Drowning in tradition

As informed and educated persons, you’ve probably seen the rather good joke doing the rounds on the internet.

Ahem: if David Cameron and Ed Miliband were both drowning and you only had time to save one of them … what sort of sandwich would you make?

Ha, as it were, ha. Humour, it has been well observed, is the best way to make serious points. And the serious point is this: doesn’t all that Westminsterie, suitie stuff seem so irrelevant now?

I know it’s not irrelevant in the sense that they cause us suffering with their legislation, economic pilfering and so forth. But I mean that it’s never felt so distant and different.

The very perception of it is of otherworldly, Hogwartsian stuffiness, far removed from the creativity, hope and ideals generated by the independence campaign. It’s a heavy sherry against a glass of bubbling pop made from organic lemons.

Let me say, as I so often do, perhaps out of guile: I’m not knocking it. That is to say, if you take out the economic suffering and so forth, a part of me rather likes it. You could say that even Ecksforth Salmond, temporary leader of Scotia Minor, is the same, as there are rumours that he wants to head back to his beloved Thames. Who can blame him?

All politics aside, for it is a tiresome business prone to causing disagreement and staring eyes, who could dislike the House of Commons per se? Oh, you could, young lassie with the Yes badge? Well, perhaps it’s a generational thing.

Children’s stories for my generation often featured places of dark heavy wood that were safe and warm and sumptuous. The Scottish Parliament and the politics surrounding independence are, by contrast, light, Scandinavian and airy.

There should be room for both light and darkness in our lives, and while I would happily bid Westminster adieu from our political set-up, I would wish it well and look in on it from time to time as an old friend from whom we’d formally parted for our mutual betterment.

I like the long corridors of the House of Commons, the nooks and crannies, the atmosphere of drama. I don’t, obviously, like the hall where they mocked and sentenced William Wallace. But, hey, nowhere is perfect.

Once, in another hall there, I bumped into a former MSP at whose expense I used to have much sketch-writing fun. How we laughed. It was all hail-fellow-well-met. We were all in the drama (or comedy). We all had our roles.

I even like yon House of Lords. Bit on the gaudy side, mind. But I enjoyed my visit there, if only to experience the sheer pomposity of the place. At home, I used to like listening to the debates late at night on BBC Radio 4. They rarely got rancorous and had a measured pace, so conducive to relaxation.

When I visited the glittering palace, they were discussing legislation that would have put them out of existence. But, even then, many members struggled to stay awake. It seemed to me a timetabling mistake to have these debates after lunchtime with its comfort food and stodgy pudding.

You say: “This is all very well. But we’re focused on real lives here. Poverty, food banks, nuclear weapons, the health service, ken?”

Oh, I ken, I ken. And I agree. That’s precisely why Westminster feels so distant and irrelevant, almost fictional, now. We are living in parallel worlds. That one down there is old, settled, male, deep and drowsy. It’s from the 1950s Britain that stupid Americans and Scandinavians have bought into, you know, the ones who couldn’t believe we would want to break away from all that.

This world up here is one of women, community activists, artists and egalitarian sentiment. We have a job to do, not a debate to have in a gentlemen’s club. People’s lives are at stake, or at the very least the quality of them.

If David Cameron and Ed Miliband were both drowning, I wouldn’t make a sandwich. Not unless I was really hungry. On Cameron’s terms, I suppose I could put the rescue out to competitive tendering and see who offered me the most.

Miliband, I imagine, would promise me all sorts of things, vowing away like billy-oh as he spluttered amidst the waves. But could I trust him? Er, no, obviously. But even that can’t be a factor when a man’s life is at stake.

What to do? I could call the appropriate authorities. But what if they’d closed the nearest coastguard station? How long would it take them to arrive?

Nowt for it. I would have to go in and try to rescue them both. Wee problem: I’m not a very good swimmer myself. I can do a pretty basic breaststroke, stately as a galleon with my head held high.

But could I carry someone else? What if Cameron started dragging me down to save himself? After all, it’s every man for himself with his lot, isn’t it? What if Miliband gave me a fit of the giggles with his goofy expression, fatally hampering the rescue attempt?

Tell you what: run these sandwich options past me again.