On a visit to Oslo a couple of years ago to check out how Norway’s relationship with Europe works, I was told about a prized by-product of the country’s oil wealth. Norway exports its gathered knowledge about oil production to all parts of the world, including advising foreign governments how to secure the best deals from the hard-headed executives of rapacious oil companies. Their specialists in all of the oil-related disciplines are in high demand whenever any new discovery is made. The happy outcomes just keep on coming.
Having been denied its oil revenue, Scotland has been handed an opportunity to cash in on another treasure in which we have a significant quantum of expertise. Over the course of the past seven years or so, Scotland has become the most political country in the world. Since 2010, we have averaged more than one election or plebiscite a year. We have successfully staged every kind of election you could possibly think of: independence referendums; EU referendums; UK elections; Holyrood elections; local authority elections; elections to the European parliament.
The global opportunities to maximise the nation’s expertise in political engagement are endless. The Electoral Commission has described the 2014 independence referendum as setting the gold standard for civic engagement and participation. All over the world, wherever an election is taking place, teams of Scottish political observers could be in place casting their beady scrutiny on the democratic proceedings. The saltire, perhaps with a wee silhouette of Holyrood behind it, could be a kitemark to denote the highest band of democratic excellence. You name it: emerging African republics; eastern European states taking those first baby steps towards full democracy: they would all pay good money to have the unalloyed Scottish endorsement, the internationally acknowledged gold standard of freedom.
Even the world’s established democracies such as America, France and Canada would soon be lusting for the Caledonian stamp of approval. Each of their political broadcasts would have a wee meme video at the end with yon big pair of bare-chested, kilted yoga boys doing handstands in a Highland pine forest with Mesdames Sturgeon, Dugdale and Davidson doing a cheesy thumbs-up. A stentorian American voice would utter the legend: “This election meets the highest standards of Scottish democratic excellence.”
But the big Benjamins would assuredly accrue from the dodgier democracies such as Russia and China. They would surely be willing to pay well over the odds for a hint of Scottish approval. And who knows: they might even be incentivised to improve their democratic engagement, so desperate would they be to attract the highest band of Scottish democratic approval.
Yet, I wouldn’t be truly Scottish if I didn’t acknowledge a creeping downside to all this joyous and potentially lucrative Scottish political activity. For it has created a political bubble in Scotland that is getting bigger with each passing election. Previously, the self-appointed political elite in Scotland has comprised a small, mendicant travelling band of senior politicians, political journalists and an assortment of talking heads who pop up on our television screens whenever there is an election or even just the hint of one. And in Scotland we are never more than a few months away from another vote.
Recently, I have caught myself saying something in everyday conversation that a few years ago would have elicited a cry of “supercilious wanker” from me if I’d heard someone else say it. It’s a consequence of existing in Scotland’s political bubble and has begun to afflict an increasing number of people during this extended period of intense political engagement in Scotland.
The practice of “virtue signalling” is a case in point. Until a few weeks ago, this obscure phrase was the exclusive preserve of hipster types of an overly gentle disposition. I’m still not sure what it means but I think it’s something like pretending to abhor public decapitation to elicit approval while secretly loving it. I found myself deploying this egregious phrase in the sort of pub where you are expected to ditch all such pretensions at the door. I was made to regret it almost immediately when I was loudly condemned as a “supercilious prick”. Worse, I even found to my horror that I wasn’t averse to a bit of virtue signalling myself.
Other phrases, once the preserve of political and disconnected types, have also distressingly crept into normal, civilised conversation. “Wrong side of history” is one, as is “race to the bottom”. The use of “outcomes” of any description should be discouraged. I would add to that disproportionate use of the word “sustainable” and disproportionate use of the word “deficit”. The word “fair” used alongside the word “equal” simply diminishes the true meaning of each of these words. I revile “quantum”. I mean, what normal person uses the word “quantum” outside a meeting of the Bank of Scotland’s PPI claims assessors?
People now have “issues” and they occur “around” things and there has been a disproportionate rise in the use of the word “community”. Thus we have the Irish community, the LGBT community, the travelling community. How about just using “people” like we used to do in less pretentious times? The only time “community” ever worked when used in this way was when Elwood Blues welcomed members of the Illinois law enforcement community to the big concert at the end of The Blues Brothers.
Most – preferably all – portmanteau words should be banned by newspapers and other media organisations, especially “mansplaining”. I’ve got a few better portmanteau words up my sleeve, such as “frackricide”: the lawful killing of someone who refuses to stop talking about fracking; “deathicit”: a plea to be used in mitigation for executing someone who refuses to stop talking about the GERS figures: “My client pleads not guilty to the charge on the grounds of involuntary deathicit.” A “bamsplainer” is a foolish person who insists on using the word “mansplaining”.
Distressingly, I have recently used many of the above terms in normal copy and I now vow to desist. I call on my fellow journalists to do likewise.
