Yesterday, we brought you Charles Dundas’ Toast to the Lassies from the Edinburgh South Burns Supper.
The reply below comes from Scottish Party Convener Jenni Lang.
She mentions the “Naughty Table” which is a bit of a tradition started by me and a few friends about 15 years ago. We even brought our own sign to show where the most fun was to be had. Jim Wallace was doing the Immortal Memory that year and he started off saying “Ladies, gentleman, and, pretending to look at us disapprovingly, “the Table there.”
Jenni makes a lovely tribute to Jim, the man on all our minds last night. He was exactly the sort of person the world needs in abundance right now.
Good Evening, and firstly, thank you so much to Charles for his kind words, and thank you to the SELD organisers and Faith for inviting me to make the reply on behalf of the lassies tonight, unexpectedly for the second year in a row! Here’s me thinking I was off the hook and allowed on the naughty table…but no!
It’s been quite the year since I last joined you, and frankly, the world feels significantly more fragile.
You look around at the carnage, at the chaos. And then you look at the global picture and wonder…..what’s missing?
The Women. The women are missing.
Remember the ‘Before Times’? The era of Angela Merkel, the world’s governess, who could stare down a dictator with nothing but a sensible blazer and a look of profound disappointment. She treated the G7 like a difficult parents’ evening.
Or Sanna Marin, a woman who could successfully navigate a Finnish winter, join NATO, and still find time to go to a party without the world ending. She proved that you can run a country with one hand and hold a glow-stick in the other, which is still infinitely more dignified than anything most male leaders do with an X account.
Or Jacinda Ardern, who managed to run a country, raise a child, and show basic human empathy all at the same time.
Since the women have stepped down, it’s like the adult supervision has left the building. We’ve traded ‘steady hands’ for ‘shaky egos,’ and ‘global stability’ for ‘whatever happens when a billionaire gets bored at 3:00 AM.’
Now, for those of you who were here last year, you may remember my fond reflections on the different species of Liberal Men I’ve encountered in the party over the last 25 years. The Liberal Gentlemen, like the wonderful Charles; the Policy Geeks; and the Super-Campaigners who can’t look at a letterbox without feeling an uncontrollable urge to shove a leaflet through it.
But let’s be honest….those are the ‘domesticated’ varieties.
It feels only right that we widen our scope this year to the Alpha Males currently roaming the global stage.
Over the years, I’ve realised that these male world leaders fall into a few distinct archetypes. Much like whisky regions, each has its own distinct aroma, its own fiery finish, and, in most cases, a very high probability of giving you a massive headache the next morning.
So I decided to highlight a few of note……let me know if any sound familiar…..
First, we have the Narcissist Billionaire…..the only man on earth who can look in a mirror and see a victim of radical leftist conspiracy looking back.
He is a man who has never met a ‘Fact’ that couldn’t be improved with a gold-leaf border and a bit of imagination.
This leader operates on the principle that success is measured entirely by the size of your skyscraper, the height of your hair, and the sheer, aggressive boldness of your font.
He runs a country the way he runs a golf course: loudly, expensively, and with the firm belief that ‘par’ is whatever he says it is. To him, ‘cheating’ is just another word for ‘winning,’ and ‘the Truth’ is something that happened to other, less successful people.
He believes diplomacy is best conducted via capital letters on social media, preferably at 3:00 AM, in a fever dream of AI-generated images showing him as a Roman Emperor or a muscle-bound Rambo.
In his world, Facts are optional extras, like the sunroof on a car. Advisors are purely decorative…like the salad that comes with a steak. And if something goes wrong, it is never his fault. It is the fault of the media, the judges, the deep state, or….as we know all too well in Scotland……. windfarms that are ‘killing all the birds’ making us poor, and ruining the view from his 9th hole.
At the other end of the spectrum, we have the European Technocrat.
This leader does not ‘rule’…..he administers. He doesn’t have a ‘base’; he has a ‘stakeholder group.’ And he doesn’t give speeches so much as he issues software updates for society.
He believes deeply in three things:
Committees.
Sub-committees to monitor those committees.
And a Bold Vision for 2047, pending consultation.
He will never shout, he will never boast, and he wouldn’t dream of threatening you. Instead, he will ‘express grave concern,’ commission a three-year feasibility study, and ‘harmonise a framework’ until everyone in the room falls asleep.
He has the unique ability to make a declaration of peace sound like instructions for assembling IKEA flatpack furniture. He doesn’t ‘seize power’; he ‘coordinates a multi-level, transitional regulatory alignment.’
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