While Andrew Wilson has been away on his summer holidays, the folk at the Scotland on Sunday asked me to fill in a couple of columns. Last week I wrote about feeling a bit frazzled by Scottish politics, and the unremitting pace of stuff since the referendum.
The aftermath. The Nationalist retrenchment. The Smith Commission. The general election campaign. The victory. The aftermath. The Scotland Bill. I am a summer hermit crab - an introvert by any other name - who is feeling a little frayed, with no time left to stand, and stare, and reflect on all that has changed in the last twelve months. It has been, as one of Alan Bennett's history boys had it, "just one fuckin' thing after another."
The aftermath. The Nationalist retrenchment. The Smith Commission. The general election campaign. The victory. The aftermath. The Scotland Bill. I am a summer hermit crab - an introvert by any other name - who is feeling a little frayed, with no time left to stand, and stare, and reflect on all that has changed in the last twelve months. It has been, as one of Alan Bennett's history boys had it, "just one fuckin' thing after another."
The theme also came up at the Traverse in Edinburgh, at playwright David Greig's Two Minute Manifestos. The primary guests were Olympian Susan Egelstaff and Edinburgh poet, Ron Butlin. I joined the Guardian's Libby Brooks on the cynical pundit's sofa. The Two Minute Manifesto team have recorded the aftermath in podcast form, available here.
Having looked backwards last week, today, in my final fill-in column in the Scotland on Sunday, I look forwards - towards the next Holyrood election and the tone and manifesto on which Nicola Sturgeon's government will fight for re-election. An excerpt:
"ONLY a major calamity or unforeseen scandal can now prevent Nicola Sturgeon from seizing a second term. Only a significant revival in Scottish Labour’s fortunes can deprive her government of its majority in Holyrood, and Labour stands a snowball’s chance in hell of securing that revival. Sitting pretty on an overwhelming lead, under a popular leader, eight years since Jack McConnell lost power by a single seat, the nationalists have never looked stronger, or their opponents weaker.
I’ve yet to meet the Labour activist who has any stomach for this fight. The Tories are chipper but resigned to modest achievements. The Greens are buoyant but aware of their limitations. The capitulation is general. Yet while the politics seem all sewn up, awkward policy questions are beginning to mount up for Sturgeon’s administration in health, education, and policing. Now more than ever, the triumphant SNP needs to cultivate its critical friends."
