[Robin McAlpine Blog] It’s Karaoke Night in the Mediocracy Cafe

[ALBA-Bot]

It's Karaoke Night in the Mediocracy Cafe

The Mediocracy Cafe is barely half full in its dull yellow fluorescent light. The formica tabletops are pretty worn but not quite stained enough to replace; the magnolia décor isn’t fresh and calming, its dull and slightly grubby, the kind of walls you think ‘I’ll need to give these a lick of paint before Christmas’; the beer is too warm to be pleasant, but not warm enough to make a big fuss. Anyway, it’s all there is.

It’s Karaoke Night (well, Karaoke and Curry night, but we don’t talk about the curry). This is literally the only joint open at this time. No-one is making any effort. There’s only one song on the karaoke machine. A string of bored looking amateurs take to the stage and belt out the lyrics to the same vaguely inspirational but relentlessly bland power ballad about things getting better.

Each tries to give the tired, familiar, meaningless words some oomf, but their eyes are as dead as those of their audience. A hack, there to do a social media puff piece, types unenthusiastically on a phone. ‘Less out of tune than the previous singer’. The song fades out, the singer sits down. His pals show him the comment. ‘You’re doing great mate – look, the internet says you’ve turned things around’.

Tomorrow night is two-for-one Pizza Night. Remember and bring your tokens for an extra ten per cent off. Date for your diary; next Saturday we’re hosting Liquid Mercury, the Queen and Freddie Mercury tribute night. No football colours; last service for food 6.30.

The funny thing about this is that I thought I’d coined the term ‘mediocracy’. John Swinney’s government aren’t actually the idiots of Idiocracy (which is starting to feel like the defining cultural artwork for the coming decade). In that film, the people running things are stupid but also flamboyant and interesting. They know how to put on a riveting show. That’s the point, they’re all surface, no substance.

I thought I could adapt this to capture what the Scottish Government really is. Certainly not flamboyant. Certainly not interesting. This isn’t government of the stupid by the stupid, this is government of the desperate by the mediocre. Mediocracy, I typed, waiting for the spellchecker to pick it up. It doesn’t, so I check. It’s a real word.

Mediocracy: noun – a dominant class consisting of mediocre people, or a system in which mediocrity is rewarded.

Thus it is that John Swinney can give the same Programme for Government that Humza Yousaf did last year, which was the same Programme for Government that Nicola Sturgeon gave about ten times. There are some slight differences (Humza: ‘let’s try absolutely everything all at once without thinking any of it through!’, John: ‘let’s try absolutely nothing under any circumstances so we don’t have to think anything through’).

New boss, new Programme for Government, new same economic non-strategy.

But all the key lyrics are there to be belted out with gusto. "Poverty? We cannot cheer. We’ll sort a plan some time next year!". "Growth is good. Growth is great. Growth is growth of four times the growth that grew last time we growed the growth". "We like doctors, you like doctors, we all like doctors – so yeah, yeah, yeah, DOCTORS!".

You know this has all been trotted out before. Everyone does. Swinney has just announced that the key mission of his government will be met by doing something he was legally obliged to do since 2017. That, incidentally, is a requirement to kick a can down a road, then produce a plan, then repeat. Professionals in the field are lining up to tell you this is a con.

The growth strategy is to grow because ‘inward investment’ and ‘gibberish’. There were a sequence of gibberish plans produced late last decade because the then-FM developed a reputation for being disinterested and pretty clueless on the economy. So she created forums to create plans, which published plans that everyone said were pointless or so vague as to be meaningless.

Then there was Covid so she needed an economic plan. She basically republished the same one. Then again when Covid receded and we needed a rebuilding strategy. Oh, it’s also the same one that preceded the period when she didn’t have one (you need to be an observer of Scottish politics to parse that sentence such that it makes any sense).

Now it’s back! New boss, new Programme for Government, new same economic non-strategy. It’s the eternal nothing, the ever-recurring insistence that economic growth is the priority which will be achieved by never changing anything ever. He recommitted to hiring doctors that they didn’t hire the last time they promised to hire doctors.

But they did introduce a cheap train initiative which replaces, like for like, the cheap train initiative they scrapped a couple of months ago. Visionary! For Christmas this year I’m going to take away all my children’s possessions – and then give them back to my children again! They’re be delighted. It’ll give me a whole speech I can make about me.

And then the entire Circus of the Dead-Eyed ended and literally not a fucking thing had changed for anyone.

But (and this is key) – the hacks can all agree that by doing absolutely nothing at all, Mr Swinney has ‘steadied the ship’. It’s sinking, but it’s steady. Thing is, you know who likes a steady ship? First Class. An unsteady ship disturbs their cocktails. You know who is ambivalent about steady ships? Steerage. They’re eating gruel. It doesn’t wobble either way.

They’ve announced the cast for the new instalment and, good news, all your favourites will be back with their hilarious misunderstandings and mishaps!, their pratfalls!, their charming bumbling failure!, their pish patter!

Hold on though; here’s a coda, an after-credits sequence only for the superfans. It’s teasing the next movie in the sequence. It’s John, sitting at his desk with your kitten. He tells you in fatherly tones that he is going to kill your kitten if you don’t send him money. Except it’s not a kitten, it’s the cause of independence. And he isn’t demanding money, he’s demanding your votes.

Seen it. I watched that movie and it’s six squeals already. The first one was so-so, then it got really repetitive. They’ve announced the cast for the new instalment and, good news, all your favourites will be back with their hilarious misunderstandings and mishaps!, their pratfalls!, their charming bumbling failure!, their pish patter!.

I do grant that this time the SNP seems to have settled on a stable formula. Two things were wobbling uncontrollably – our faith in democracy and their competence levels. But by placing these things in a symbiotic relationship they can now simply orbit each other creating a stable gravitational field.

To save our democracy we need John. To fix our shit government we need democracy. One saves the other forever. And ever. And ever.

Back in the Mediocracy Cafe the meagre crowd is thinning out further. They check their phones on the way out. ‘Customers on average rate SNP Karaoke at 28 out of 100‘. Customers sigh in disappointment, until a beaming John leans over their shoulder and says ’28 out of 100 translates as almost an overall majority’.

The punters look confused. That would be totally fucked though, wouldn’t it? If something this mediocre supported by so few people was totally dominant anyway? You yourself start to wander off when you’re reminded that you’re the staff, the hired help. Get this placed cleaned up pronto, heavy on the bleach.

There is a summit to save democracy in the morning and then its open mic comedy night. If you’ve not got the place gleaming by then, you’ll get your jotters. No place for slackers or shoddy work here. We expect the best from our cleaning staff – and no second chances mind.

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