The Shoogly Peg

Recently, I’ve been reading a book called Women Who Think Too Much. Why? Well, because I think too much. My yoga teacher once said that everybody’s mind is full of monkeys, constantly chattering away, and I would like to get my damn monkeys to shut up once in a while.

Anyway, it’s made me think about overthinking things. Which possibly means it is not working. But some of the things in the book, about how you can get hung up on a particular situation, going over and over it, looking for new angles and never really finding a solution or moving on, made me think about Scotland. I think (there I go again) that we are a nation of overthinkers. We constantly analyse our national identity, our parliament, and above all, our relationship with England. Or, as it is known this football-focused summer, Eng-er-land.

The World Cup presents a stonking example of our collective ability to overthink things – and of the media’s tendency to encourage us. I’m referring to the ABE phenomenon: Anyone But England, Scotland’s perceived desire to see anyone except our neighbours win the World Cup. It’s given pundits and columnists up and down the country something to chew over recently: are we wrong if we don’t want England to win? Is it bad if we don’t actually want them to lose, but we don’t overtly support them? If we positively support someone other than England, are we filthy racists?

I’m not sure that any other country could get itself in such a tizz about this. Why is this not the same as Rangers fans wanting Celtic to lose, or Manchester City supporters hoping that United might not win everything, or me cackling heartlessly when Hibs cock things up? Or, sticking to the world stage, why is it different from Argentinian fans not supporting Brazil, or Peruvians failing to cheer on Chile? It’s just a bit of footballing rivalry, surely?

I don’t know. Maybe we just need to think it over.

I have been exercised, recently, by the lack of women involved in the election and latterly in the Labour leadership contest. And now the boys-only tendency appears to be spreading. The latest issue of the generally enjoyable Total Politics magazine includes a feature on the history of House of Commons reform.

It lists the 1832, 1867 and 1884 Representation of the People Acts, which extended the franchise to different groups of men. It then skips merrily on to the 1911 Parliament Act and the 1989 decision to televise the House. Of the 1918 Act which gave the first women the vote, there is not a mention. Clearly, getting on the telly is considered more significant than letting a load of ladies participate in democracy.

Double acts are hard to pull off. They require trust, communication, clarity and credibility. They need not only the duo involved but also the audience to believe that both partners are truly necessary: that they couldn’t be getting the same value for half the investment. There is always the risk that one partner will decide he or she doesn’t need the other: and for the one left behind, there is the risk that their decision will turn out to be correct.

That’s the risk that Nick Clegg is now running. He’s taken the decision to accept the Deputy PM post, previously known as the For God’s Sake Give John Prescott Something To Do portfolio, and now he’s got a very short period in which to make it meaningful before he is dismissed as a mere puppet. He didn’t have to take this chance. Presumably, he could have held out for one of the traditional Top Jobs. He was never going to be Chancellor, given the prior claims of both Osborne and Cable, but he could reasonably have held out for Home Secretary or even Foreign Secretary.

That he didn’t – or that he did, but failed – tells us that Clegg is either a brilliant man or a stupid one. He will be brilliant if he manages to carve out a role for himself that doesn’t remind the ever-mocking British public of poor David Steel, forever condemned by a latex nose sticking out of a top pocket. He will be stupid if he imagines that simply gripping podiums manfully, smiling at David Cameron’s jokes and getting his very own version of Prime Minister’s Questions will be enough to get him taken seriously.

Nick Clegg had a very swift rise to fame – and that creates a problem for him. A politician better known to the public would find it easier to maintain his own identity in a role defined by subservience. The danger is that Clegg will simply fade into the background, and turn out not to be an essential partner, but rather Debbie McGee to David Cameron’s Paul Daniels. Not, surely, a fate deserved by anyone.