Essential that we offer Scotland’s disillusioned young men hope

We need to ask why so many of our young men feel so alienated

Hordes of masked young men left their PC consoles for a few hours, and instead of playing Call of Duty, attacked the city’s emergency services and police with fireworks, bricks and bottles. The mayhem was not quite as serious as last year’s Bonfire Night riots, but worrying enough.

A total ban on fireworks sales would go some way to preventing such criminal behaviour, but there is something much deeper at play here than a few teenage boys getting access to Pure Venom rockets and thinking they are combatants in modern warfare.

The disorder in Niddrie, Sighthill and Moredun happened just as Donald Trump was being elected as the 47th President of the United States. At first glance there is no discernible connection between the two events, but dig a bit deeper and you find a common denominator. Disillusioned young men.

Using a mix of social media and podcasts, Trump’s campaign successfully targeted male voters aged between 18 and 29. Nearly half (49 per cent) voted for Trump, putting paid to the long-held political myth that all young people lean left. As Elon Musk, that most macho of billionaires, owner of X/Twitter and enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump, said on election day: “The cavalry has arrived.”

The US cavalry was looking for a leader, a strong, male role model who could offer them direction and hope. Hope that their lives were going to be more than decades of low pay jobs, poor housing, ill-health and premature death. Hope that they too could be as successful as Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Hope that real life could, one day, match up to what they see every day on their computer screens.

Here in Scotland, our young men are in crisis too. Violent pornography, freely available on their smartphones, has transformed innocent boys into abusive men.

Our education system is skewed in favour of the 40 per cent who go to university. A home of their own, particularly here in Edinburgh, is out of the reach for most young men unless their parents can underwrite the cost.

The suicide rate among males is three times higher than the female rate. And recent statistics from the National Records of Scotland show that there are 2.4 times more deaths by suicide in our most deprived areas, such as Niddrie, than in the most prosperous parts of our city.

Yes, by all means ban the public sale of fireworks. Punish those found guilty of attacking the emergency services and causing fear and alarm in their own neighbourhood.

But as I wrote last year following similar scenes, we also need to ask why so many of our young men feel so alienated that they are prepared to risk prison for the sake of a few hours of illegal, dangerous excitement.

If we don’t want our young men to live toxic lives of low-level criminality and despair, then we need to be able to offer them hope. Not the nightmare offered by the autocratic Trump, but a reassurance that their lives and ambitions matter.