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‘It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved.’ Niccolo Machiavelli

Following the Independent Budget Review of Scottish public expenditure chaired by Crawford Beveridge, the 2011 Scottish Elections could as well be branded as the ‘elections no-one would want to win’.

I’m sure come the 5^th of May the ballot papers will not be empty, yet those willing to take office next term are going to have be prepared to run the gauntlet.

The cuts forecast by the Review may or may not be as apocalyptic as some scare-mongering headline-breeders might have us believe, but one thing is for certain is that their consequences are not going to be popular.

From my brief escape from the dreich West coast, to the temperate climes of Auld-Reekie and the world of public affairs, one thing I have truly learnt is that it’s not about the thing that you do, it’s the way that you do it. Therein lies the danger for politicians.

Every action they take must be done in a manner aimed at the unfeasible goal of receiving the boundless love of their electorate, or at least a cross on a ballot. In reality the role of a politician is to be able to walk the line between what ought to be done, and what the people want to be done.

Queue politicians choosing policies, which can be bizarre, to say the least, if not senseless, in order to crowd please and minimise their burgeoning piles of hate-mail. The result being an electorate quite accustomed to being politically pampered.

I very much doubt that there is any divinely-granted vision as to how to proceed through the budget cuts which face Scotland, yet I’m fairly certain that teams of policy advisers lurking around Holyrood can and will deftly set out the most efficient route by which to navigate a minefield of spending cuts. However I’m also certain that such a path will be strayed from due to politicians on their relentless popularity-pursuit.

One would assume that politicians, with the (ostensible) aim of bettering the country would pursue such policies as to facilitate this, with this being largely true, unless of course they wish to be elected.

Nothing more can be said to hinder the successful running of a country than elections. We horrors who make up the electorate are naturally selfish beasts, and we want everything we can grasp; who cares if the country’s economy is as good as gone as a result?

Having been molly-coddled by overly protective politicians, we are all the more precocious, and can be sure to take advantage of their insecurities around election time to ensure that we really have wheedled all we can out of them.

At the danger of advocating the retraction of democracy in Scotland and the British Isles, and the establishment of a totalitarian-state, I do feel that in instances like this, few are bound to be pleased and so for politicians to carve out policies attempting to pander to the moaning-masses in a quest for their adoration is dangerous, with no long term benefits to anyone. The kindly MSP may be re-elected, but somewhere down the line, as a result of their soft-handed approach, the proverbial will indeed hit the fan.

My advice is entirely unfeasible; no one wants to be Billy-no-mates and no MSP wants to be out of a job come next May, but politicians really ought to stop being so nice – tough-love is the only solution.

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