Politicians often strive to present themselves as empathetic and understanding figures, though the success of these efforts varies considerably. Their attempts typically involve delivering rehearsed platitudes and expressions of sympathy, which occasionally resonate with voters who are open to believing in their sincerity.
Yet, much like a performance that fails to convince, these gestures sometimes feel as authentic as a Hannibal Lecter smile. Despite this, some observers may still extend the benefit of the doubt, hoping for genuine intentions behind the façade.
However, the public’s patience is wearing thin. It is becoming increasingly apparent that many political figures are indifferent to the concerns of the people they claim to serve. This growing cynicism is fueled by a sense that politicians, along with their entourages, regard the public with disdain or even contempt.
Consider, for instance, the briefing notes prepared for Health Secretary Neil Gray prior to his testimony to Members of Parliament concerning the controversial heroin consumption facility. Such instances raise questions about the sincerity of those in power and their genuine interest in addressing the issues that matter most to citizens.
Worse than that, they regard us either with disdain or even outright contempt, and the same goes for all their flunkeys.
How else to explain the briefing notes handed to Health Secretary Neil Gray before he gave evidence to MPs about the heroin shooting gallery?
For months, many people living nearby had warned there were more addicts openly injecting – in some cases only yards away from the ‘safer consumption room’ in the Calton district in Glasgow’s East End.
The UK’s first official consumption room for illegal drugs including heroin and cocaine is in Glasgow
Health Secretary Neil Gray has defended the project despite concerns raised by locals
Addicts can visit The Thistle and inject themselves with their own drugs under the supervision of doctors
Addicts are encouraged to come to the clinic to inject themselves with their own drugs under medical supervision – and there are even plans for a crack cocaine inhalation room.
Discarded needles abound in the area which has degenerated into a war zone, but the officials drawing up
talking points for Mr Gray dismissed their concerns. It was the usual suspects stirring up trouble, or so they said.
But don’t worry, minister, health and council bosses running the facility (at a cost of more than £2million a year) assure us it’s all going to plan.
As the Mail reported on Saturday, the internal briefing paper said criticism of The Thistle, as the facility is called, had been ‘orchestrated’ by those who were ‘always opposed’ to the project – and who had ‘never had any interest or engagement’ in Calton.
Officials even suggested that some of the information shared locally at events was ‘incorrect’ and ‘stoking ill-feeling in the community’.
Naturally, media coverage was condemned as ‘very emotive and stigmatising’ – a common form of scapegoating known as shooting the messenger.
Rightly, campaigner Annemarie Ward said the officials were ‘gaslighting’ entire communities, at a time when drug deaths in Scotland remain at the highest level in Europe.
The content of the paper for Mr Gray, and the sick smears it contained, only came to light when it was unearthed under freedom of information laws, giving us a glimpse into what the political class and their staff really think of us.
You can bet that none of them live in Calton – and if they did they would be just as worried about needles lying around in playparks or on the streets as those parents who have spoken out about the risk to their kids.
The SNP’s failure to curb drug deaths is one of the great social catastrophes in Scotland – and it patently has no clue how to resolve the crisis.
Instead, it denigrates those who took a stand, a tactic familiar to anyone who remembers the ‘debate’ on gender self-ID when people who disagreed with the government’s line were traduced and demonised.
The same applied at the time of Named Person, the deeply sinister scheme which sought to appoint state guardians for all children, even those in the womb.
It was the kind of idea which George Orwell might have rejected as a bit OTT, but it was SNP policy for years until campaigners finally derailed it by going to the courts.
Humza Yousaf even alleged that opponents of the Named Person plan were actually putting children’s lives at risk. ‘Government knows best’ is the strategy but it has failed miserably – because it plainly doesn’t.
It’s also obvious that they long ago gave up caring, if they ever did, about the relatively small-scale stuff which really shouldn’t be as tough as they make it look.
Take the ditching of a licensing plan for fireworks, something which might have made a tangible difference to many people who live in fear as Bonfire Night looms. It was quietly dropped despite having been hailed as ‘groundbreaking’ at the time, but the fanfare fizzled out.
The plans to license the buying of fireworks and restrict sales to just a few days a year was abandoned in favour of ‘focusing our resources on front-line public services, including police and fire’.
You can see how well that’s going by looking at the state of our single police force, as a diminished rump of demoralised officers fight rising crime. This is another type of ‘gaslighting’ – but we’re expected to swallow the line with no further explanation.
Either they can’t be bothered to make it work or they know it would be a disaster, like every other Nationalist policy.
Yet surely it’s not beyond the wit of government – even this one – to implement a fireworks crackdown that at least stands a chance of working.
It might have restored a semblance of order to communities terrorised by yobs throwing flaming projectiles around in the street (and often at those supposedly well-resourced cops).
If devolution can’t deliver a relatively minor change – albeit one that would make a huge difference to many people – then what’s the point of it?
Our political masters don’t care, and probably never have, which explains why the elderly and vulnerable are being left to fend for themselves – as the fireworks thugs gear up for another onslaught.
Then there’s all those fantasies we are force-fed by the SNP about independence, and the good times that lie ahead if only we’d take the plunge.
This is also a form of contempt because it’s an insult to our intelligence – anyone can see that all of the big questions about separatism, including currency, remain unanswered.
But the SNP insists on churning out toxic bilge about the socialist nirvana it would build if it were freed of the UK Government’s tyrannous yoke.
The civil service which primed Mr Gray with material to paint Calton families as liars was also dragooned into turning out ‘papers’ on how an independent Scotland would work.
Campaigner Annemarie Ward says officials are ‘gaslighting’ entire communities
They don’t know how to run the country effectively now, so what makes anyone think they’d do a better job starting from scratch in the aftermath of the break-up of the UK?
Contempt works both ways, and it accurately describes the attitude of a growing number of voters who are sick of the incompetence of government, and the way that it minimises the problems in their lives – or simply pretends they don’t exist.
That explains why Reform UK is riding high, coming in second behind the SNP in a poll of voting intentions for the Holyrood election in May.
It’s a product of an erosion of trust, and a recognition that the political elite and their bag-carriers don’t care what we think, and don’t care (or even know) what matters to most Scots and their families.
The disillusionment is bound to grow exponentially for as long as we have politicians and civil servants who treat us like fools.
