An awful question? How dare we? You are a public servant Mr Blackford

On Wednesday, The Herald’s esteemed political correspondent, Kathleen Nutt, tweeted an exchange she’d had with Ian Blackford, former leader of the SNP’s Westminster group.

Ms Nutt is a respected member of Scotland’s Holyrood press lobby. Besides being an excellent journalist, all who have ever worked with her will readily testify to the sense of decency with which she carries out her professional duties.

She had attempted to ask Mr Blackford why his party – for several months – had failed to tell the Westminster authorities about the decision of their auditors to quit. It was a reasonable question about an important matter of public interest.

Ms Nutt tweeted: “Pressed on why he didn’t tell Commons’ authorities Ian Blackford said it was ‘an awful question’. ‘How dare you, how dare you,’ he told me.”

It was a response bristling with self-entitlement and an arrogance born of forgetting who pays his wages. Though he rose steadily through the ranks of the SNP, Mr Blackford is essentially a public servant who is paid handsomely by us to scrutinise and sometimes legislate in areas of public policy which affect the lives of the rest of us.

Neither he nor any of his parliamentary colleagues – no matter how much they are favoured by party patronage – will ever be anything other than public sector workers serving at the pleasure of the people. I trust he will reflect on his outburst and take steps to reacquaint himself with the reality of his station in life.

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Sunak slips up

JUST a day after Mr Blackford’s display of pomposity came a yet more egregious example of it from a source we more readily associate with delusions of grandeur.

In an attempt to manipulate and control press coverage of Rishi Sunak’s visit to Scotland, UK Tory party managers had attempted to restrict access to him by political journalists. Only a handful – whom they doubtless believed might be less hostile to the Conservatives – were initially chosen to question the Prime Minister. The others were told they were being denied access to the room and would not even be permitted to listen.

Scotland’s political journalists are not so easily cowed though – no matter what you may otherwise think of them – and Mr Sunak was compelled to appear before those his advisers had considered feral. This followed an hour-long standoff between the Scottish media and Tory staffers. Mr Sunak, however, tried to deny that the attempt to stage-manage his appearance had even happened.

This is what can happen when men and women attain political power and then surround themselves with party glove puppets and fluffers.

As we’ve seen in the way the Scottish Government has conducted itself over the last few years, they quickly become addicted to power and detached from the real lives of real people.

Facing the music

MR SUNAK’S attitude stands in contrast to the refreshing way in which Douglas Ross conducts himself.

I’ve often been disobliging about the Scottish Tory leader and the policies him and his party support.

Scottish Conservative Conference at the SEC, Glasgow, Friday. Scottish Conservative party leader Douglas Ross MSP giving his keynote address. Photograph by Colin Mearns 28 April 2023

Yet he never fails to put himself in the firing line and is rarely anything other than polite and dignified when faced with uncomfortable lines of questioning.

Following Mr Sunak’s chaotic press event, Mr Ross took questions from the entire Scottish political media contingent and signalled his intention to lodge a complaint to his Westminster colleagues about their farcical attempts to deter scrutiny of the Prime Minister.

And besides, Mr Ross stands alone among Scotland’s political leaders in knowing what a woman is, a wisdom he shares with the overwhelming majority of the Scottish people.

Grounded in reality

WHEN Mr Ross isn’t doing politics he can often be found at some of Scotland’s major football grounds as a referee’s assistant.

If any politician wants to know what real abuse looks and sounds like they ought to put themselves in the shoes of Mr Ross when he’s running the lines at those smaller football arenas where you can hear the invective being hurled by spectators in robust detail.

Some have suggested that subjecting himself to this is somehow demeaning to the grand office he holds as leader of the official opposition at Holyrood.

I don’t agree.

Indeed, I think it reflects well on him and conveys a purity and passion not normally found among the perfidy and fake virtue of Scottish politics.