PICTURE the scene. A vessel full of terrified passengers is adrift on stormy seas, with a very serious illness running rampant. The captain has locked himself in his cabin, while his officers are reluctant to steer the ship in case they are blamed
when it hits the rocks. To avoid recriminations, the ship’s officers have taken to blaming the charts, the abilities of fellow officers and the ill passengers. Meanwhile, below deck, the crew is increasingly mutinous as they sense their business operations are threatened.
Neither officers nor crew, of course, have much regard for the passengers. As the poor travellers appeal to the ship’s officers to signal other vessels in hope of rescue, they are met with denials and claims that the HMS Great Britain is the best ship ever built and has no need of foreign assistance. Behind the scenes, however, officers are busy messaging other ships – but only those they like; all other offers of help are ignored.
As the passengers die in increasing numbers, the denials grow. Officers claim the numbers of dead are exaggerated, and they count only those who have died on the open deck, labelling others as victims of sea sickness.
On one of the lifeboats a smart woman has set up her own arrangements to meet the needs of her specific passengers. Most of her travellers have greeted these measures with relief and are thankful. However, some in the lifeboat have pointed out that having a lifeboat that works is no good. They tell her it is pointless having a functioning lifeboat while the ship is sinking. “We should all go down together” is their mantra.
Others in the lifeboat are adamant they should cast off from the ship at the earliest moment, and that delay is foolhardy.
Surrounded by chaos and stormy seas, she has been at pains to reach out to those of the ship’s officers who may command a modicum of responsibility. A growing number of passengers wish her success in this challenge and other endeavours.
On a human level at a time when things are falling apart and no-one really knows what will happen next, people reach inside themselves for that still, small voice; the voice that reminds them what they stand for and what they will not stand for. Without this voice, we are but empty vessels, open to the four winds and all that the tempest can throw at us.
Listening to that voice, we can navigate better the problems that beset us. In times of crisis, our values shine through.
Of course, the opposite also applies. A person or a state with no firm values is in very serious trouble when tragedy strikes. And this brings us neatly to the UK ship of state.
It has no moral compass at the very time it needs it most. Ministers fall back on expediency and falsehoods to navigate each day. What else do they have? The UK is not grounded. It abandoned that which is truly valuable to make a buck. Under duress it looks not to other states with principles, but to a president who is shorn of decency – and rejoices in that association.
There is an old axiom. (And I suspect some of you may sigh over your cornflakes when we make this comment, but read on.) The saying is that “you do not know who is swimming naked until the tide goes out”.
Well the tide is well and truly out for the British state and we find it wholly exposed and unprotected. Tragedy has found it utterly wanting. Its shaky, decaying and putrefying institutions are not fit for purpose. Its slothful public schoolboys and grasping hedge fund managers have wholly corrupted it.
Moreover, the hapless passengers aboard this rotting ship of state have found that we are not all in the same boat. We are all in the same storm; but some are on gin palaces while others are hanging on despairingly to the sides of the vessel.
The main lesson we need to take from these parlous times is that there ought not to be any going back to the mess we had before. The old institutions have failed us. The old politics has failed us. We need to reassert our basic values of decency and respect for others and the planet.
Scotland needs to be very clear about what we will stand for and what we will not stand for. We need to write this down in a constitution, not least so we can refer to it when stormy seas come again.
And we need to express to the world that we are ethical and responsible global citizens.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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