‘Why we must learn to disagree better’
Just like a Thirties movie, The Lady Vanishes in redacted inquiry evidence,
One year to the day since the first Covid case was recorded in Scotland, this is a moment to reflect on both the impact of the devastating pandemic and to examine its legacy.
The past 12 months have led to isolation, hardship and sorrow for so many, and the scars and the pain will take time to heal.
But despite intense personal suffering, there has been a determination within our communities to ensure that we don’t struggle alone.
That has been evidenced in the new report published today by the Talk/together campaign, with responses from nearly 160,000 people across all four nations of the UK.
It found that Scotland has pulled together during the Covid crisis and is now a more united nation. The same is true in communities all across the UK.
The report includes some heart-warming examples of everyday kindness that has helped bring people together.
“In our area people cook an extra cottage pie. And they say, does anyone need a meal?”
That was just one comment in one of the many conversations held as part of this study; the largest survey of public attitudes during the pandemic.
Another said: “I've been in my house for four years. Now I've spoken more to my neighbours during this last six to seven months than I did in the last four years.”
The report, based on both conversations and in-depth polling, shows that four times as many Scots think Covid-19 has made their community more united than more divided.
A majority of Scots say the public's response to the coronavirus crisis has shown the ‘unity of our society more than its divides’, with 53 per cent agreeing their ‘local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together’.
And the findings suggest nearly one million adults in Scotland volunteered during the pandemic and hundreds of thousands want to continue helping in their local community.
People like 18-year-old Freya Riley from Kelty in Fife who one year ago became a Kindness Volunteer with Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland.
Freya phones Chris, a 70-year-old stroke survivor from Springfield, twice a week to chat and help him feel less lonely.
“He calls me his ‘wee ray of sunshine’ because my call brightens up his day, and it’s lovely to hear that because it brightens my day too,” she said.
People like Freya epitomise the neighbourly acts of kindness and the relief effort that has brought communities together in Scotland.
But the unity we have built together must not be the high-water mark – this is a base from which to build.
Today’s report signals that we are at a crossroads. Pre-pandemic divisions remain, and new divisions could open up if the lessons of the past year are ignored.
In Scotland, the same divisions in society can be found as in other parts of the UK.
Forty-two per cent of Scots are worried about divisions between rich and poor and 27 per cent are worried about divisions between people from different ethnic groups.
And here we have the added dimension of the ongoing debate about our country’s constitutional future.
We campaigned on different sides in the 2014 referendum and we represented different political parties in parliaments.
But we both want to live in a country where there is a diverse range of opinions and healthy debate - because our society is richer as a result.
We all, collectively, have a job to do to ensure that differences of opinion do not become such deeply entrenched divisions that we lose the opportunities before us.
Over the coming months and years, voters in Scotland will continue to make significant decisions over the country’s future. This study shows that people want to see a debate that is respectful and informed.
We need to disagree better, and politicians must lead from the front. It is in the interest of all politicians and activists to change the tone and reset the language used in our politics.
The public is rightly demanding a more respectful conversation, and if politicians and activists fail to learn how to disagree better then not only will their own causes suffer, but distrust in our democracy will deepen.
We both believe that politics is a force for good, and we need to encourage a more civil debate not least so that we encourage more people from diverse backgrounds to choose a career in public service.
The report rightly concludes: “There is a real need for more civil society initiatives that provide safe spaces for respectful political debate.”
As part of the Talk/together listening exercise, there were hundreds of suggestions for action to place the foundations and connections needed to build a society where we have greater respect for difference and higher levels of trust, empathy and kindness.
This includes the commitment to learn to disagree better, which applies not only to political leaders but to everyone engaging on social media.
Other suggestions include improving children’s understanding of democracy, our political institutions and what it means to be a citizen through the greater uptake of Modern Studies.
And government recovery plans should aim to increase participation in sports, cultural, environmental and community activities.
These findings will now be used to press for the policy change and practical action that is needed.
We all need to play our part so that we can build a kinder, closer and more connected society.
Kezia Dugdale is director of the John Smith Centre for Public Service and a member of the /Together steering group, and Stephen Gethins is professor of practice in international relations at the University of St Andrews and a former SNP MP
We need to build a society where we have greater respect for difference and higher levels of trust, empathy and kindness, write Kezia Dugdale and Stephen Gethins
There is a time in politics when a public mood begins to develop that is unstoppable and ushers in change that a little while ago seemed impossible. A sense a government has been in power for too long takes hold and has a momentum of its own.
There is a time in politics when a public mood begins to develop that is unstoppable and ushers in change that a little while ago seemed impossible. A sense a government has been in power for too long takes hold and has a momentum of its own.
It can seem like winter is very long and inhospitable but suddenly spring arrives and the first shoots of a new season, of new growth and with it new opportunities, force their way through.
Last week the final few days of winter were played out in Holyrood with an engrossing evidence session from former First Minister Alex Salmond at the Scottish Parliament’s inquiry into the SNP government’s harassment policy and how it led to a failed attempt to prosecute him.
There was a time, only a week or so ago, that people talked of the “inevitability” of Britain breaking up, of Scotland risking its future despite all the warnings it could be catastrophic economically. You will not hear that this week. There is no such thing as inevitability in politics.
The demeanour and approach of Salmond in giving evidence was wholly convincing and plausible. He did not attempt to grandstand the committee, unlike some of its more amateurish members; he did not appear flippant or humorous; he never sought to be gratuitous towards potential opponents or bluster his way out of difficult questions. These are all allegations I have laid at Salmond’s door in the past, and with just cause, but on Friday I saw a different man who used his words carefully and of all things displayed humility.
Most of all he did not go out of his way for headlines by calling for the First Minister’s head, nor did he go beyond what he had evidence to support, or which others might provide evidence to support. Instead he called on people to consider their own positions, to look at themselves in the moral mirror.
This was all in the context of the First Minister challenging him the previous week to present evidence of an alleged conspiracy to remove him from politics, only for the Crown Office to act as her 7th Cavalry by retrospectively redacting the evidence he offered.
Not redacting evidence about actual complainants or what might provide jigsaw construction about complainants – but redacting references to the First Minister’s role. It was the stuff of all-controlling dictatorships in the Thirties when movies like The Lady Vanishes were made about nefarious skulduggery – only this time the lady vanishing was the First Minister and her potential involvement.
Where I would disagree with Alex Salmond was his denial that Scotland is now a failed state. Of course he would not concede such a conclusion but the evidence is comprehensive and compelling.
Failed states can come about for a variety of reasons; the institutions may be unfit for purpose; they may also be susceptible to and unable to resist financial or political corruption; there may be a serial lack of professional leadership from officials – and there may be an utter lack of ability among the political class, often disguised from public view by an ability to communicate better than most people shoved in front of cameras and bright lights.
I would argue the current SNP government actually scores well on all
these points and that the evidence is replete with examples of persistent failure.
How many failed and failing new hospitals does it take to convince people the SNP government cannot run our NHS? How many windowless ferries unable to get out of the builder’s yard does it take before people accept the SNP government could not steer a banana boat up the Clyde? How many in a long list of failed policies – such as abolishing council tax, abolishing student debt or delivering a national energy company – does it take before people realise the SNP political class are all fur coat and no knickers?
And how much denial of evidence by the Crown Office does it take to realise there is no separation of powers between the executive and our justice system?
Scotland was not a failed state in 2007 when the SNP took power, it was not even a failed state under Salmond – but it is a failing state now. The institutions have not so much changed as become infected with the virus of Sturgeon’s more bitter nationalism that has made them beholden to working for one thing and one thing only – the obeyance of the leader who will deliver the cause of her cult.
Economics will be turned inside out and upside down to deny reality. Statistics about education, healthcare, housing, justice and the rest will be denied the light of day so evidencebased policy becomes impossible.
Now there is a new mood about and it is not one the First Minister is in control of. Salmond’s evidence session was most likely the catalyst that will awaken many nationalists to consider they have been taken for mugs by their current leadership.
Sturgeon’s SNP has still not developed a consensus around a financial plan for separatism that explains how the currency, state pensions and avoiding austerity can work. Labour has a new leader who can offer a fresh and unifying approach – if he is bold enough to work with others, such as supporting a Tory no-confidence vote on John Swinney. All while the UK’S role in providing us with vaccines reminds us British solidarity still has a huge value and the polls are trending away from secession towards remaining British.
If the withheld evidential texts become available I expect it shall be all over – and we can reform and rebuild Scotland with a new First Minister.