IT’S been a funny old election campaign – in that sometimes we’ve laughed until we’ve cried, sometimes we’ve laughed to stop ourselves from crying and sometimes we’ve just plain gret.
As usual, Willie Rennie has been the star of much of the show, whether sitting on a giant deckchair, playing giant chess or just generally being a giant of Scottish politics. Lol, that’s our wee joke.
Because sometimes we’ve actually forgotten the LibDem leader has been around. Like during the TV leaders’ debates, when Rennie seemed to vanish from our screens while the grown-ups talked.
Maybe some of the magic from 2019’s Harry Potter-themed shoot had rubbed off on him. Rennie probably could do with some magic today, given the less than enchanting poll predictions for his party. Luckily we’ve only got the three days of counting to wait to find out if he’s pulled off a giant surprise.
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At least Rennie has been in some sense thinking big in this election. Not like Douglas Ross, a man whose horizons are as high and wide as the view inside a Smarties tube.
Why can’t you consider Covid recovery and an independence referendum, STV’s Colin McKay asked him. The answer became an instant meme. Soundtracked by a snipped from Vanilla Ice, “you just can’t, Colin” says everything you need to know about Ross’ ambitions for our country.
It’s like the 2021 version of the Johann Lamont indyref classic – you know, the one where she said: “We’re not genetically programmed in Scotland to make political decisions.” Baffling then, baffling now.
As baffling as when Ross had a go at relevance by reciting the chorus to Atomic Kitten hit Whole Again? Probably more so.
Sometimes Scottish politics does feel like a weird place, like a mysterious time slip where the same people continue to wonder if they actually have the mettle to run their own affairs.
There are other things that make it feel like a time warp too, like when the Scottish Family Party campaigns against sex education in schools.
This time we’ve had some new characters join the cast, like George Galloway, everyone’s favourite hat-wearing tactical voting guru. Scotland In Union’s never been able to make Unionist tactical voting work, but Galloway is convinced his new outfit, All For Unity, will do the trick, even though no other parties seem to be taking part. God loves a trier.
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Alliances have been all the rage, this election. Douglas Ross did have a go at his own, but Anas Sarwar – perhaps the only Scottish party leader who actually can dance – and Willie Rennie gave the linesman the red card on that one. At the helm of the Alba Party, Alex Salmond also tried to secure a Yes alliance with the Greens and SNP. That might not have worked, but he did manage to knock two other new Yes parties – Action for Independence and the Independence for Scotland Party – out of the election before it had begun.
Alba weren’t delighted when their candidates, holding letter posters, were pictured standing in a line that spelled out ABLA instead of, well, you know. The party’s recovered from worse during its first few weeks though, including a live-streamed launch during which Salmond was left standing silently when the feed failed to cut to his candidates and some oik repeatedly asked in the live comments section “DO YOU BELIEVE IN CRYSTAL SKULLS?”
As we said, Scottish politics is something else. Same time, same place for the council elections next year?
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