Criticism of Nicola Sturgeon by a Scottish Tory leader prepared to welcome a leader he recently wanted to sack might best be taken with a large pinch of salt. One might also note that the Scottish Tory gathering in Aberdeen was very tiny and Douglas Ross’s speech was overshadowed by a monumental and utterly tasteless Boris Johnson gaffe. Again.

But let’s play the arguments, not the man.

Douglas Ross told journalists Nicola Sturgeon is rattled and unhappy as First Minister; "the longer she can't offer any new solutions, people will be wondering, what can she really deliver for Scotland?” His conference speech also claimed that Scotland is stuck in a bind - voting for the SNP but not supporting a second independence referendum.

He’s absolutely right. Scotland is stuck on almost every policy front, partly because of SNP timidity – backed by the Scottish Tories – and partly because policy solutions must fit an outdated devolution settlement, devised before the life and governance-altering phenomena of Brexit, Net Zero, the cost-of-living crisis, Covid recovery and the destabilisation caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

So, with no real room for manoeuvre, Scotland is indeed stuck.

Stuck with a broken planning system that vastly inflates the value of land and makes truly affordable local housing almost impossible to deliver.

Stuck with escalating fuel poverty on islands that could export ten times their own use if the British Government approved large subsea connectors and upgraded the National Grid.

And stuck with a regressive council tax because the Tories voted with the SNP to defeat Green proposals for change in 2018 – a weakness of political nerve that means the deeply regressive council tax will be the vehicle for the Chancellor’s energy rebate scheme in Scotland, guaranteeing the cash will be spread too thinly to help the poorest families.

Scottish Labour wants a new property-based system and the Greens and Lib Dems want a package including a land tax. But no alternative will appear because the SNP is still ignoring its 2007 pledge to replace council tax and the Scottish Conservatives want change postponed until after the next election – a position described as absurd and disappointing by the far from revolutionary Institute for Fiscal Studies.

So, if Scotland is "stuck in a bind" with the SNP, how would the Scottish Tories unstick it? Beyond opposing a second independence referendum however Scotland votes – what domestic policies would Douglas Ross enact if elected to govern as First Minister?

Despite pledging to axe Scotland’s modest and popular income tax, he’d somehow manage to raise spending on drug treatment, ferries and education. And somehow the attainment gap would narrow, even though he would also scrap Scotland’s Child Payment and reintroduce the full-blooded Bedroom Tax, since sauce for the English goose must also be sauce for the Scottish gander.

Perhaps he’d privatise health boards and prisons as his colleagues have done so disastrously in England and introduce their systems of four-star hospitals and private academy schools.

Of course, that’s just my surmise. Douglas Ross is a bit thin on how competition and private enterprise would be restored to primacy in a Tory Scotland. Far easier to keep kicking independence. Judged solely on their domestic policy ideas, the Scottish Tories wouldn’t win more than a tiny rump of MSPs.

So yes, Scottish politics is stuck – thanks to a lack of vibrant opposition driven by a constitutional impasse no unionist party will even acknowledge.

Thus, Scottish Labour’s policies cannot outflank the SNP because they must operate within the tame limits of a union that blocks speedy, progressive change. There is the slim chance of a UK Labour government, but also the near certainty of another Tory government further down the line. Not much of a prospectus.

The Scottish Tory default is generally to oppose everything the SNP suggests, unless it bolsters the landowning status quo. So yes, there is a lack of dynamism in Scottish politics.

That’s got something to do with the SNP, something to do with electoral realignment being nigh on impossible until the independence question has been settled one way or another and a lot to do with the policy timorousness that arises from constitutional stalemate.

Clearly Labour and the Tories are in a fight to the death to be seen as Scotland’s main unionist party. But does that necessitate a slavish devotion to present arrangements? One of them could blink, change their script and call for more powers.

According to a former Scottish Labour minister, it’s clear to all MSPs that alcohol duty and drugs policy should be devolved to Holyrood. Well, why not call for that?

It's obvious why the call won’t come from the Tories, who’ve systematically undermined the Scottish Parliament in the belief one single internal market is needed to clinch the elusive trade deals so lightly promised pre-Brexit.

But why don’t Scottish Labour call for devolution of everything but defence as former Labour MEP David Martin suggested six months ago?

Presumably because they’re waiting for head office and Gordon Brown’s magnum opus, the Commission on the Future of the UK, which will reportedly back a federal state, replacing the Lords with an elected senate and devolution for English regions. All good things. But if that package sounds a tad revolutionary to an English electorate that still supports Brexit (God love them), where does that leave Scotland? Still stuck.

So instead of breaking the stalemate, Anas Sarwar has made a completely untenable call for Labour not to form coalitions after May’s council elections. Even though a Labour First Minister Jack McConnell introduced STV voting which virtually guarantees hung councils.

Mr Sarwar could have owned this grown-up, consensual approach to local governance as a Labour achievement. Instead, he’s stuck banging the same old drum, pretending old fiefdoms can be won outright instead of advancing a modern, democratic, shared approach to local power.

So, Scotland is stuck in a bind. And the SNP does look somewhat tired. But let the party leader with vigorous alternatives, cast the first stone.

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