The same old song

For most of yesterday for reasons beyond my control I was sat in front of the television and on at least two occasions was obliged to watch coverage of the Scottish National Party’s annual conference in Aberdeen – the second of them being for the entirety of leader Nicola Sturgeon’s keynote speech.

There is a working rule of both law and life that, next after your own case, the most important thing to be conversant with is your opponent’s.

In the current extraordinary state of British political life there’s also a degree to which nothing can surprise anyone anymore and for me yesterday was a case in point.

Grudgingly I’d admit that Sturgeon is, if not of Premiership, at least of Championship promotion-battle class.

Her primary tactic yesterday was to attack virtually every policy and principle coming out of Westminster that she didn’t like on the grounds that – if the SNP was agin it – then what right on earth did a UK Government of any colour or Party persuasion have to impose it upon Scotland?

[I didn’t bother to point out to her via Twitter that – on that logic – presumably she’d be perfectly happy to preside over the restoration of the death penalty in Scotland if the Scottish electorate ever voted for it.]

Her argument ran that if Scotland could only replay its 2014 Independence Referendum it could become a leading world nation: not only a hub of dynamic, forward-thinking entrepreneurial excellence boasting a thriving new financial services sector driving itself into the warm, sunny uplands of eternal milk and honey – but also a beacon of socially-aware climate change activity and population-caring that would deliver endless comfort, healthcare and prosperity at no cost to anyone.

She was playing to both the gallery and a captive audience, of course, and they lapped it all up like a litter of three-week old puppies at feeding time.

In Sturgeon’s self-deceiving fantasy world, if only the electorate would now provide her with the political power she craved, she would be able to deliver upon her promises and make the world – sorry, Scotland – a far better place.

Which view, of course, ignores all the complications and hard-nosed practicalities of the real world in which nothing is ever as simple as anyone without power (but desirous of obtaining it) can pretend or convince themselves it is.

In politics, as in life, when wishful-thinking and reality collide things can often get messy.

And it’s far, far easier to stand on the side-lines, dripping with cynicism and gleefully chucking opprobrium and scorn at those in power, than it is to take the helm oneself.

I should know. I’ve made a career of it.