For the many people among us who look forward to a 2022 with depressed resignation about the state of our democracy, there might be some comfort to be drawn from a few glimmers of light.

The untimely death of David Amess in horrifying circumstances late last year provoked an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy and kindness for a politician. Another two politicians who attracted praise without contempt also died, and were lionised. Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, soldier and the best President America never had, gave politics a good name. As did F W de Klerk, who brought apartheid to an end and apologised for it beyond the grave.

These politicians made the case for an occupation consistently vilified, but they were exceptions. They epitomised the public service involved, the sacrifices made and the sheer necessity these occupations represent in a complex world.

In November, COP26 in Glasgow produced another example of the breed of politicians we need. Few people in the world would have recognised Alok Sharma on the streets of Glasgow before COP26 and even fewer would have thought he might dominate the £600m, 150 Heads of State, climate bargaining fest on the banks of the Clyde.

Against expectations as President, he did an expert job. The outcome was not perfect – maybe it was messy and incomplete. It could have been better – but it took us a few important steps forward. On such an historic and planet saving journey, a few steps forward is better surely than going backwards.

And then Nicola Sturgeon agreed to visit Haghill on the less glamorous side of Glasgow with the Tory Leader Douglas Ross. Given that drug deaths are a stain on modern Scotland, this small gesture of collective resolution is to be welcomed.

The deep-seated atrophy, identified by Jack McConnell recently, where everything in our land is seen through the prism of the divisive debate on separation, can be broken with goodwill. The arrival of Anas Sarwar to lead my party has been a tonic to a brand which since my day had diminished but is now urgently required.

Politics is about getting things done. It's about looking at problems and seeking solutions. Those politicians I have identified arrived at hero status because we saw what they achieved – not what they waited for. Mandela and de Klerk were tough politicians. Both cut corners, did uncomfortable deals, betrayed the purists, took risks, and because we agree with what they achieved, we grant them exceptions to our cynical view of 'all' politicians.

So we need politics and we need good, clever and courageous politicians. In Scotland, we need, for example, the courage to look at our education system – once regarded by some as the best in the world – and imagine how it might be improved and reformed.

We need to look radically and non-ideologically at our health service and do so before it collapses under the next strain of this or the next virus. We need to look with eyes uncovered from thoughts of constitutional upheaval and ask how sustainable, indeed survivable, is our free care of the elderly model pioneered in Scotland but with a financial cliff edge facing it as we all grow older and frailer.

We need to look at how we deal with transport in a very scattered country when the current debate revolves around largely urban problems. Solutions like electric and autonomous vehicles, cycleways and pedestrianisation are concepts alien to rural areas.

We need to be imaginative again about devolution – recreating that dynamic debate which gave us a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Senedd and a power-sharing Stormont – but think about it now in-country. If devolution stops at Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, then a lack of localised thinking will end up as paralysing as the old United Kingdom was.

Scotland and the Scots always had a capacity for big thinking – but usually beyond our shores. We were experts at running other people's countries – but less than perfect when tackling issues at home. When I was in NATO, I saw the fingerprints of Scots in almost every country I visited. Industrialists, military, administrators, academics, lawyers and yes, politicians, all of class and quality.

But they thrived too often because they were away from Scotland. Away from the 'I kent his faither' or the 'laird knows best' or the navel gazing 'here's tae us'. Self-centred breast-beating too often pervades our society – and boy, does it limit it.

My plea is not for some grey consensus. I was for too long a partisan politician for that to be convincing. I want, and the issues need, vigorous debate and a robust clash of opinion and ideas. None of the politicians we lionise from Lincoln and Churchill to Mandela and de Klerk were pale believers in a quiet life. They were hard, calculating, committed operators – who got things done.

We need more people of quality to get into politics and help tackle the problems of the next generation. We also need to recognise that the majority who are already in it are there for the right reasons and for public good.
We need to stop obsessing on the deficiencies of the present generation of UK Government leaders, few of whom inspire. They are a temporary aberration. Yet one of the most depressing comments I hear on the Scottish scene is: 'Well, it's better than Boris'.

Frankly, I want my country, for which I feel real pride, to aspire to a much higher standard than that.

As a nation, we can be better than we are, we can rise higher, see problems clearly, face them and find solutions to them. We've done it before – and not always abroad. We can, if we want to, do it again.

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen has been Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, UK Defence Secretary and Secretary General of NATO. He was a Scottish Labour MP for 21 years

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