JONATHAN BROCKLEBANK: When you've already faced down your greatest fear at the ballot box, general elections are a doddle By Jonathan Brocklebank For The Scottish Daily Mail Published: 21:07, 4 July 2024 | Updated: 21:44, 4 July 2024 e-mail View comments It is almost 10 years since I last got my way in a national vote. I have slipped in and out of polling stations at least half a dozen times since then and, on each occasion, backed a losing local campaign. My preferred candidate was a four-figure number – sometimes even five – off the pace.
The victor was ever the nationalist. Any nationalist. There were years when it was damn near every nationalist.
I have just been out to give it another go. The plan was to enjoy the 10-minute walk to Pollokshields Burgh Hall – palace of my political disappointments for the last five years – and reflect on my journey that, whatever happens, the big stuff doesn’t change. In 2014, the days leading up to the independence referendum were excruciating I live in a beautiful part of Glasgow and when the sky is blue, as it was at 9.
30am, and the jackdaws are convening their morning meeting on the lawn and while my eyes remain keen enough to watch them and my body sound enough to tramp to where I need to be, politics can slide into the realm of secondary concerns. By 9.45am it was lashing.
Grumpily, I jumped in the car. Two minutes from the polling station, it was off again so I parked up to walk the rest of the way and, by the time I reac.
