Politicians are not always known for their emotional armour. For all the theatre and combat of public life, many elected figures can prove remarkably sensitive when scrutiny turns in their direction.
A few minutes of First Minister’s Questions or Prime Minister’s Questions is usually enough to see fair political criticism recast as something far more sinister: not accountability, but an alleged personal assault.
The same pattern plays out in late-night televised clashes between party leaders, where self-styled heavyweights can suddenly wilt the moment a question cuts too close to the bone.
One of the privileges of political journalism is, when the occasion demands it, testing those delicate defences. I do not consider myself naturally unkind, but there is an undeniable satisfaction in exposing the vanity, hypocrisy or sheer absurdity of public figures who have earned the attention.
Perspective, of course, changes everything. Where journalists may see comic oversensitivity among politicians, politicians often see only the unforgiving aggression of the media.
The failing SNP minister rarely recognises himself as such. Like death, the discomfort of an SNP minister’s shortcomings is generally experienced by everyone else. In his own mind, he is a public champion, reshaping lives, building the foundations of a future nation and rehearsing whatever grand story helps him through the day.
Naturally, he will insist he supports a free press. Yet he may also feel that a touch more regulation — or perhaps even a suitable enclosure somewhere inside the Scottish Parliament — would do wonders for keeping troublesome reporters under control.
That enduring tension between those who write and those who are written about came to mind while reading a new report from the think-tank IPPR Scotland.
A survey of former MSPs turned up a cacophony of criticisms from gripes about the way Holyrood operates to complaints about the quality of Scotland’s politicians.
Through a series of ‘exit interviews’ with former parliamentarians – from senior cabinet figures to lowly backbenchers – IPPR found feelings of ‘deep frustration and disillusionment’ with the way politics and policymaking operate at Holyrood.
There were complaints about the quality of both answers given by cabinet secretaries and questions asked by opposition members.
There was harrumphing about the terrible state of Holyrood’s committee system and wailing about the standard of debate.
I could – as those interviewed for this report did – go on but the long and the short of it is that lots of politicians who sat in Holyrood between 2021 and 2026 think that lots of politicians who served over that period were useless.
At this stage, it would appear none have linked their presence in the debating chamber with the decline in standards. A penny spins at the edge of the table, approaching the drop…
Those politicians who engaged with the IPPR survey are protected by the veil of anonymity from behind which they can point the fingers at others.
Often – more often than many MSPs might realise – it’s easy to identify anonymous figures in the political world.
If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know about old rivalries and scores to be settled. In some cases a verbal tic will give it away, as in the case of the former Conservative MSP ‘Frankly’ Bill Aitken, whose quotes always began with that declaration. But I must say I struggle to figure out who any of the people in the IPPR report might be.
During the last parliamentary term, I, and other columnists and commentators, levelled many of the charges laid out by those interviewed by the think-tank but I don’t recall a chorus of agreement from across the Holyrood chamber.
Rather, I remember an air of arrogant defiance from a smugly complacent government and despair from unfocused and unmotivated opposition politicians.
One could have written a million words about the appalling state of Holyrood’s committee system – stitched up by the SNP and, thus, all but powerless – and not a thing would have changed.
At best, criticisms of practices and standards were paid lip service but, more often than not, the committee convenors – whose loyalty lay with the Scottish Government rather than the principle of good and workable legislation – shrugged and went about rubber-stamping whatever nonsensical idea the First Minister of the day wished to impose upon a weary electorate.
The complete pointlessness of Holyrood’s committee system – which should, in theory, perform the same scrutinising role that the House of Lords does at Westminster – was most starkly illustrated during the consultation on former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s plan to introduce self-ID laws for trans people.
When MSPs voted in favour of allowing men to enter women’s single-sex spaces (a crackpot law swiftly quashed by the UK Government) we were told that it had been among the most consulted upon pieces of legislation in the history of devolution.
We were invited to consider the many hundreds of hours of testimony heard by committee members and the countless thousands of words of submissions through which they had diligently waded.
It’s certainly true that a stream of ‘experts’ appeared in front of MSPs during that consultation process.
It’s also indisputable that they were, to a man, woman or whatever they declared themselves to be, almost universally in favour of the idea that men should be allowed to stroll into women’s refuge if they identified as a woman.
During that worthless process, we heard the whole gamut of views on the matter from ‘A woman is a feeling’ to, ‘Women who think men can’t change sex are bigots’.
The cowardly former MSPs now proclaiming all that is wrong with the Scottish Parliament were perfectly happy to say nothing while taking their pay cheques.
While I’m hugely grateful to the IPPR for its efforts in this area, I’m afraid I cannot bring myself to support the recommendation that stems from its findings.
The think-tank proposes a grandly-titled Citizens’ Commission on Scotland’s Democracy, which would give members of the public a formal role in the review of democracy through citizens’ assemblies and juries.
I could never quite bring myself to agree with the great Billy Connolly’s observation that the desire to be a politician should be a bar to becoming one.
I do, however, believe that the wish to become a member of a citizens’ assembly should be considered a red flag in anyone. I have met people. I have had neighbours.
The men and women now complaining about the state of Scotland’s politics are the very same people who participated in the erosion of democratic standards.
They are the ones who failed to protect the principles of openness and accountability on which Holyrood was founded. I’d no more take advice from them on democracy than I’d buy a fire alarm from an arsonist.
