their London headquarters, unionist politicians can learn the habits of independence. “Flying flags at half mast on gov buildings for the death of Saudi king is a steaming pile of nonsense,” Ruth Davidson tweeted in January, speaking for people throughout the UK, including many silent English Tories. For an electorate now bored to screaming point by the rituals of the political interview, in which not even the most obvious truth can be conceded if it conflicts with the party line, that kind of candour begins to be extraordinary. What Scotland’s politicians could learn from football The perceived superiority of the Scottish politician may not last long; this could be its optimum moment. Four or five years ago, football went through a similar phase. About a third of the Premier League’s 20 managers were Scots, and all of them from within a 20-mile radius of Glasgow. This was perplexing. Since the 1980s, Scotland has shown even worse skill at football than England, with little to suggest that a Scottish manager would have any more tactical nous or authority than one from Barnsley or Wolverhampton, or even that he would be cheaper. Perhaps some dumb reasoning by the club owners was to blame: the most successful British manager in history, Sir Alex Ferguson, was Scottish, therefore Scots made good managers. Or perhaps the club owners were subconsciously impressed by accents that stood outside England’s usual divisions of class and geography, and suggested hard work, sound judgment and probity – at least until the Royal Bank of Scotland spoiled that reputation by collapsing. Whatever the case, the last of them was sacked earlier this season, and the influence of Scotland on English football shrank still further. It was once considerable. From the beginnings of the professional game, English clubs hired many of their most skilful players from north of the border. In the early 1960s, when I first went to see them, Scotland’s national sides had at their heart so-called Anglo-Scots who had made the move south: Law, Mackay, White, St John. Today England’s Green party would do well to revive this tradition and put in a transfer bid for Patrick Harvie, to make him the Paddy Crerand of our new political age. Related: Dench and Gatiss lead Donmar and Channel 4 election night first The real election night drama On Monday I was lucky enough to see a dress rehearsal of The Vote at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden in London. Lucky because it will have very few performances, and every seat was filled long ago. A consolation is that the last show can be seen on television on election night. The writer, James Graham, has previously dramatised the struggle of governments to attain and retain power: his play for the National Theatre, This House, told the story of Labour’s minority regime from 1974 to 1979; his television drama, Coalition, imagined the events that joined the Tories to the Lib Dems in 2010. As its title suggests, the new play concerns the humble process that makes these higher struggles possible – the act of voting. Its scene is a fictional London polling station during the final 90 minutes that the ballot boxes are open during next Thursday’s general election. Devised to be broadcast live on More4 during those very same minutes – “real time” in an unusually accurate sense – it offers insights on a big event as that event is actually unfolding. That’s the USP at any rate, though I don’t think the play needs it as an excuse to perform. It’s beautifully written and brilliantly acted by a 44-strong cast that includes many familiar names – Timothy West, Judi Dench, Catherine Tate, Bill Paterson – some of whom are on stage for no more than 10 minutes. It’s funny – it has the mechanics of a farce – but the comic surface sometimes parts to allow a glimpse of things that are more tender and profound. I liked it very much, and never more so than when Mark Gatiss, as the long-suffering presiding officer, finally explodes with exasperation at the arrogance and thoughtlessness of all the people, voters and otherwise, who think it does no harm to break the rules. A good moment: it might have come from an old Hollywood film in which James Stewart affirms the virtues of democracy. A window on our new political world Disillusion with party politics is often thought to belong mainly to the present day, but it has been there for a very long time. Looking at my front window, I think how surprised my father would have been to see the posters we’ve stuck on it. Like many idealists formed in the aftermath of the 1914-18 war, he grew to be bitterly disillusioned by the unmet (perhaps unmeetable) promises of the socialist movement and would often denounce rival parties as “just as bad as each other”. What, then, would he possibly make of a window that advertised not one party, but two: the Greens for wife and son, Labour for husband and daughter. Nose pegs at the ready. |