We are regularly angry at our politicians these days. In Scotland it is worse; we are regularly embarrassed at our politicians. Embarrassed is what you feel when something ought to make you angry but it is just so pathetic you can’t look without feeling shame.
That’s what I felt this morning when I woke to discovered that Armando Iannucci has started writing speeches for John Swinney. That’s what has happened, right? Or have Team Swinney just panicked at the fact that no-one can come up with a credible reason why you’d want to keep them in power other than ‘have you seen the options?’ and so knocked a relaunch together on their own based on old VHS recordings of The Thick Of It.
Because if it’s that (it’s always that – sure as fate a politician in trouble is a relaunch waiting to happen) and this wasn’t a prank, then I’m struggling not to blush on our collective behalf. This particular relaunch was so wince-makingly bad I would assume it was satire if I didn’t know what it was.
Let’s first look at the real purpose of this – to get a story in the paper that says Swinney has a vision. How does that stack up? Hmmm. He starts off meditating on the desirability of a "national project of renewal" and I find myself, one line in, thinking that this really needs to get a lot better really quickly.
“The status quo — across almost every field of endeavour — is no longer sufficient, it no longer serves us well enough" and I think ‘oooooh, the man who best represents the status quo think it’s screwed, so is this going to represent some sort of epiphany?’. I’ll let them off with "Public services first built in and for the 20th century must become rooted instead in the realities of the 21st. Our public realm reshaped; our nation renewed and reborn for this new age." But only if the next sentence is a marked improvement.
Nope. Nope it’s not. It goes: "The Scotland I seek is modern and dynamic; it is an enterprising, compassionate, forward-looking nation that is well placed to ride the waves of change rather than being buffeted by them, rather than being overwhelmed by them". So what fuck have you been doing for 20 years John, failing to ride the waves of change? Your entire political career was this century and we’re a quarter of the way through it. Nae rush Team Swinney. You’ll get there.
The fact that not a single newspaper has mention of the speech and the Scottish Government didn’t even put the event out in its daily news briefing is not a good sign
I mean this might count if he said ‘look, really sorry, I’ve been buffeted so hard I’ve had the thoughts buffeted right out of my head for two decades but now that my job is on the line I’ve realised that I need to stop being buffeted and start riding the wave by not using adjectives in place of having a clue why everything I touch goes to shit’.
Then I remind myself: ‘modern, dynamic, enterprising, compassionate, progressive, forward-looking’ which I had to stick an extra one into so I can say ‘which one did I add? – no looking back’ so I too can pretend I haven’t wasted your time with this excrement and it’s really a brain-training game I’ve invented.
But it’s not a game I invented, it’s an extract from a John Swinney speech and sweet jesus there is more of it. "A Scotland where tomorrow is better than today because, together, we have made it so." I mean christ on a stick what have you been trying to do John – make tomorrow worse than today? Together? You mean us watching you make an arse of it? That kind of together? It certainly isn’t because you shared power with the people.
"It means public services too that are modern, accessible, flexible, responsive, inclusive and seamless." Go on, work out what adjective I added to that one. You’re going to have to read the speech like I did though.
However it does start generating a slight buzz of excitement at this point. Because it says "Services capable of responding to life's crises as well as to life's everyday". Everyday what? Workwear? Store cupboard essentials? Its a getting closer, goin’ fast, like a roller coaster’? Tune in next week to see the cliffhanger resolved.
Oh fuck, nope, my mistake, there’s a full stop. Someone thought this sounded good.
The next sentence was about challenges so I bailed out and came back late in the day to find out if there was any actual content in this speech other than this nonsense. The fact that not a single newspaper has mention of the speech and the Scottish Government didn’t even put the event out in its daily news briefing is not a good sign. It also means I need to go and hunt down the actual speech. And read it. Or at least skim it.
The short version is no, they have no more clue this week than last week. The content of the speech is really strange. They seem not to know what tone they’re shooting for (‘everything must change’ or ‘we’re doing a good job’) so they do both. Bizarrely Swinney’s new vision is the Christie Commission from 15 years ago and yes, everything has to change but that’s fine because mostly the Scottish Government is doing it all anyway.
‘It’ is ‘technology’ and everything would be fine if it wasn’t for that pesky pandemic. The speech then goes on for literally ages moaning about winter fuel payments as if the writer has done a web search for ‘what has the other side done that isn’t popular?’ and decided to talk about it an awful lot – and then it promises to do precisely the same as they’re doing. That is the only new policy in here.
You need to read this to really get a sense of what a fatuous, meaningless word salad it truly is
I’ve given this way more space than it deserves. You need to read this to really get a sense of what a fatuous, meaningless word salad it truly is. My personal favourite is "And if you see a blockage in the system that preventions good collaborative working – If our actions don't match our words, you must let me know – because it is vital to enable us to advance this agenda". Magic – is there a phone number to go with that? (And yes, that is their punctuation, spelling and capitalisation, so if you can work out where clauses begin and end, you must let me know because good grow better nice comma full stop).
It turns out this was all devised at a summit and will be announced in another speech later this week which will then be taken forward by another summit. Oh, First Minister, you’re really spoiling us. And by recycling the Christie Commission report that literally every commentator agrees you’ve been ignoring for a decade and a half you are offsetting some of the CO2 emitted by this crap to boot.
So anyway, we have learned loads here. Mainly that if you are invited to be the stuffed shirt made to listen to a Swinney speech you should find a friend with norovirus and spend time with them.
But we have also learned that the Scottish Government’s vision for the future is for everything to change by doing what we were already doing with such great success until the virus and then it went wrong which they will fix by doing stuff from a 15 year old report they’ve been ignoring but not really because everything you need to do they’ve already done.
We have learned what Stephen Noon (author of this strategy and, I suspect, this speech) can do with all constraints lifted from him, finally free to express himself properly. Which I can only sum up as you go girl! Reach deep into you and speak your truth and never ever let them hold you back again doll! You’ve got this! Splendid!
We have learned that the problem is all the people in Scotland who didn’t realise they could phone up the First Minister and tell him he is shite and that he is preventions good collaborative working through his agenda advancement in a delivery-focussed tomorrow team for a paradigm shift.
And for the rest of you there is a single stirring message at the heart of this. Reach for the stars! Climb every mountain high and reach for the stars. Follow your heart’s desire and reach for the stars. And, when that rainbow’s shining over you, that’s when your dreams will all come true.
And to think I started the day depressed about the state of Scotland.