The debate is unrelenting but our opinions are unchanging
Now old Henry Mencken was not right about everything but, now and again, it’s hard to argue.
Today, for example, when our opinion poll of more than 1,000 Scots voters reveals that, after three months of the most furious political debate, about the United Kingdom, the European Union and Scotland’s future in both, nothing has changed.
According to our survey, not one opinion has flip-flopped, not one voter has been persuaded to move position on the big questions: in or out, yes or no? Voters are, it is tempting to suspect, waiting for some clear, simple information before reconsidering our clear, simple answers. After a long, hot summer of sound and fury, it seems that we might, finally, have stopped listening, if not stopped caring. To the surprise of many, including, possibly, her own, Theresa May emerged from her conference relatively unscathed last week. It is, however, all relative, when a speech that started with Dancing Queen and did not feature a coughing fit or the disintegration of the backdrop behind her, is regarded as a bit of a triumph for our Prime Minister. She had some more good news yesterday with positive murmurings from mainland Europe about the prospect of a Brexit deal but, still, it is hard to see Mrs May as a leader fully in control of her own future, never mind her country’s.
In Scotland, according to our poll, there remains not the slightest prospect of the SNP support weakening but the chances of the First Minister giving a clear indication on a second independence referendum – the issue that has, one way or another, dominated every aspect of Scottish politics for four years now – seem just as slim.
That will frustrate some of the faithful congregating today on the banks of the Clyde at the party’s conference but they will be asked to thole it and thole it they will. And so, at Westminster and Holyrood, it will continue, the passionate speeches and blistering rebuttals. Meanwhile, the rest of us, our poll suggests, may no longer really be tuning in, that we are getting on with the things that matter most, like paying the mortgage, helping with homework, visiting ill relatives, and hoping for a holiday.
It is not that we do not care about the big picture, the great affairs of state, the impact of these monumental changes on our lives. We simply do not know what these changes will look like, or what they might possibly mean. More worryingly, it is impossible to say, definitively, that anyone else does either.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong
– H.L Mencken
The problems facing our country are certainly complex but, still, we seem an awful long way from any answers that are clear, simple and right.