A Christmas Carol

A crabbit, cornered, curmudgeonly politician sits alone in posh surroundings, gazes at the candelabra, pours an Edinburgh gin and stares into the flickering flames of the last coal fire in Scotland, stoked by the ring fenced IndyRef2 funds. The chains of power suddenly weigh so heavily, as bairns continue to hunger and auld folk keep on freezing. 

And in nocturnal wanderings there is imagined a visitor, an ancient, wise and sage mentor; she who coined the phrase by which one hoped to live and to be remembered – ‘Stop the world, Scotland wants to get on’; but yet there echoes forlornly the challenge in those other words – looking for a spine, and there to settle up, not down. A bridge too far for some. The chains keep a-rattlin’

After forty winks, fortified by a French red, there follows a feisty reminder of youth, the lady who inspired a nation, blonde curls and forthright address; from Govan in the 70s to Princes St Gardens in 2012 – if we each persuade but one to Yes, our country will be free. Sunshine on Leith, Chief, indeed. Yet that promise too remains undelivered. And the burden becomes ever more heavy.

So to the present and a haunting by a movement stalled, betrayed and taken for fools; mandates flying down the chimney like Harry’s owls. Mangled missions and hollow promises of free school dinners for all, laptops and bikes; little hills of small beans for Tiny Tam and his mates trapped in that vicious cycle of poverty. Tam’s wee crutch tap tap taps on the parquet floor and restores reality.

In desperation, wrapped in splendid furs, is an exit to the cold snowy scenes of Charlotte Square and Scotland 2024 – are there no prisons? No social workers? No drug addicts? No hungry children? Skint, hypothermic pensioners? And where are the Union Flags? They’ve gone – the bells are ringing out for Christmas Day. Scotland is free. And Tam staps another mince pie in his gub and cuddles his weans.