Hot Air

I was seeking opinion in the office this week about what people thought of the Nicola Sturgeon debacle. The overwhelming majority of people, regardless of political opinion, thought that she was a competent politician who could be trusted and in no way should she resign

This reinforced my thought that this whole thing has been blown out of all proportion. Of course opposition parties are going to try to gain political capital wherever they can, but come on.

This country is barely limping out of the worst economic crisis it has encountered in the last eighty years and there may be another crisis just around the corner. We face a tough choice between two different approaches to get the economy back on track. We have a government who seems to be delaying taking forward an independence referendum until they have 129 SNP MSPs.

In short, we have serious issues that are worthy of time and debate.

However, we find ourselves again embroiled in an utterly futile spat. Yet again, I find all this cross party fighting just to score cheap points off one another thoroughly demoralising. It is why people turn off from politics.

How is this going to benefit me? How is this going to get me back in work? If I am in work, how is this going to reduce the amount of tax I have to pay? How is this going to cut my energy bills? How is this going to put food on the table, so I can feed my kids?

Nicola Sturgeon may not have showed the greatest judgement when it came to defending a convicted criminal, but when it really mattered to most of us, she showed impeccable judgement. Her handling of the Swine Flu outbreak helped to keep a calm lid on things, when the media and others were doing their best to whip up a frenzy.

So how about this for an idea? Why don’t MSPs concentrate on making Scotland a better place? And here is the big idea! Why don’t they work together to make this happen? After all, that is what we elect them for.

Why don’t they look at introducing measures to increase the life expectancy of Scottish people, which is currently the lowest in Europe? Why don’t they collectively look at reducing Scottish dependency on alcohol? Why don’t they try and deal with the 600,000 people currently on disability benefits? Why don’t they discuss ways to boost the Scottish economy? Why…….?

That would be a much better way to spend their collective time, rather than discussing whether an MSP should write a letter in support of one of their constituents.