POLITICS is a serious business. The work we do and the decisions we make affect how long people have to wait in hospital, how good an education their children can expect, whether they can afford to buy a house, whether the trains run on time, and as we have seen in the past week, how much they pay for alcohol and whether they have a job or not – sometimes in a very direct sense as in the case of BiFab.
And over the coming weeks big decisions will be made about how much people get paid, and how much tax they pay.
Whether people think we are doing a good or a bad job, and whether or not they agree with our decisions, there is no denying the importance of the role. It reaches every part of people’s lives. It matters. And while the general public often place politicians’ popularity somewhere on the scale between estate agents and tabloid journalists, they know that what we do isn’t of no consequence.
If a current Premier League footballer decided to absent himself for a month, without permission, in the middle of the season to take part in a reality show the clubs’ fans might have something to say about it – and the manager certainly would. Although they might be happy if the player wasn’t meeting expectations. Footballers are expected to do what they are paid to do, perform on the park. And if the justification given was that they wanted to use the airtime to promote the values and popularity of their club, that would be seen as the flimsy excuse it is. Everyone knows that what is aired is controlled by the show producers to suit their agenda, not that of the participants, and that 95 per cent of what is recorded never gets broadcast.
When I worked in business I made decisions that affected the livelihoods of hundreds, sometimes thousands of individuals and their families. The decisions we make in Holyrood directly affect the lives, health and wellbeing of millions.
Encouraging more people to come into politics from other walks of life is something the public often calls for. It is something that should be encouraged, as it broadens the experience and skills base in parliament. It is something we have had some success with recently. New MPs and MSPs of all parties coming from a variety of backgrounds – teachers, health professionals, charity workers and business people. Leaving behind successful careers elsewhere to subject themselves to the daily scrutiny that rightly is part of the job.
But to encourage more of that politics needs to be seen for what it is: an opportunity to serve, an honour to be given the responsibility to make big and far-reaching decisions on behalf of our electors and not as a stepping stone to a career as a D-list celebrity.
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We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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