In praise of politicians

Politicians, in my experience, are much like the rest of the population: some are competent, some are pleasant and some are neither. My memories go back a fairly long way but there is no point in re-telling the stories of the greats - Willie Ross, probably the best ever Secretary of State for Scotland, Bruce Millan, probably the most under-estimated Secretary of State and one of the greatest administrators, and George Younger, one of the nicest men to fill that office.

But what of today's crop of politicians? Of those I have come across, there are two who fall into the smartest category. Equal first is Alistair Darling, one of the smoothest politicians you will ever come across - he never gets flustered, he is never at a loss, he does his homework, always pleasant, always discreet, always observes the niceties. I doubt if any Opposition spokesman has laid a finger on him over the past 9 years. The other is Wendy Alexander: as a young woman in her 30s, she took on the entire Scottish Office when she was Donald Dewar's special adviser. She may not have won every battle but, by dint of sheer hard work, she won more than enough to command the respect of the Office. When that husky voice came on the telephone, civil servants jumped to attention and many of them subsequently admitted ruefully to having been 'Wendied'. She is the First Minister we should have had, the woman who has more ability than the entire existing Scottish cabinet put together.

And the nice guys? Who would you have a pint with, if the occasion arose? Well, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton is the obvious example, a guy who combined impeccable courtesy to everyone with a sincere desire to do what was best. And if he was occasionally somewhat other-worldly, then nobody minded too much. I always liked David McLetchie, though I readily admit that he was not to everyone's taste. Similarly, Richard Lochhead struck me as a decent sort, once you got him off the SNP propaganda. And Hugh Henry always seems to mean well, though he must have a certain toughness to have survived his days as leader of West Renfrewshire Council.

It is easy to forget that poliicians are people - they have lives outside parliament, they have wives/husbands and children, they can be hurt by criticism (and I plead guilty to the occasional unthinking twist of the knife). They do a difficult job and, by and large, get nothing but dog's abuse for it. Once in a blue moon, we should be thankful that there are people prepared to take on the burdens of political life for what are relatively trivial financial rewards.

I'll be back to normal tomorrow.