Scottish singer-songwriter Ross Wilson – better known as Blue Rose Code – has shared a heartfelt video backing the launch of the Scotland’s Four Words campaign.
In it, he talks plainly about where we are as a country: people struggling to make ends meet, many not getting the support they need, and trust in politics badly shaken. The wider world, he says, “feels like a bit of a scary place” – and it’s all too easy to lose hope and sit at home grumbling.
Instead, Ross invites people in. As a dad, a musician, a community activist and a mentor, he’s asking us to get behind something that might just make things a little bit better in Scotland – and right now, “even just a little bit better would be great”.
For him, Scotland’s Four Words has to be for everyone: not just academics, the affluent or professionals, but “every corner of Scottish culture and society”.
The four words themselves – integrity, compassion, justice and wisdom– are, as Ross puts it, “straightforward, no nonsense ideas” that can cut through the spin we hear every day.
The campaign will be asking people what those words really mean in their lives, then using those answers to shine a light where they are being lived out….. and to call out, clearly, where they are not.
Ross is clear that this has to be about more than “129 politicians in Edinburgh”. He’s urging us to talk about these words wherever we are, to think about them when we vote in May, and, most importantly, to pledge and play our part.
Given how openly he has spoken in the past about struggle, recovery and the power of honesty and compassion in his own life, his support is a powerful reminder that a kinder, fairer, more honest and wiser Scotland is something we can choose to work towards together.
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