Politics is not a role for the faint-hearted. It is for people of principle, those who want to help improve the lot of ordinary people and make a difference. It is the same whether they are the President of the United States or a member of the community council in Lostbost. The elected representatives of the great unwashed and bewildered must focus on doing the right thing.
However, I would argue that the best of them will also have a human side that smiles, not sweetly but mischievously, even giggles now and then, and often roars with a circulation-boosting belly laugh. To be a man of the people you must enjoy a bit of craic. That is as important as promising how hard you will work when get enough votes to sweep you to the top of the heap.
Which is why I was so pleased to see that the leaders of Shetland, Orkney and Western Isles councils have won top political awards. That’s one in the eye for the knockers who think these three guys just spend their time puddle-jumping between each others islands, gallivanting between one civic slap-up and the next. They must be doing something right.
Actually, it was just one award but they won it together, severally and as a group, if you know what I mean. Ok, you don’t. Let me explain.
Angus Campbell, Gary Robinson and Steven Heddle are the Scottish Local Politician of the Year 2013. Not politicians, plural, mind you. It would appear that it’s just a third of each of them that won. It’s a very strange way of doing it but I suppose they will now have to get together even more often so their various award-winning bits can be seen at the same time and in the same photos. They are a virtual award-winning politician.
It’ll be Angus’s left side that the judges will have found worthy of note because, as I remember, he always played football as if he had two left feet. And I suspect it’s Steven Heddle’s right side that has won the prize because Gary Robinson is head and shoulders above everyone else. Boom boom. That’s me assured of a welcome in one house in Shetland West.
Gary Robinson
Pic: Shetland Times
Actually, the reason I said that is because Gary Robinson’s head is the most interesting of all the bits that make up this tripartite politico. His noggin is decorated with no less an ornament than an earring. Methinks Gary R is, or was, a bit of a rebel himself. He’s probably got an ASBO, the very fellow. Bet his poor parents had a hard time with him. So I asked him.
“I had my ear pierced in the mid-80s in the days before ASBOs, when an earring was the recognised mark of the rebellious teenager I aspired to be. Especially when done without parental consent as I did,” he admitted.
Being fly, he wheeched it out of his left lobe before he stood for the Scottish Parliament in 1999. However, he later found it wasn’t difficult to press through the skin which had by then grown over the hole – ugh. And he also got a cartilage piercing in the top of his right ear.
Mr R stood for council in 2003 but canny Shetlanders refused to plump for a man with two danglies visible. When he got in four years later, people suggested he should get rid of them. He told me: “I considered this momentarily but couldn’t follow the logic that upon being elected I should dispense with them.” Quite right too.
As far as I can see, no piercings of any kind are on the Campbell or Heddle flesh – at least none visible while in council meeting attire. What lurks beneath the big gold necklaces – I mean, the chains of office – is not our business.
Many rappers use over-sized gold adornments – like big chains. Could it be that in their private moments, after a hard day arguing for more power for their authorities before and after next year’s referendum, Steve, Gary and Angus reach for the civic bling and give it a bit of a rattle? Then, like the Supermen they are, they become transformed into Lil Wayne, 50 Cent or Eminem. Or maybe Dappy.
I can just see Gary doing U Can’T Touch This by MC Hammer, as he points to his ear. Steven, I’m told, is cool so he would wiggle to Ice Ice Baby and I’d pay good money to see Angus shaking all to Boomtastic by Shaggy. That would be good craic.
Mind you, not all civic leaders are allowed to have fun. The Mayor of Toronto is being stripped of his powers by killjoy council colleagues. I heard on the radio it was because he admitted he’d had a bit of craic now and again. Some people, eh?
Speaking of earrings, I noticed a friend of mine now has a dinky wee one. I asked him how long he’d been wearing it. He whispered: “Since my wife found it in the car.”
“Man of the people” ……………..? Seriously, Iain?