WILL Scottish politics ever calm down?
That’s a question I’ve been asking myself — and people always ask me — for many moons.
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Because the past decade has been absolutely crackers.
And while it may have been one hell of a spectacle, I’m increasingly of the opinion that these years of madness have been seriously unhealthy for Scotland.
From the independence referendum of 2014, to the arrests of two ex-SNP First Ministers, to the crisis still engulfing a party which seemed indestructible just a couple of years ago . . . it’s never stopped.
We’ve had multiple sexual harassment scandals in Holyrood’s party of government, Covid law breaches by senior figures, MPs dragged through the courts, the SNP imploding amid Alex Salmond’s sex trial, and the fallout from that.
Nicola Sturgeon and her husband were arrested and Scot Squad are still crawling all over the SNP’s books.
Last year an SNP MSP got into an argument on social media and branded his tormentor troll a “f*g moron” with a “blow-up girlfriend”.
That’s a fairly run-of-the-mill incident in Scottish politics, nowadays.
And there’s no sign of let-up, with Humza Yousaf’s downfall and the far less likely comeback of John Swinney.
As the online conspiracy theorists would tell you, those MI5 plants haven’t half been busy.
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Older and wiser colleagues tell me it hasn’t always been like this. For me, it has.
My days covering politics started in 2012 — the run-up to the independence vote. That was when the blood really started rushing to heads.
What followed has been years where the focus has not been on the day-to-day of how to run public services, but on constant campaigning and constitutional chicanery.
The 2014 referendum saw the longest, most intense political campaign we have ever experienced. More so than Brexit.
In the aftermath, there was the drama of Salmond passing the baton, Sturgeon riding the crest of a wave of a newly engaged electorate — split along Yes/No lines, with virtually all Yessers voting SNP at the 2015 General Election, meaning an SNP rout.
Over time, Sturgeon began to be consumed by her own popularity, kidding herself it was her, not that wave, that brought about the 56 SNP MPs.
Yep, she knew how to speak to voters. She has that common touch.
But, to me, the driving force behind the SNP’s seemingly never-ending election successes since 2014 was the way the electorate rearranged itself.
It meant the SNP would get north of 45 per cent at every election, almost by default.
While that won’t win you a referendum, it will win you every election when that pro-UK vote is split between parties.
Of course, Labour didn’t help themselves. They had become entitled.
In opposition at Holyrood, they were bland and in a muddle on the constitution.
Ruth Davidson’s leadership of the stridently pro-UK Tories saw Labour caught in an SNP-Conservative pincer movement.
Sturgeon clearly had an impact — just not as much as she perhaps thinks.
At times it seemed she thought she could walk on water, with election win after election win.
Even in 2017 when her mistimed referendum push backfired — and indy-backing Brexit voters deserted the SNP — they still won 35 of 59 Scottish seats.
Davidson prematurely declared “peak Nat”. In 2019, the SNP leapt back to 48 MPs.
In the pandemic, Sturgeon looked unstoppable. It didn’t matter that education standards were tanking, the economy was sluggish, the NHS was failing, and election promises were broken left, right and centre.
It didn’t matter the guy lined up to replace her — Derek Mackay — had to quit for his sleazy pestering of a schoolboy.
By 2021, the SNP sheen was wearing off, as it became apparent Scotland’s pandemic troubles were as bad as the rest.
The SNP failed to get a Holyrood majority in May 2021. Then it all came crashing down, with Sturgeon consumed by hubris, pursuing fringe interests such as gender self-ID — an obsession that, once thrust into people’s faces, ordinary folk didn’t actually take to.
By the time she left office, the scales were already falling from many people’s eyes.
Labour were getting their act back together.
The installation of Humza Yousaf — a nice guy, who put himself in the wrong place, at the wrong time — didn’t help.
Now, another change of SNP leadership, and the silly suggestion we should believe John Swinney, the guy at Sturgeon’s side all those years, is a fresh start.
That’s a whistlestop tour of the years where the focus was on winning elections, not running public services. Making promises, not keeping them.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a ringside seat. And this may fly in the face of what people think journalists want, but I’d quite like a period of relative calm.
Where our political leaders at Holyrood and Westminster are — here’s a novel idea — focused on just plain old governing in the best interests of the public, not their parties.
The way Scottish politics is structured makes this more unlikely. We have an extra layer of politicians, and more frequent trips to the polls.
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Since 2014, we’ve had seven General Elections, Holyrood elections and referendums. The upcoming General Election makes it eight.
So, perhaps that idea of calm is like a mirage. It will never come. And the chaos, for better or worse, is here to stay.