THE day after tomorrow we will elect 129 law-makers to act as the democratic voice of our country. While party allegiances dominate media coverage, who those individuals are and what motivates them matters just as much. This is my message for them.

Once elected, you will gain a high salary, a substantial office and staffing budget, and a platform to project your views beyond the experience of the vast majority of people. That’s power – and that brings responsibility.

You are not a mouthpiece for any party leadership. Your election brings a responsibility to your constituents – even if acting on their behalf brings discomfort to the government of the day. Independence, that laudable aim we hear much about, starts at first as a state of mind.

Do not underestimate how important your voice can be in shaping the laws of this country. Take Mike Russell (land reform), Jenny Marra (human trafficking), Neil Findlay (lobbying) as examples of when perseverance prevailed in parliament.

As one of the 129 souls about to be sucked into the vortex of Holyrood, it’d be best to give a friend a vacuum cleaner just to be sure they can suck you back out again. The chamber and its maze of committee rooms is one world – Scotland is another.

Parliament itself is within a SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) area for the poorest 20 per cent of the country. With high office there is a gravitational pull towards complacency – but never forget the thousands excluded from a system you have been elected to change.

The duty of an MSP, I’d suggest, is not only as a law maker or a social work team, but to be a leader in your community to tackle that scourge of inequality which divides Scotland. It won't be your photo opportunities or meet-and-greet events – as lovely as they look – which change that.

It will be, I hope, the realisation of new laws on land, rents, education and local democracy on every street and hillside.

Look at Anne McLaughlin MP. She set up a paid role to focus on redeveloping derelict land in Glasgow – then co-hosted community meetings to get locals involved. If Scotland is to become more equal, it requires all institutions – including parliament – to throw away the deference and old ways of working. Use your resources to help those in your community that have the least.

Many Scots speak and write as if we are in the midst of a political transformation. You will never have this opportunity to be bold again in your lifetime. The country may never again have the same willingness for new ideas – or be prepared to trust you as a parliamentarian to help deliver them.

Most recently a poll found that Holyrood was the most trusted national parliament in Europe. Despite the drip, drip of daily cynicism in our culture, that is a precious mandate that can only last so long. Do not let it slip by.

Over five years you will most likely be exhausted, pulled in every direction and be scunnered by the hypocrisies of political power up close. There will be pressures to stay silent, risk-averse colleagues and civil servants, change-averse lawyers, slimy vested interests and lobbyists, media scandals and, naturally, personal shortcomings.

Hopefully you will be surrounded by principled people with high demands – not compliant Yes men – to decide when to show leadership and how best to ignore the gravy train. Previous MSPs have given away portions of their salary to reflect this. Others – like John Finnie in the past few years – have campaigned to remove MSPs’ pension funds from arms and fossil fuels industries. The Scottish Socialist Party even brought peace protests to the floor of the chamber.

You can, in similar ways, ensure that politics doesn’t look like an exclusive club for a small political elite. Rather than acting as a patrician figure, you can be a lightning rod for all the groups and individuals who want a better Scotland.

Trade unionists, environmentalists, campaigners, students, social businesses, community groups, peace and disarmament campaigners – you can amplify their voice when it is so often denied and traduced elsewhere.

The wisest MSPs I’ve met are the ones humble enough to admit that political leaders can only change society with a wider movement challenging them to do more. Bridging the gap to those outside parliament requires compassion and intellect – when those demanding greater change than parliament provides are often angry and distrusting of your office. They can, however, help you accomplish far more – with tribalism left to the football terraces and elitism left to the boardrooms.

Exactly a week after our election it will be the centenary of the death of Edinburgh revolutionary James Connolly. The ethos of his pro-independence socialism was a desire not to change the flag of Ireland but to change its society for justice and equality.

I hope that is the journey Scotland is on. Prospective MSPs, part of that responsibility will soon be yours.