IF WESTMINSTER were a horse, the humane thing would be to shoot it. Holyrood? I’d send for the knackers’ van before lunch. Yet we saddle them both up, point them towards the Grand National, and pretend the smell isn’t coming from the stables.
We are in that dangerous historical moment when a ruling class can neither govern nor recognise its own incompetence. Rome had it before the Goths strolled through the gates. Weimar Germany had it while the mark was worth less than wallpaper. France had it while debating etiquette as the mob wheeled out the guillotine.
Our version? Half-cut in the members’ bar, babbling about “stability” while the public sharpens metaphorical pitchforks.
Immigration – betrayal in two capitals
In London, “take back control” became “throw open the doors” in record time, as if the slogan had been printed in disappearing ink. In Edinburgh, the SNP wrapped itself in the flag of “humanitarian values” while polishing its ‘compassionate’ halo as the bodies piled up back home. Drug deaths ? Housing shortages? GP deserts? Collapsing social care? These were treated as regrettable footnotes to a grand virtue signalling performance.
It is one thing to believe in generosity; quite another to brand accountability as bigotry. The public did not raise concerns in the manner of a ‘racist, homophobic, misogynistic rabble’ despite the smears from those in power. They spoke as tenants who cannot find a home, patients who cannot find a doctor, and carers who cannot find a moment’s rest. Westminster and Holyrood alike have mastered the art of performative compassion, all while outsourcing the pain to the people least equipped to endure it.
The Blob – Union-wide edition
Down south, the National Security Secretariat keeps ministers in the dark under the banner of “national interest.” Up here, civil servants have perfected the same trick only with more quangos, consultants, more committee reports, and a uniquely Caledonian smugness. Neither lot answers to the people. And when a citizen challenges them, as Sandy Peggie did, the machinery closes ranks with all the subtlety of a Soviet show trial.
Foreign policy as air freshener, and Holyrood’s copycat act
Britain’s Ukraine policy was not so much strategic statecraft as moral deodorant, a mist of fine words sprayed over the stink of domestic failure. “Defending freedom in Europe” made for a noble caption under a photograph, especially if it diverted the lens from the mildew at home.
Holyrood, never one to miss a trick, adopted the same posture. Gaza? Climate justice? International women’s rights? Up go the banners, out come the press statements, and the ministers bask in the warm light of borrowed virtue. These are worthy causes, but in their hands they are the political equivalent of a stage prop, something to wave while the set quietly collapses.
The ferries rust in the dock, the sick wait in corridors, literacy sinks through the floor, and Sandie Peggie’s case rots in the in-tray. Moral courage abroad is cheap. Moral courage at home costs political skin and that is a price our leaders never pay.
Censorship – the new civic virtue
In Westminster, the establishment throttles online speech under the perfumed pretext of “safety.” In Holyrood, the Hate Crime Act goes further, deputising the perpetually offended to turn comedians, grannies, and nurses into potential criminals for the crime of causing a flutter in someone’s feelings.
Weimar tried this trick: policing words to protect the system. All it achieved was to convince the public the system wasn’t worth protecting. Scotland, in its infinite wisdom, appears determined to learn the lesson in full, complete with the collapse at the end.
Rotten coalitions, Labour and the SNP
Labour’s 2024 “landslide” was powered by hatred of the Tories, not any great love for Starmer. The SNP’s grip on Scotland rests on hatred of Westminster, not trust in Holyrood. Negative coalitions are temporary things, brittle, self-absorbed, and incapable of governing for long. Ask the French Third Republic: endless fragile alliances, endless incompetence, until the public clears the board in disgust.
When collapse comes here, Sandie Peggie’s ordeal will be remembered, a flare in the night sky, proof that Holyrood preferred ideological posturing to justice, and thought no one outside the committee room was watching.
No cavalry coming
Here’s the truth no one in polite politics will say: there is no party in Britain, or Scotland, remotely fit to govern in the way the public needs. Reform remains a pressure group without a big enough ground game. Labour’s “mission government” is mission PR. The SNP is a movement in name only, running on nostalgia and grievance. The Conservatives are a political husk clinging to the last shreds of office.
We are not on the cusp of renewal; we are staring into a vacuum. And history’s warning is consistent: vacuums rarely stay empty. Weimar learned it. Post-Revolutionary France learned it. Rome learned it when the Senate thought it could muddle through and got emperors instead.
Scotland, like the rest of the UK, has a choice, fix the rot ourselves, or wait until someone, or something, far worse does it for us.
The historical echo
We are not just in a slump. We are in the twilight of two systems, Westminster and Holyrood, that are running on fumes, slogans, and sheer denial.
Like Rome in its dotage, they’ll keep quoting the constitution, keep posing for photos, keep pretending the machinery works, while the truth, as Sandie Peggie discovered, is that the machinery is rigged to grind down anyone who doesn’t salute the prevailing orthodoxy.
And if you think “it can’t happen here,” remember: in 1788 the French aristocracy thought the same, until the mob showed up a year later, and the cake ran out.
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A guillotine in shadow image by Eve from Adobe Stock
