50 shades of SCUNNERED

Looking from the outside in at politics, it's clear that we are...

- Monica Lennon

FOR the first time in a decade, I am looking at the Holyrood chamber as an outsider.

It is a perspective that only comes with losing an election.

Session 7 is underway. Sixty-four new MSPs have had their inductions, John Swinney’s position as First Minister has been rubber-stamped, and a very familiar looking Cabinet has been tasked with taking Scotland forward into the 2030s.

But outside the parliamentary estate, it is glaringly obvious how disconnected political machine is from the people it is meant to serve.

Across Scotland, voters expressed themselves in 50 shades of scunnered. A total deficit of hope and trust has created the perfect conditions for protest votes and populism.

But more worryingly, are we becoming a country of indifferent bystanders? Around half of us didn't vote at all.

And let’s be clear - it is always the privileged and wealthy who benefit when the working class opts out.

Right now, families are crying out for their living standards to improve, yet we are drowning in a shallow politics of personality.

Across the UK, we are told to pin our hopes on individual political saviours. But I remain deeply cautious of the leader-worship that plagued Scotland during the Salmond-Sturgeon era.