This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.
Sometimes a series of events unfold which bring the state of politics into sharp focus.
You could call it ‘a naked lunch’ moment, when, as the writer William Burroughs said, explaining the title of his infamously debauched novel, we can all see ‘exactly what’s on the end of our fork’.
Over the last week, we’ve had the chance to discover just what our politicians want to feed us. None of it’s appetising.
Essentially, we’ve seen the political right in the shape of the Conservative Party – but also in the Tories’ media megaphone GB News – collapse into profound cruelty and stupidity in pursuit of votes, or in the case of GB News, eyeballs and clicks.
The British hard-right, desperate for relevance, is intent on burning the house down before fully imploding.
In Scotland, meanwhile, the SNP enters yet another round of civil war, just when it has the chance to capitalise on rightwing mayhem.
And the winners? Incredibly, it’s Labour, a party which offers so little it makes the term ‘milquetoast’ seem dynamic.
The timing couldn’t be more significant for Scotland, as the Rutherglen by-election looms next week.
Is this the pattern for the future? The disintegration of the Conservatives, self-harm by Scottish nationalists, and Labour shambling towards victory simply by not being the one party to swallow hand grenades?
Conservatives are so removed from what they once were as to be almost unrecognisable. Today’s Tories bear much more resemblance to the current iteration of America’s Republican Party than the party of Margaret Thatcher or John Major.
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Rishi Sunak has shredded Britain’s green commitments. Suella Braverman gave an anti-migration speech welcomed by genuine fascists. The notion of One Nation Conservatism is dead.
GB News, a station umbilically linked to the Tory Party, has also descended deeper into the gutter than most thought possible. The behaviour of Laurence Fox on Dan Wooton’s programme, where Stone Age comments about women were seen as somehow comic, sums up how this channel wallows in poison.
Yet tonight, Suella Braverman is interviewed on GB News by Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson.
The souls of both this TV station and political party seem as entwined as that of US Republicans and Fox News: a relationship forged in hell, which brought America to the brink.
Yet instead of exploiting this vile mess, the SNP once again self-lacerates. Yes, the party had to deal firmly with Fergus Ewing’s rebellion. But the timing couldn’t have been worse. It fractures the SNP when it should be united in aiming all its firepower on flailing Conservatives.
Simultaneously, other internecine fights have broken out within the SNP amid claims of bullying marring general election candidate selection.
This is a pattern of self-harm we’ve seen repeatedly within the SNP, and unless Humza Yousaf learns to enforce discipline properly, it will continue and it will sap morale and damage electoral fortunes.
Read Neil every Friday in the Unspun newsletter.
Which brings us neatly to Labour: the kid in the class who doesn’t really say much, has very little to offer, and isn’t good at basically anything, but looks set to stumble through to the finish post, less scathed than its rivals.
All Labour – in the form of Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar – has to do is sit back and watch its opponents wound themselves. The Tories act like drunken, enraged thugs, swinging out at every target but managing to punch themselves in the face. The SNP has reached the point where it can no longer keep all the disparate wings of nationalism together and so must face endless civil war.
No wonder Starmer was smiling when he hit the hustings in Scotland today.
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