THE most enduring criticism of Tories in power is that their wealth and privileges will always insulate them from the effects of their policies. How can they possibly connect with families across the UK who are enduring the effects of multi-deprivation? None of them possess any lived experience of it.

And yet, far from seeking to dismantle this perception, the UK Tories appear to have reinforced it. Rishi Sunak is the wealthiest person ever to lead the country. Jacob Rees-Mogg lives in a £6m house and owns a major stake in an asset management firm which paid him a dividend of £800,000 in 2020. Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, is a millionaire businessman who owns a 1200-acre farm in the Scottish Borders. David Cameron is worth around £40m.

If you’re a multi-millionaire then you stand a far better chance of being promoted to a cabinet position than the 95% of us who are not. And if you haven’t yet met that wealth threshold, you can still gain favour through another route. Almost two-thirds of Mr Sunak’s cabinet attended those private, fee-paying schools which 93% of the population did not.

It’s one of the great anomalies in English politics that each time the Tories come to power they get there by the votes of working-class people and those who have nothing of their privileges and entitlements. This is partly owing to the patterns of ownership of the UK’s largest media platforms who maintain a watchful eye on any politicians or popular causes which might rock the status quo.

Yet, there’s also a widespread perception that defies class boundaries: that rich Tories, by virtue of their wealth – or their exposure to it – are far more likely to possess the necessary tools and acumen to manage the nation’s finances.

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In smart, progressive and enlightened Scotland though, we like to think that we’re not so easily charmed by wealth and privilege. And that this is why the Tories have been an endangered species north of the border since Margaret Thatcher was laying waste to working-class communities.

At least though, the Westminster Tories are open and transparent about their riches and prerogatives. And the people, despite being aware of their advantages – no matter how ill-gotten – continue to vote for them. In Scotland though, we are ruled by a political class who are just as detached from the lives of voters as the UK Tories are.

They may not possess the eye-watering wealth of English Tories, but what removes them from the discourse and concerns of their voters is a sense of entitlement and impunity that’s as breathtakingly brazen as peak Toryism. Worse, many in the Scottish Government think the electorate is too stupid to notice.

Such open contempt for ordinary people has been evident in the conduct of the Scottish Government in recent weeks, though much of it is rooted in the ruinous Nicola Sturgeon era. It was most egregiously evident last week in the Scottish Government’s failed attempt at the Court of Session to prevent the publication of details about an inquiry into whether or not Ms Sturgeon broke the ministerial code. This centred on its unlawful investigation into misconduct claims made against her predecessor, Alex Salmond.

Ms Sturgeon herself has been questioned by police in relation to an ongoing investigation about missing party finances. Yet, footage that has since emerged, showed her trying to bully a fellow member of the ruling National Executive Committee who had dared to ask about the party’s finances.

Just two days after judges threw out the Government’s expensive court challenge, they failed in their bid to challenge the UK Government’s Section 35 order over its chaotic GRR legislation. This was a teachable moment for the Scottish Government. Effectively, they were being slapped down for choosing to ignore the limits of the devolution settlement: namely that aspects of GRR impinged on the UK’s 2004 Equality Act.

Yet when several women’s groups and the party’s own politicians had expressly told them that they were playing with constitutional fire they were treated with outright contempt. When I raised this the previous week with the three women who operate MBM, the influential policy analysis collective, they laid bare the deep-rooted levels of contempt that women faced during the GRR consultation period.

They talked about how, in 2018, women were organising to raise awareness of potential dangers they faced from self-ID, yet faced what they described as “appalling intimidation”, much of it orchestrated by government figures. “They were trying to do all the right things,” Lucy Hunter Blackburn told me, “writing children’s rights impact assessments on the schools guidance; making consultation responses; seeking meetings with their elected representatives.”

When they tried to meet MSPs of all parties they faced disdain and often outright contempt. Several Green MSPs flat out refused to meet them, saying: “your views are not in our manifesto, so we won’t meet you”. According to Ms Hunter Blackburn and her colleagues, Lisa Mackenzie and Kath Murray, ordinary women simply refused access to the government many had voted for.

They then embarked on a game of blocking bingo where they listed all those MSPs who’d blocked them and other women. It was a familiar cast of impostors who, though they’re elected and paid well above the rates their paltry skill-set would otherwise demand, actively excluded women who asked difficult questions.

Such is the low intellectual grade of a large proportion of our political class that they would rather block than be embarrassed by people who are far smarter and have far more expertise than them.

Further examples have begun to emerge: the Covid WhatsApp messages deleted while knowing that the surviving relatives of deceased Scots would be seeking answers. This raised mere arrogance to open callousness.

We now know too that only around a quarter of Scottish ministers used official electronic devices during a two-year period which encompassed Covid-19. Not for the first time, the Scottish Government stands accused of conducting its business – our business – like the dictatorship of a gangster state. Michael Matheson’s £11k Morocco phone bill? “Nothing to see here.”

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Yesterday, Humza Yousaf accused David Cameron of being petty for disciplining him about meeting Turkey’s president Erdogan during the Cop28 without the presence of UK Foreign Office officials. He also condemned Westminster for undermining devolution over its Section 35 order.

What’s actually happening though, is that Mr Yousaf and his party have been exposed as adolescents trying to play politics with the grown-ups. It damages the cause they purport most to care about, but it’s also a convenient way of covering their manifest failures in its pursuit.