First Minister Humza Yousaf has said the next UK general election should be used as an opportunity to make Scotland “Tory-free”.
In a speech in Perth at the weekend, he described a scenario where there wasn’t any Conservative MPs left in Scotland as “a prize worth fighting for”.
The anti-Tory message might have been well-received by the party faithful in the room but not everybody thinks it was a wise line for a first minister to take.
It was described as “divisive rhetoric” by Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser. Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said Yousaf’s comments treated voters with “open contempt”.
The SNP’s own Pete Wishart, who is the party’s longest-serving MP, said he wouldn’t be repeating the sentiment expressed by the first minister in his own constituency election battle.
In this age of down-and-dirty politics; of cheap campaigning tricks and spouting venom towards your political opponents, the first minister’s stated aim of winning seats from Tory MPs doesn’t seem quite as extreme as some critics have suggested.
That doesn’t mean it’s a smart message to take into a general election.
What’s the plan to put it right?
Now, more than ever, people are desperate for politicians to provide a glimmer of hope.
Voters want to know that better days are coming. Crucially, we want to hear detailed and credible plans for how we’re going to get there.
In politics, the blame game has its place. It’s a tactic used by parties to focus voters’ minds on the failures of their opponents.
But that only works if they complete the thought.
It’s not enough to say what the other side is doing wrong. They have to also tell us how they plan to put it right.
Finger pointing only gets you so far.
Whether it’s the Conservative Party’s tactic of blaming immigrants or the poor for their own mismanagement of the economy; or Keir Starmer’s Labour Party telling us how terrible the Tories are while pledging to keep many of their most abhorrent policies, it seems that while hope may be in short supply, there is still plenty of blame to go around.
In the upcoming election, the SNP can’t rely on the unpopularity of the Tories to win votes for themselves.
A core chunk of SNP voters will expect to hear how the party plans to progress the long-stalled march towards IndyRef2.
Before casting their vote, many will also want to hear how the SNP plans to use its limited power at Westminster to bring positive change for Scotland.
We expect more from our elected representatives
In fairness to the first minister, his speech in Perth did explore other ideas and priorities beyond making Scotland Tory-free.
He spoke about investment in public services, protecting the NHS from privatisation and ending the “economic disaster” of Brexit.
Everybody and their granny knows how the SNP feel about this Conservative government. If recent polling is anything to go by, millions of people across the UK feel exactly the same way.
While ordinary voters are perfectly entitled to grumble and moan about the disrepair of our towns and cities, our barely functioning public services and the horror show that is the economy, we expect a bit more from our elected representatives.
Given we don’t yet know exactly when the general election will be, there is still time for parties to refine their messages.
But as things stand, it’s shaping up to be a doom and gloom election, totally in keeping with the current mood of the country. I don’t think politicians understand quite how exhausted voters are by the events of the last five years.
The election campaign can’t be allowed to turn into a greatest hits mash-up of all the bad things that have happened.
We want energy. We want ideas. We want people who have the courage to make big promises and convince us that it’s safe to feel cautiously optimistic again.
And if anybody has a PowerPoint presentation of their 10-point plan for sorting the mess out, that would be welcome too.
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