Sturgeon’s drug death apology is worthless

Ipolitical experience has taught me anything, it is that to make a difference, you need commitment to specific objectives. Changing the world can come later but just do something useful now. Serious parliamentarians understand this. Life is too short to waste on posturing so work hard, keep both eyes on a ball and game-changing outcomes can be achieved. It is tougher in opposition but it can still be done.

An obvious recent example at Holyrood was Monica Lennon’s campaign on period poverty. Keep banging away at an unfashionable issue. Build alliances. Create a level of public and political support that makes it prudent for government to accede. And, hey presto, you have a result.

There have been many such examples over the decades. One reform for which many of us have reason to be grateful was back in the late 1970s when two thenbackbench Scottish MPS, Labour’s Alex Eadie and a Tory, Hamish Gray, steered through legislation which enshrined in law the right of children with special needs to be educated. Hardly anyone remembers but it was a genuine world first – which should also remind us that the right to do things differently in Scotland did not start with Holyrood.

In government rather than opposition, there are more opportunities to make a difference but the same test applies. Without commitment to specific outcomes, nothing much will change. There will be the trappings of office but not the substance of delivery. Left to its own devices, the civil service will not drive change. It is not their job. That is the function of ministers and in today’s Scotland, it is grossly under-fulfilled.

Civil servants are generally good people with a disinclination to radicalism. They have established positions to protect; silos to maintain; budgets for their own priorities to safeguard.

Anything radical that I achieved in my time as a minister involved taking on these pre-conditions and – critically – following through until the desired outcome was irrevocably across the line.

I was prompted to reflect on that hinterland when I heard Nicola Sturgeon declare that “we took our eye off the ball” as an explanation of Scotland’s appalling status under her watch as drugs death capital of Europe.

It was a typical Sturgeon formulation; carefully crafted as a faux humility soundbite to cover a gross failure of government with countless human lives involved. Job done in her playbook, to the entire satisfaction of her following.

How many eyes and how many balls are to be discounted in the same way while the quest continues for the only one that motivates her? For someone who has been in politics so long – a profession more suited than the law to glib superficiality – there is remarkably little evidence of continuing commitment to any “limited objective” that would make a difference or address specific injustices.

This is not a characteristic which has applied to all SNP figures over the years. Far from it. Margo Macdonald and Margaret Ewing were outstanding examples of politicians with more than one dimension. I remember writing a profile of Winnie Ewing when she was an MEP which became much more favourable than I might have anticipated because of her obvious commitment to work she was then engaged in, to enable free travel for young people across Europe.

Alex Salmond, whatever his other foibles, was a much more substantial politician than Sturgeon.

Amidst the bluster, he had ideas and worked to deliver them, whatever one thought of his wider objective. I suspect that reputation might still stand him in good stead in the north-east.

When politicians care enough, they do not “take the eye off the ball”, individually or collectively. Scotland’s descent into shame on drug deaths did not occur because of the unfortunate inadvertence that Sturgeon craftily implies.

It involved a series of decisions to cut funding, ignore urgent advice and, when the statistics became too embarrassing, to deflect rather than address the issue.

Remember that when our “drugs capital of Europe” status hit the headlines, Sturgeon’s response was not to put a competent minister in charge with an instruction to make a difference. It was to focus on one narrow policy area where Westminster could be blamed – though every expert in the field told her that while this was an issue, attracting differing views, it was marginal rather than central to the challenge.

So another year was wasted while the statistics grew even worse, before there was any indication of urgency.

And this is what she now glibly dismisses as “taking our eye off the ball” while inviting credit for her honesty, humility, willingness to admit mistakes, etc, etc. The very opposite is the truth.

We are now so deeply mired in the stagnant politics of the constitution that it is almost impossible to envisage what devolved government is capable of delivering if it were in the hands of singleminded politicians with a commitment to making a difference for Scotland in each area of responsibility.

Imagine if there was a Minister for Child Poverty who really cared about child poverty. Imagine what a Minister for Special Needs who really cared about Special Needs could accomplish.

Imagine (from where I’m sitting) a Minister for Scotland’s most peripheral communities who really cared about them being living, breathing entities in 20 years’ time. And so on.

It’s all hard to imagine because our expectations have been set so low by people who have two eyes but only one ball which they have any real interest in pursuing.

Alex Salmond, whatever his other foibles, was a much more substantial politician than Sturgeon