Nicola Sturgeon and the rise of the traumocracy

In March, Nicola Sturgeon was asked about her response to Scotland’s drug deaths crisis. She said failings were ‘not because we didn’t care, or because we weren’t trying to do things, but we have concluded because we couldn’t do anything else, that we didn’t get it right’.

This is how she addressed the worst drugs death rate in Europe and the government failings which fuelled it. An admission of regret and some self-justification: a recognition of the harm done but little in the way of a roadmap for future prevention. Drug deaths were a matter of regret rather than a health and social problem that needs solving. It wasn’t about what ministers did but whether they ‘cared’.

Let’s spend a while on that word ‘care’: to care about something is to view it emotionally — I can care deeply without responding practically. Indeed, if I focus on my care over my response, it implies an inability to properly respond. 

To ‘care’ in politics is to view problems through this emotional lens rather than the practical lens, to view issues as traumas requiring acknowledgement instead of material failings demanding change.