Scottish devolution is being destroyed by all our parties

What passes for debate and the exchange of ideas for the betterment of society is at best a dark joke, at worst an assault on the welfare of voters.

At at time when every elected official, with ample publicly-funded salaries, should be focused on protecting the poorest and sandbagging the country against myriad threats, we’ve instead an orgy of political self-regard.

All that matters to our politicians is their careers and party. If voters mattered, if Scotland mattered, we wouldn’t be in this humiliating state. Devolution is being damaged - if not indeed destroyed - by the fools inhabiting Holyrood, and their Westminster counter-parts. No party escapes blame. All share responsibility.

When Holyrood was established, it was meant to be a different type of parliament. Its rules were supposed to force tribal politicians into cooperation, in order to pass the best laws so that the people had the best government.

This hasn’t happened. Events of recent years have slowly dismantled the notion that Scottish politics "works" - even when there’s a Government majority.

For those who remain loyal to any political party squatting in Holyrood, try stepping back momentarily. Look at what’s gone on.

A government fails to govern. Legislation collapses with astonishing regularity. Opposition parties which voted for laws attack those same laws, as political point-scoring trumps legislating well.

Parties care more about fomenting culture war than reason or informed debate. All parties are guilty of peddling misinformation, and even, at times, wilful disinformation.

Is anyone buying that Holyrood functions any more? Is anyone buying that simply changing captain will fix the ship?

So it’s easy to feel nihilism’s grip. By destroying trust in themselves, politicians undermine devolution, the bedrock of their position. If our politicians are this useless, why should we care which fool wears the First Minister’s crown?

First Minister of what exactly? A parliament they helped destroy? A devolution settlement they’ve helped trash?

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Devolution should be valued. It is among the most important political achievements in recent British political history. It cascaded power from Westminster. That power - which resides with voters - was abused by politicians.

Like democracy, devolution is precious, fragile. It needs protected. We handed it to careless, shallow fools, who treat it like wayward children might treat rare porcelain. To watch them, is to shudder at every lumpen turn in case they smash devolution to pieces.

Scotland has been brought to a standstill by these people - once again, I stress "all parties". We haven’t really had a functioning polity for some time. We’ve had a circus of narcissism, self-regard, lies and failure.

Why do we care about the battles these politicians wish to wage, the battles they want to recruit us to fight? I care about parents going hungry in order to feed their children, about the NHS, schools, policing, and housing. I care about people. I don’t care any more about politicians.

They’ve concocted culture wars to divide us. Yes, of course there are differences of opinion on all manner of subjects from net zero to gender. But would you or I have conducted such discussions in the manner of politicians?

We wouldn’t have. I know this because like all humans I talk to my family, friends, colleagues - and strangers I meet - about these matters.

When we talk, we listen to each other, and usually try to find some compromise. That’s what humans have done for 250,000 years.

Let me correct myself. So-called leaders have never conducted themselves like that. It’s in their self-interest not to achieve compromise. Concocted division keeps the power-block in place which allows them to rule us.

The terrible truth about Holyrood is that it can now never go back to what it was meant to be: a place where minority rule means compromise in the interests of us all.

It doesn’t matter if John Swinney becomes First Minister or Kate Forbes. It doesn’t matter if there’s another election and Anas Sarwar takes power. It doesn’t matter who the Greens back, or who Alba’s lone representative backs.

Politicians have shattered the "intention" of devolution. They took a parliament that was meant to be better than Westminster and made it the same.

If Swinney or Forbes take power, the opposition will still do everything it can to destroy any legislation rather than improve it, and turn everything into ugly gladiatorial combat.

If the SNP falls and Labour - or even, let’s pretend, for the sake of discussion, the Tories - take power, then the same would happen. The SNP would sabotage and culture-war everything a unionist administration attempted to do.

From a wider, more thoughtful perspective, the assault on devolution is of far greater importance than who becomes the next First Minister, because if devolution is broken, what does being First Minister really mean any more?

What’s so hateful about this deliberate assault on devolution is that we are the collateral damage. Our country is now as debased as any other western democracy by the cruelties and stupidities of the political class. We’re no different, we’re no better.

'Politicians have taken devolution, mutilated it, and used as it as a weapon of division' (Image: Getty)

Devolution was meant to improve Scotland. Instead, what’s happened is that politicians have taken devolution, mutilated it, and used as it as a weapon of division.

The political atmosphere in Scotland is poisonous. It’s not poisoned by the people, it’s poisoned by our politicians.

This isn’t an argument against devolution. It’s a lament. The idea of returning to Westminster rule is grotesque. If politics has been brutalised by political failure at Holyrood, just look the state of Westminster.

Holyrood is indeed a holding pen for fools; however, Westminster is a barely-functioning madhouse.

Once more, you can feel the spirit of nihilism tugging at your sleeve, for where’s hope to be found? Yet nihilism can be resisted.

Holyrood and Westminster have, unquestionably, destroyed the notion of functioning politics. But that’s happened before in history.

The only people capable of picking politics up off the floor, dusting it down and breathing fresh life into it is us. We need to reimagine what politics means, because politics is too important to leave to the politicians.