STEPHEN DAISLEY: Our political class had better start learning to pass themselves off as human or Reform will deliver a nasty surprise

Daily Mail​

4 hours ago

It's not the done thing to say, 'I told you so.' Thankfully, I've never been one for the done thing.
So, to the political class: I told you so.
For some time now, this column has been warning the mainstream parties against complacency towards Reform. But that complacency carried well into the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, and now it's rude awakenings all round.
After the initial shock of Labour 's victory, politicians and pundits noticed something else about the result: Reform got 26 per cent of the poll. One in every four votes cast went to Nigel Farage 's candidate, Ross Lambie. He came just three points shy of the SNP.
If that was replicated across Scotland in next year's devolved elections, we would be looking at a very different Scottish parliament. All of a sudden, the political establishment is very concerned about Reform and wants us to know they're Listening and Learning.
Yesterday on television, viewers saw a more meditative John Swinney than usual. The Nationalists had to 'win people back' by 'delivering on the issues that people are concerned about'.
The First Minister said he 'heard loud and clear' the message from the voters and recognised their priorities were the cost of living, public services, GP access and waiting lists. The SNP had to 'give people hope' on energy costs, too. He wanted Scotland to 'use our enormous energy wealth for the benefit of our people who are paying extraordinary high fuel prices'.
Who knew that nuking the oil and gas industry in exchange for a few headlines could have such a damaging impact? The time for delivering on what voters care about was the past 18 years, in which the SNP has commanded the Scottish Government and its vast array of powers. The electors were loud and clear about the cost of living. The SNP raised their taxes. They were loud and clear about waiting times. The SNP continues to miss their own targets for emergency and cancer treatment.
Swinney said voters needed hope. Fine. One question: why after almost two decades of SNP government are people still in need of hope?
The First Minister, like his two predecessors, is a managerial technocrat. He gets the line, he says the line, he holds the line, and it doesn't matter what the line is, just as long as it's the yellow team's line and not their red or blue rivals. Whatever youthful ideals and certainties might have brought him into the SNP, the Swinney of today is in politics to be in politics.
His chief contribution to the Hamilton by-election, beyond talking up Reform's chances, was the anti-'far right' summit to which he invited every party except Reform. We will probably never know what impact this spiteful display had on the voters of Hamilton, but it might have convinced some that the mainstream parties were all in it together and Reform the only challenge to their power.
Just as the sight of Labour joining forces with the Tories during the independence referendum drove some Labour voters to switch to the SNP, there is a chance this gathering had the same effect. The anti-'far right' summit might well have been Swinney's Better Together.
Post-election ruminations were not limited to the Nats.
In a blogpost, Ross Greer advises against echoing Swinney's anti-Reform strategy, which he believes will only squeeze out his party come election time. The Greens versus the SNP. As Henry Kissinger said of the Iran-Iraq war: 'It's a pity they both can't lose.'
Yet Greer says 'people are right to be angry' because 'the system is rigged' — not in favour of immigrants, but billionaires and second-home owners. He wants the Greens to take 'a greater focus on economic justice' but stresses that this shouldn't 'come at the expense of social justice'.
You don't have to strain hard to see the subtext: the Greens have been stalwart on rights issues (migrants, refugees, trans people) but have let their eye off the ball on economics. Another hint that Greer will stand for election to succeed Patrick Harvie.
But few Scottish politicians have been as focused on social justice as Greer. If it's not pronouns with him it's Palestine, and while these press the right buttons for the Greens' graduate, urban, professional voter base, they do nothing to confront inequalities in resources and opportunities.
Greer believes the answer is 'economic justice', which is what you call socialism when you don't want to remind people of all that unfortunate business about dictators and death tolls.
His prescriptions are wrong but not his analysis of the importance of economics. He frets about 'creeping fascism' but if authoritarianism takes root in economic despair, there is no fertiliser like a decadent, inward-looking ruling class.
As Scottish people struggle financially, they see the Greens champion their top priorities: gender self-identification and free bus travel for asylum seekers. Economics is reasserting itself as the primary language of politics. If the Greens don't become conversant in it, they could find themselves talking to fewer and fewer voters.
Popular discontent is also troubling Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay, who wrote in the Mail: 'I am listening, I get it and I understand how you feel. My party let you down in government and we accept responsibility for our mistakes.'
Coming within one percentage point of losing your deposit can inspire contrition that way. Introspection would have been better deployed during the 14 years when the Conservatives delivered a toxic cocktail of high taxes and low growth, more borrowing and worse services, spiking inflation and flatlining productivity.
They lost the confidence of the markets and paid a heavy political toll but nothing like the financial toll that befell ordinary families.
This in itself would be enough to merit a term or two on the opposition benches, but the Tories compounded their economic recklessness by losing all semblance of control over the UK's borders.
Unprecedented levels of legal and illegal migration have transformed communities, disrupted ways of life, strained services, drained budgets and provoked resentment within the native population. Nigel Farage will forever be in the Tories' debt for services rendered.
Findlay didn't cause his party's woes and is making a valiant attempt to set things right. The spirit of the times is anti-establishment and a political outsider ought to be well-placed to capitalise on this, but he is shackled by the Conservatives' record in government. Findlay is gutsy. He needs more people with guts behind him.
Reform's growing popularity is no great secret. A sizeable chunk of voters are drawn to Reform because it speaks about the issues that matter to them. Honestly, they're just relieved to encounter a political party that speaks to them without visible disdain.
You needn't be Reform to do this. Look at the winner in Hamilton. Labour's Davy Russell is not a political smoothie. I doubt if he can recite entire West Wing scenes from memory. I don't know his pronouns and I wouldn't care to ask him.
He is an ordinary bloke with an electoral mandate. His opponents derided him, the pundits dismissed him, the press disregarded him. Everyone was against him except the voters.
People aren't turning to Reform for its carefully costed policy platform. They are frustrated with a political class in which everyone looks the same, thinks the same, and talks like the same dead-eyed HR manager posting on LinkedIn.
I doubt my advice will be any more welcome this time, but to the political class: It's not complicated. Talk to people, listen to them, make their priorities yours, and try very hard to pass yourselves off as human.