THERE are times when it feels as if the politics of the British Isles has barely moved on since wolves and lynx roamed the land.

Back in pre-devolution days, when the so-called Grand Committee used to perambulate around Scotland presided over by then Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth, it called to mind an itinerant medieval court overseen by a powerful baron who was proxy to the king.

That didn’t last, of course. In 1997, the Labour landslide swept away the Grand Committee and most of the Scottish Secretary’s powers.

In its wake, at last, came devolution, offering an enthusiastic Scottish public the best of both worlds. But 22 years on, the spectres of the past are circling once again.

The Holyrood parliament is now under the “protection” of the SNP in Edinburgh, while the Tory Westminster government keeps a hungry eye on it from afar. Imagine a medieval monarch still in her minority, who finds herself a helpless pawn in the machinations between a self-serving regent and a powerful, acquisitive uncle, and you can see what state devolution is in.

READ MORE REBECCA: Gordon Brown is right

The truth is that neither the SNP nor the Tories are truly committed to the devolution settlement, but you would never know that from their unctuous declarations of devotion.

Nicola Sturgeon and her ministers are particularly vocal in their supposed commitment to Scotland’s parliament, sweeping in and out of TV studios whenever an opportunity presents itself to berate Boris Johnson and his cabinet for “riding roughshod” over it.

This week Scotland’s finance minister is the one expressing her indignation at the UK government for “undermining devolution”, after Rishi Sunak announced that £170m in new funding was coming directly to Scottish councils from Whitehall instead of via Holyrood.

Meanwhile, UK ministers for their part say it’s they who are the true defenders of devolution, insisting there’s nothing at all untoward about cutting Holyrood out of the loop. “We are, and always will be, one family,” the chancellor intoned in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

The insincerity of it all is palpable. If Holyrood really were a princess, she’d be locking herself in the loo by now and refusing to speak to anyone but Nursey.

Is the UK government pushing into devolved jurisdiction with its new funding streams? Yes. The Levelling Up Fund, Community Ownership Fund and forthcoming Shared Prosperity Fund, a replacement for EU structural funds, should be spent in partnership with the Scottish Government.

READ MORE REBECCA: A load of old Boris

Spending money directly via councils in devolved areas blatantly contradicts devolution, in which everything that is not reserved is devolved. It’s been more than two decades since the UK government has directly funded the renovation of Scottish roundabouts: that tells you something. This is an inroad, an innovation, a pushing of boundaries.

So is it driven by a desire to assert Westminster’s sovereignty and extend the tentacles of control back into devolved areas of competence? Or is it driven by fear, fear of independence and a panicked sense that drastic action is required to reacquaint Scottish voters with the benefits of being in the UK, against a backdrop of Scottish ministers endlessly denying that those benefits exist?

You can detect elements of both. It’s true that, even now, parts of Whitehall still regard Scotland as a troublesome wee region. Civil servants have often been indifferent to devolution and some fail to appreciate that the Union is now widely regarded by Scots as a voluntary union of equals.

And echoes of the Conservatives’ one-time opposition to devolution can still be detected in the upper echelons of the party. Devolution was “Tony Blair’s biggest mistake”, Boris Johnson told his backbenchers last year. Whether that was Mr Johnson’s real opinion or whether he said it to curry favour with his MPs hardly matters (and he probably can’t tell the difference himself): either way, it points to a jarring lack of sympathy with the devolution project.

But the Conservative Party are nothing if not pragmatic and there can be few Tory MPs even south of the border who truly believe that devolution can be reversed. It’s far too popular and trying to turn back the clock would be an act of extreme provocation to Scottish voters. Even the most cloth-eared Conservatives get that.

No; the immediate issue the Tories are trying to grapple with is the appeal of independence. Boris Johnson wants to avoid the ignominy of the UK breaking up on his watch. His “muscular unionism” is hopelessly ill-conceived and interferes with devolution, certainly. The UK Internal Market Act, designed to prevent policy divergence between the devolved administrations and Westminster, and allow the UK government to spend in devolved areas, has caused a lot of ill-will. But is the Tories’ priority right now to end the devolution era and bring about another form of government? No; they’re concerned with preventing independence. If there’s a party that wants to see the back of devolution, it’s the SNP.

It’s the big standing joke of Scottish politics that the SNP, while posing as the defender of devolution, has sought systematically to seed the notion that it’s broken beyond repair and needs to be replaced with independence. After all, you can’t convince people to vote for independence if they think devolution is working.

That’s why no opportunity is missed to pick fights with Westminster. Earlier this month, Scottish ministers were accused by the Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton of passing bad legislation on children’s rights “just for grievance with Westminster”.

It certainly appeared that way. The legislation, which was passed unanimously by Holyrood, was referred to the Supreme Court by the UK government on the grounds that it exceeded Holyrood’s competence – something Scottish ministers were warned of in advance but apparently chose not to act upon.

Even when the court found against the Scottish Government, the First Minister’s spokesperson was unrepentant, claiming it showed the “tight limits of devolution”.

Devolution has no safe quarter while the SNP and the Tories are its guardians.

The frustrating element in all this is that devolution can work – it did under Labour and the Liberal Democrats – but that truth has been hopelessly distorted by the political machinations of the last decade.

We’re not having a real debate about Scotland’s future. This isn’t an earnest disagreement over a cherished institution. It’s a propaganda war and Holyrood is the patsy.

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Herald.