The Scottish parliament elections had been billed as a rather dull affair. The campaign undoubtedly was. Little change was forecast. It was seen as a contest to determine who could manage the status quo the best. What actually happened was an earthquake that will upset the Scottish political establishment – an establishment so established that it has yet to grasp the full implication of what has happened. Scotland has finally shifted from a two-party winners-and-losers type of politics to a six-party system where we have to develop a new kind of ‘win, win’ politics.
There is a Labour/Liberal coalition following two weeks of negotiations. Jack McConnell will stay First Minister but Labour lost some of its most talented politicians – Angus MacKay was defeated in Edinburgh South, Ian Gray was beaten by the leader of the Scottish Tories, David McLetchie, and Brain Fitzpatrick lost to a ‘save our hospital’ candidate in Strathkelvin and Bearsden. John McAllion, the old-fashioned socialist from Dundee was defeated – ironically because the Scottish Socialist party decided not to stand a candidate against him and so let all of the anti-Labour vote go to the SNP.
If it was a fairly uncomfortable result for Labour, it was a downright miserable early morning for the SNP. They lost eight seats in total, with two of their ‘biggest beasts’ retiring from the political jungle, Mike Russell and Andrew Wilson. The leader of the SNP, John Swinney, was credited with their campaign, which took them away from a position to the left of Labour to occupy almost the same political ground as Labour.
However, he seemed to overlook two important factors. First, a vote for the SNP was a vote for part of the political establishment, and that’s exactly what many people were voting against. Second, whatever policies they may have, whether as supporters of municipal socialism or as ‘laissez faire’ capitalists, they are still obsessed with the outdated concept of the nation state and want to put Scots through all the hassle of ‘breaking up Britain’. Perhaps nationalism in Scotland has run its course.
The unpredictability of this non-linear election led to no change in the number of Liberal and Tory representatives, but also the sudden rise of the Green party – up five seats to a total of six – and of the Scottish Socialists – who now have four more seats. Three more independents were elected in addition to the hospital protester: Dennis Canavan, the Labour party dissident; Margo MacDonald, l’étranger from the Nats; and a candidate from the pensioners’ party.
This fundamental change in the make up of Scottish politics, coupled with a turnout that fell below 50 percent on the first vote, may not yet be fully understood. However, one thing is clear: people want something different, but not everyone agrees on what that should be. So was disillusion with the idea that voting can change anything responsible for the shift? We have the next four years, until the next Scottish parliamentary elections, to find out.
Perhaps it is just the greyness of it all that puts people off. Why is important associated with dull? Why is serious different from fun? It strikes me that the most important of our decisions would be better made if solutions could be developed in a sense of playfulness.
You see it now and again in politics, a little joy in living, but all in all most of us seem somewhat uncomfortable with such things. Of course we have just been through some difficult times recently, but it is not all like that. Politicians take themselves too seriously and don’t take joy seriously enough. Perhaps it is this which makes people find politics a complete turnoff and voting like being complicit in something unusual.