I’M taking the rather unusual step of selling this month’s column as the kind of piece I’ve stopped reading in the press. Please stay with me for just a little longer, though…
It is not a particular type of article I’ve stopped reading but, more specifically, all pieces on a certain subject matter. In the past couple of weeks I have had a lot more time on my hands because I skip the huge swathes in Scottish newspapers devoted to the independence referendum.
That’s right, it took me no more than a month to become bored of the referendum debate. I see this as a bit of a problem because I am actually interested in politics. So interested, in fact, I’ve been a parliamentary candidate in two elections.
If I’m already finding the process tedious then how on earth is the wider Scottish public going to feel about a debate on a single issue that will last until the vote takes place in October 2014?
That is over two-and a half-years or almost 1000 days away.
I can assure you from my experience of speaking to voters during the last general and Scottish elections, they were sick to the back teeth of the length of those campaigns and they were only six and eight weeks long respectively. I’m sure I’ll be on the receiving end of brickbats from nationalists – and no doubt others – for a perceived trivialisation of an event they see as the single most important thing to take place in Scotland for 700 years.
So be it.
THE SNP had every right to call a referendum whenever it wanted during this parliamentary session, but erred in naming a date so far in advance.
The nationalists say this is because such a landmark decision deserves a long debate, but this is wrong.
The SNP has misinterpreted its electoral result last year and, much more importantly, misread the public’s interest in politics.
The SNP achieved a majority at last year’s election because the electorate correctly viewed the party as a competent government, with none of the others up to the job.
With that majority, the SNP won the right to hold a referendum and, also, the right to attempt to win over previously sceptical voters to the merits of independence.
Which is all well and good. What the SNP has not reckoned with, though, is the public’s view of politics.
Again, from experience, I can assure you that most people are either disinterested in politics at best or dislike it at worst.
You should see the reaction of people in the central belt, where I live and work these days, when they discover I was a political candidate.
They think I’m a little strange (not unfairly, many who know me might say).
Most of us do not like politics and we distrust politicians even more. Unfortunately, though, we are to be fed a diet of nonstop procedural politics from journalists and politicians until October 2014.
The Scottish referendum could have been – should have been – an historic event that re-enthused the population’s passion for politics.
Unfortunately the long, drawn-out campaign may do the exact opposite and merely reinforce the public’s record levels of apathy towards and disengagement from politics.
