{"id":7756,"date":"2018-11-25T10:28:54","date_gmt":"2018-11-25T10:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=7756"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"politicians-need-take-bus-ride-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2018\/11\/politicians-need-take-bus-ride-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Why politicians need to take a bus ride to reality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

See thae politicians at Westminster or Holyrood or wherever they are? They\u2019re no even there, they\u2019re up in space. See whit I want tae dae wi them? I want tae get them on the nummer 14 bus. <\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In just a few words \u2013 365 words to be precise \u2013 the writer James Robertson evokes the daily struggle played out on a bus ride through Scotland\u2019s affluent capital. It could be a bus ride in any UK city<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Briefly, vividly, he depicts the hardship and heroics of survival, the nitty gritty consequences of policy decisions taken in nearby Holyrood or distant Westminster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes a storyteller\u2019s skill to animate the elderly couple with a compassion which is felt rather than spelt out: him a \u2018big lang fellae\u2019 her \u2018aboot hauf his height\u2019. Each gripping the other\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it takes only human empathy to understand the grinding toll of austerity, the double blow of cuts to benefits and council services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We should put ourselves in the shoes of others.\u2019 The message was quietly delivered by James Robertson at this year\u2019s SURF (Scotland’s regeneration forum) conference Community-led regeneration: making it real<\/a>. How to make it real when words like community become meaningless? Separating rather than uniting: Muslim \u2018community\u2019; gated \u2018community\u2019; \u2018community charge\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Robertson brought the day to a close with readings from his book 365 Stories<\/a>. Writing a 365-word story each day for one year was a self-imposed task which had him seeking inspiration (sometimes near midnight) in his own experience. The number 14 bus stops near his home on its north-south journey from Muirhouse to Craigmillar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His story echoes as the UK government wriggles under the spotlight of a UN report of extreme poverty, rejecting Philip Allston\u2019s damning indictment of ten years of austerity. Allston\u2019s witnesses react in anger to ministers\u2019 denial: \u2018They should get out of their cars,\u2019 one tells the Guardian<\/a>: \u2018They are not in the real world.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will it echo again as the Scottish Parliament prepares to debate the 2019-20 budget? With Scottish council funding in the balance, every MSP should get on the bus. And stay on for \u2018the haill bliddy route\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nummer 14 bus is reprinted here with the author\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nummer 14 Bus<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

See thae politicians at Westminster or Holyrood or wherever they are? They\u2019re no even there, they\u2019re up in space. See whit I want tae dae wi them? I want tae get them on the nummer 14 bus. It should be obligatory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And no jist for a couple o stoaps. The haill bliddy route, start tae finish. It might jist make them realise they\u2019re boarn. It might make them think twice aboot the guff they come oot wi. I doot it, but it might.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That bus yesterday, I\u2019m tellin ye, it wis even worse than usual. I\u2019m no bein insultin. I\u2019m no huvin a go at the folk on the bus or the folk on the street. I\u2019m huvin a go at the politicians and their \u2018somethin for nuthin society\u2019, their \u2018jist say no\u2019 finger-waggin, their disability livin allowance reassessments and their bastartin bedroom tax. I\u2019m hearin aw that in ma heid and meanwhile three seats ahint me somebody\u2019s hackin awa like they\u2019re gonnae drap deid and folk are gettin on and aff the bus wi sticks and Zimmers and buggies and ootside on the street there\u2019s blin folk and puir folk and pechin folk and folk wi mental problems and folk in wheelchairs and a junkie in a doorway lookin like a loast bairn and black folk and white folk and aw they\u2019re tryin tae dae is get through it, ken, aw they\u2019re tryin tae dae is get through it and these politicians are zoomin aboot in their spaceships when they should be sittin on the nummer 14 bus seein whit it\u2019s like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There wis this big lang fellae, he had hair like snaw, he wis haudin ontae his wife, she wis aboot hauf his height and every step he took it wis like a ship pitchin in the middle o the Atlantic Ocean. He wis grippin her haun and she wis grippin his and it wis like she wis his anchor but he wis draggin her through these forty-fit waves, every step wis anither monster wave but they were daein it, they were gettin through it, but the politicians wurnae on the bus so how could they see, how could they even imagine it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nummer 14 Bus, reprinted with permission of James Robertson, is from 365 Stories,  <\/a><\/em>published by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Empty<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his short story, The Nummer 14 Bus, James Robertson evokes the daily struggle played out on a bus ride through Scotland\u2019s affluent capital. It could be a bus ride in any UK city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":7758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[125],"tags":[337,46,74,177,94,36],"class_list":["post-7756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-austerity","tag-council-tax-reform","tag-health-spending","tag-inequality","tag-poverty","tag-scottish-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7756"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18790,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756\/revisions\/18790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}