Nicola Sturgeon by Ninian Reid. Flickr. Some rights reserved.The 2017 election marks the end of an era of Scottish politics.
The immediate shadow of the 2014 indyref dominating everything is over. As is the age of the big tent, omnipotent SNP carrying all before it. The re-emergence of the Scottish Tories and the stalling of the retreat of Scottish Labour has confounded many nationalists.
Not only is the post-2014 indyref environment over, so too is politics defined by the constant invoking of Thatcher and Blair. No matter the depths Blair fell to, firstly, the two aren’t completely comparable, and second, Blair was once massively popular in Scotland – the 1997-99 period being one such example. Plus the Blair Government’s for all their faults did do a host of positive things: such as legislate for a Scottish Parliament (not that he really believed in it, but that’s another story).
