Scunnered

Any regular readers might have discerned a bit of disillusionment with politics during the couple of years that this blogger has been pontificating, but while in some ways that provides the motivation, on the other hand in recent weeks the scunner factor has been such that I'm finding it difficult to summon up the effort to as much as express it, hence the slower than usual posting rate this month.

Of course, the devolution settlement and voting system for Holyrood elections largely predisposes the parliament towards ineffectual lame duck governments, thus to that extent the only thing to really get excited about is the bunfight mentality which seems to characterise Scottish politics, borrowed, of course, from the mother of parliaments down south.

And this feeling is exacerbated by the lame duck government being into its fag end period; indeed perhaps it's the perspective of a part-time parliament which in turn conveys the impression that MSPs are in permanent election campaign mode. In fact, if this isn't tiresome enough at the best of times, with the whole thing moving into overdrive over the next couple of months things can only get worse.

And if Wendy Alexander's retreat from frontline politics doesn't put the tin lid on the recent near political implosion of Scottish Labour in a welter of oppositionism, cynicism and duplicity, the SNP's schadenfreude at it all perhaps demonstrates the lack of a real and credible Nationalist agenda for change, beyond of course the highly questionable assumption that another SNP government will presage a promised land of wealth, fraternity and, er, renewables.

So last night I turned to Newsnicht for some blogging inspiration. Something about the characterisation of being 'Wendied' wisnae sexist 'cos Alex is never criticised in the same way but in reality the men really are and she wisnae really leaving to spend mair time with her family because they all say that, but although it's a cliche it's true in my case, said Wendy, but it couldnae be because it never is, even in Wendy's case.

Thus the most interesting thing about the whole item was Iain Macwhirter's new hair style and colour, which means he's gone from being a bit of a Dode Clooney to, ahem, maybe it was something to do with the piece being on Wendy. Well no doubt there's some compelling medical reason for his makeover, and it wouldn't do for Mr Hair-for-the-blogosphere to get bitchy about such things, but let's hope for a hasty return of the old Iain.