Next Scottish parliament needs the right kind of troublemakers

That isn’t to say I don’t care about, or am unbothered by the outcome. Though the SNP dominating seems inevitable, it’s still an election of serious consequence.

I guess I am simply ‘Scunnered of Ayrshire’ this week, tiredly flipping through my options. I know already I’ll be voting tactically – which I never really like to – rather than emphatically supporting those receiving my cross on the ballot.

“Are you worried about the rise of Reform?” a friend asked recently.

In truth, no, not really – at least not as it might play out in numbers. Might they become the biggest opposition party? Polling suggests it’s possible. While I don’t relish the thought, I can’t muster the required emotion to ‘worry’ about it.

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It could be riotous, possibly, given the Scottish Greens – their polar opposites – seem likely to do well too. I don’t want a ruckus in parliament, but it appears enough of my countrymen and women seem keen on it.

I’m an old-school, deeply unfashionable, liberal centrist who thinks the most radical thing a candidate could be these days is someone who believes in democracy, objective truth, fiscal responsibility, a return to proper, rigorous, knowledge-based education in schools, and ensuring we don’t descend into societal chaos.

That doesn’t feel radical to me, but the domination of the SNP and their Green allies for two decades, plus their often boorish opposition, has sometimes made it feel so.

Culturally, Reform’s rising popularity signals a backlash against both the SNP and a certain status-quo generally. Reform supporters are more diverse than many on the left like to believe – and there are some old-school liberals in the mix of a motley crew - but there’s no denying a xenophobic, racist, and deeply reactionary element.

I’ve little truck for the dim utopianism of the Scottish Greens and their supporters either though; their modus operandi is to pretend we don’t live in a society that needs borders, boundaries, and curbs on individual desires.

Whether it’s Maggie Chapman calling for legal sex-changes for 8 year olds, or incumbent Lothians regional list candidate Kate Neves calling for the abolishment of prisons, this is the politics of student campus philosophising; near-impossible to take seriously, unfortunate we have to.

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Both maverick parties benefit from an undeniable reality: things seriously aren’t working. We’ve a cost of living and housing crisis that makes even the formerly affluent feel poor; an education system unfit for purpose; a migrant crisis nobody really wants to talk seriously about, and younger people who can’t imagine ever feeling secure.

All need acknowledged with far more reasonableness across all parties. They haven’t been, either here or at UK level. We need our parliament to stop reflecting the worst elements of the divisions caused, and to work far more consensually on addressing real problems.

Due to the lack of such, however, a great deal of people are appalled enough to be willing to “shake things up” by voting for populists and mavericks.

As much as SNP supporters don’t like to remember this, their party’s success was cemented by much the same voter impulse. They were once the ‘trouble-makers’ promising a “shaking things up” rhetoric. The SNP were the ‘break things’ party against the ‘cosy consensus’ at Westminster. But, having normalised wanting to break things, making secessionist beliefs mainstream in a way that would’ve shocked early devolutionists, other ‘tear it all down’ factions have since become popular.

How to signal one’s rage against the status-quo, then? And which one? The options are now various.

Independence remains a tired murmur underneath all the SNP’s manifesto promises, which read in part like a desperate S1 Mock Election pledge promising free sweeties for every kid in the classroom.

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Subsidised bus travel, free school bags for every pupil, minimum incomes for artists – sounds great, but no detail is offered on affordability or practicalities. It’s pie in the sky stuff, and economically reckless.

As another majority for pro-independence parties seems likely, this also means another five years of constitutional-based mudslinging. Reform MSPs will be in the mix as new adversaries, alongside a diminished Scottish Labour and Tory element. Accusations of opponents being ‘against Scotland’ seem likely to thunder from the SNP for another half decade.

It’s tiresome. Take last week, for example. John Swinney announced a plan to cap food prices on essential items in supermarkets, a policy that came out of nowhere. Within a matter of hours, questioning the plausibility or desirability of this manifesto commitment was liable to have you labelled by SNP supporters as an evil Yoon (unionist), or someone who hates poor people.

I know for many signalling support for Scottish independence has become the be all and end all of their voting habits. But, as with the sudden enthusiasm for the policy above, it bears remembering: before 2014, only approximately 23 per cent of us were remotely bothered about it. I was persuaded to vote Yes in 2014, though gradually realised I was caught up in an idealistic mania. It’s one I’m afraid some are still stuck in unquestioningly. But, even were I a card-carrying nationalist, I’d favour a spell in opposition for the largest pro-independence party – they’re out of ideas.

That won’t happen, alas. We’ll be back on the rodeo of antagonism imminently. But, I’ve my fingers crossed for the right kind of trouble-makers being amongst the new cohort of MSPs.

Across party lines, such types will keenly collaborate. They’ll be radically humble, willing to admit the above issues aren’t easy. They’ll kick against party whips when necessary, including the likely SNP government’s.

It’s a small, probably to-be-unfulfilled hope. It shouldn’t be.