Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - When people despise bankers, it certainly ain't the teller helping you when you visit a bank. Witness the community outcry whenever a bank considers closing a local branch. It becomes “apocalypse now” time for the local area, businesses will close, the integrity of a town or village will be damaged.
Ironically, the proper contempt that the public feel for those who took down institutions that had contributed to our country and its economic success over centuries was not down to bankers. Because what had happened to our banks lay in no small measure to our banks no longer being run by bankers.
Both RBS and Bank of Scotland had ended up with virtually no trained bankers – actually a mere one in each – in their top management teams. Major institutions all but fell precisely because their leaders did not understand the businesses they “led”, did not possess the skills and experience necessary.
It will be a long road for our banks to restore themselves in the public mind as necessary, valued, respected parts of our country. And even longer before bankers move off the bottom of the “respect table”.
And politicians?
Some university archives have pamphlets from 350 years ago fulminating against politicians. Contempt for leaders in Rome existed 2,000 years ago. So clearly nothing new.Winston Churchill said, “Democracy is the worst form of government” but continued “except for all the others.” And there's the rub.
253 people have served as MSPs since 1999. And all but a couple have come to our Parliament because they wanted to do good for their communities. So when I disagree with colleagues in other political parties, it ain't personal.
The most serious of decisions come when they affect the life expectancy of individuals. The Scottish Parliament's Welfare Reform Committee has commissioned research into the impact of the UK Government's welfare changes on people in Scotland. Frighteningly that has shown, in the words of the Committee's Convenor that, “the most deprived areas of the country are contributing the most savings to the welfare budget.” Bearing down hardest and reducing the life chances of those most in need.
That's our Parliament at its analytical best. Probing and testing public policy.
My Westminster colleagues in the SNP have been unambiguously opposed to another life-changing decision to bomb the evil forces of ISIS, more properly known as Daesh. This is not an opponent, because opponent it certainly is, based around the structures of a state as we have known it for generations. It is a more complex alliance of individuals for whom a significant motivation for their “joining up” has been the use of military force against ISIS.
The real danger is that while it might, just might, be possible to remove the ISIS presence in Syria and Iraq by military action – the evidence of thousands of bombing raids is not encouraging – experience tells us that will merely increase recruitment of new, even more numerous fighters, based within other states.
New types of enemy need new solutions. Money and arms keep ISIS going. We need to focus on cutting access to both. That's a subtle and difficult problem. And one we need to make a priority now.
