In the run up to this election how often have you heard someone say, “I’m fed up with politics”, “What’s the point? I don’t trust any of them”, “I don’t think I’m going to vote”.

These comments bring to mind an image, from the first post-apartheid South African election in 1994, of people queuing for hours in the baking sun to exercise their newly acquired right to vote. For them it was very new and very precious. For many of us here, it has become familiar and routine, and many of us no longer attach value or importance to it. Some of us elder citizens had mothers who were in the first generation of women to be able to vote; it dishonours those who fought for the right to vote to take it for granted.

Perhaps if we feel disaffected, or sometimes disgusted, by the way politics is done, rather than complain about it and disengage, we could try to change it? Not just by influencing one particular party, or criticising another,  but by trying to improve, and humanise, the language and behaviour of public discourse and engagement. To make it healthier, kinder and more accessible.

How the elderly can invest in the future in the best way possible

How babies, ceilidhs and community help us face a fragile world

From prams to protests: how grandparents are stepping up for justice

Families turn to grandparents for help amid childcare lottery

This is exactly what a new campaign, “Four words of hope”, is aiming to do (www.scotlandsfourwords.org). Carved into the mace which sits in the heart of the Scottish........

© Herald Scotland