Annie Wells: MPs will be doing their best for a city we all know and love

The days before a big election always remind me of my own fraught experience of becoming an MSP.

I hadn’t really expected to make it, having been second on the Glasgow regional list.

But a good night in May 2016 meant I was rushing through to Edinburgh in short order – and I was totally ill-equipped for what would follow in the coming days.

I hadn’t slept a wink the night before, and I’d smoked all my cigarettes through sheer anxiety, walking to the garage in the early hours just to get more.

Then I met my Conservative colleague Prof Adam Tomkins at Partick train station and spent the whole journey telling him how I didn’t think they would let me in.

I assumed I would get to Holyrood and they’d tell me there had been some kind of mistake, and I wasn’t in fact going to be an MSP for city I love for the next few years.

Instead, I was greeted warmly, given a pass and a lanyard, then pretty much expected to get on with it.

Candidates like me had no idea what to do, how the place worked, the systems we had to navigate.

It took weeks and months before the new intake could get their heads around what a motion was, how debates worked, what to vote for and when, and even how to find our way around the infamous labyrinth structure.

Across Glasgow, a number of new MPs will be feeling the same way later this week.

I imagine the challenges at Westminster are even more considerable, and those new to politics will feel even further away from home comforts than I did eight years ago along the M8.

And after a brief honeymoon period, they will have much work to do, whichever party they represent.

As has been repeatedly documented on the pages of the Glasgow Times, the state of the city requires urgent attention.

In the first instance, this is the responsibility of the council and, failing that, the Scottish Government.

Those we are electing this week will of course function in the UK parliament, where there is still significant potential to turn the fortunes of Glasgow around.

Glaswegians won’t care what rosette their candidates are wearing.

They will be more interested in electing someone who can take the broken glass out of playparks and fill the potholes which seem to afflict every road.

They care about having cash in their pocket and want to know there will be enough employment and education opportunities now and in future, for themselves and for their children.

They want to know, in work, if they work harder and get a promotion or a new job, they will be rewarded with more money in their pay cheque, not penalised for it by a punitive tax regime.

The successful candidates on Thursday night will do well to remember this, and Glaswegians won’t be slow in reminding them.

But we should also remember prospective MPs of all parties are putting themselves out there, often at great personal sacrifice.

It won’t be easy for them either.

So while much will be expected of them when it comes to representation and delivery, we also owe it to them to be respectful, patient and appreciate they will be doing their very best for a city we all know and love.