More than two weeks after the fire on Union Corner, little of any substance has emerged to suggest the Glasgow City Council is serious about a grown-up plan to fill the gap, says Herald columnist Kevin McKenna

Among the most bizarre and contrived responses to the Union Street fire in Glasgow city centre were several that seemed to come from the wilder shores of SNP supporters. Glaswegians had just witnessed the destruction of a hallowed, 175-year-old B-listed building at the heart of one of the city’s most architecturally-important street. Questions began to emerge about the vaping shop where the blaze took hold and the Byzantine patterns of ownership within the building. Could even part of the façade be salvaged and thus ensure that whatever was built in its place might at least recapture the splendour of the building?

And, of course, the question that’s dominated every conversation among Glaswegians in its wake: why does this keep happening to the city’s most iconic buildings? Will a rat-infested gap-site, such as those that have lain barren for many years on Sauchiehall Street, be allowed to remain?

Yet, what seemed to concern these people more than anything else were references to the fallen building as Union Corner. This seemed to vex its pursuers far more than the destruction of a beautiful old Victorian gem. You were left to conclude that had it been named for Gordon Street, which runs at right angles to Union Street, the complainers wouldn’t have had a problem, this being more Scottish sounding than the reviled ‘Union’.

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Although, if you were being a curmudgeonly weapon, you might be tempted to point out that Gordon was named after John Gordon of Aitkenhead, a successful tobacco merchant who made a fortune in the trade in the West Indies. And thus someone who must have benefitted from the slave trade.

Indeed, for many Glaswegians of a certain vintage the building was simply called ‘The Irn Bru building’ for many years because of the, ahem … rather dramatic advert that was displayed there featuring a cartoon character based on an unfortunate racial stereotype now consigned to a rather cloddish part of our cultural history.

The contrived rammy over the nomenclature of Glasgow’s built heritage seemed indicative of the infantilism to which political discourse in the SNP era has been reduced. This isn’t to suggest that the SNP alone is responsible for this. If the SNP prevail in May’s Holyrood elections the party will be set for almost a quarter of a century of virtually unchallenged power in Scotland. No other European democracy identifying as modern and progressive has been ruled by a single party for so long and – for the most part – so easily.

When any party exerts such a seemingly unassailable grip on power it’s powerless to prevent a vast and sprawling system of patronage – almost medieval in character – gathering around it. If you are at the heart of this, either as First Minister or as a cabinet appointee, you become accustomed to bowing and curtseying. Who wants to tell you that you’re talking mince if everyone knows your party is electorally untouchable?

The aftermath of the Union Corner fire in Glasgow city centre (Image: Colin Mearns)

If the other political parties can’t do their jobs properly in opposing the government and its high priests and priestesses, why should you play the brave hero speaking truth to power? The infantilising of politics inevitably follows and that in turn leads to tribalism. Why worry about appointing the best person for the job when you can have an easy life appointing the mediocre alternative who can be relied upon not to scare the horses? It doesn’t really matter, after all.

The SNP in government have achieved nothing of worth since the last Scottish election and in key areas affecting Scotland’s most marginalised communities have failed miserably: housing, addiction, early mortality; NHS waiting times.

They’ve also been exposed as undermining the rule of law in respect of the Supreme Court’s judgment on sex and gender. And at the same time, Scotland’s widely respected information commissioner, David Hamilton, has accused them effectively of operating a secret state in their refusal to divulge crucial documents pertaining to some of Scotland’s highest profile legal and political matters.

The sense that our institutions of government are gripped by a political stasis is evident in the instincts and conduct of Glasgow City Council’s officials – elected and unelected – following the Union Corner fire. Susan Aitken, the council leader, has been a spectral presence, appearing only to make inchoate pronouncements about what’s to be done next.

She began talking about compulsory purchase orders without notifying any of the current owners who operate in the building and was then forced to walk that back. It reeked of disrespect and suggested an unserious approach to the issue.

On another occasion, she suggested a hotel could be built. Really? Is that the sum total of the council’s wisdom about how to maintain the integrity of Gordon Street and Hope Street and Union Street and all those magnificent listed buildings? Why would you not want to include the owners and their intimate knowledge of this building in seeking what’s best for the vacant space?

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You’d also, surely seek – at the earliest opportunity – to initiate a series of round-table discussions with all those agencies concerned with conserving the city’s built heritage and seeking their advice too on what comes next. But yet again, there was talk of another masterplan instead.

What usually happens here is that someone arranges names on a sheet of council-headed notepaper and then gets the PR team to do a media phone-around to tell them: “There’s been a masterplan”.

But we already have the Central District Regeneration framework, a huge exercise initiated six years ago. We’ve had the Golden Z masterplan and district regeneration frameworks, all of them contrived, seemingly, for one purpose: to remain in the public memory for about three days and only rarely to be mentioned again.

Last week we got a photo of what looked like a tea and crumpets meeting to discuss invitations to the Lord Provost’s Annual Burns Supper featuring a handful of the usual apparatchiks - with scant representation from the major heritage bodies - rather than the sort of all hands to the decks approach you might have expected after a major fire. Several of the most respected heritage bodies weren't even informed there was a meeting taking place.

No one from the heritage sector was there and none of the owners. It was indicative of an authority resentful of anyone from outside their tribe who might want to help.

Last week I was granted sight of an email sent from a senior, and evidently over-promoted, council panjandrum, in response to an elected politician who had proffered some free advice and reasonable suggestions. The tone of the response was nasty, childish and vindictive. It basically told the sender to shut up, go away and their own business. It was not the response of a mature adult with the best interests of the city at heart.

As such, it seemed to encapsulate the attitude of Glasgow City Council.

Kevin McKenna is Scotland's Feature Writer of the Year

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