First, let’s get the SNP’s big lie out of the way. The destruction being wrought on Scotland is not the fault of Westminster alone. The Scottish Government is deeply culpable.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has made clear that spending choices made by the SNP have contributed to the crisis engulfing the country. Yes, Westminster must carry the larger share of blame - it’s the greater power self-evidently - but the SNP is deeply at fault as well.

Among those SNP choices, pinpointed by the Commission - an independent watchdog established by the Scottish parliament - was the decision to freeze council tax. It cost £150 million, and was effectively a pay-day for the middle-class.

However, the starkest failure which we labour under was the egregious ScotWind sale. It took place on Nicola Sturgeon’s watch, auctioning off the nation’s assets to private and foreign investors for £750 million.

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The deal, if carried out properly and in the best interests of Scotland, could have raised billions. Indeed, estimates have been made that ScotWind across its lifetime could have raised up to £60 billion.

The stupidity - the sheer failure - is staggering. Now the SNP raids what little is gained from ScotWind to plug the yawning gap in national finances, plundering £460m from funds.

Yesterday, Sturgeon was pontificating in the Guardian about the nature of "leadership". Given her complete failure of leadership - specifically over ScotWind - if she had a scintilla of shame, she wouldn’t so much as dare mention the word.

So responsibility for the devastating spending cuts SNP ministers are inflicting on the country they profess to love lie at their door. It’s not all the fault of Labour, nor even the last Tory administration. Power is about choices, and the SNP has made terrible choices repeatedly.

However, not only are past choices sickening in the light of what’s being done to Scotland, the current choices the SNP now makes in response to its errors are vicious.

There’s £500m being cut from already-crippled public services. The cruellest of all cuts, however, comes to the health budget, with £115m to go. However, within that £115m cut, there’s another cut, and it severs a lifeline which some of the most vulnerable in our society, the mentally ill, depend upon.

Shona Robison and John Swinney are removing £18.8m from the mental health budget. We’re in the middle of a mental health crisis, the like of which we’ve never seen. This is the same government which chose to slash the affordable housing budget in the middle of a homelessness crisis, with 10,000 children in temporary accommodation.

The most detestable action any human being can undertake is to beat their victim when they’re on the ground. It’s not enough for some to just brutalise, they need to add that last kick. That’s what the SNP is doing to the mentally ill.

A nation is judged upon how it treats its weakest, most unloved, and forgotten: prisoners, children in care, the homeless, the mentally ill. On all counts the SNP has failed. Now it increases the pain.

Political choices have led to this mental health crisis. Years of austerity broke many lives. Now politicians take the few remaining protections away.

Scotland’s mental health budget was already pared to the bone. Two years ago the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland warned that freezing the mental budget “could lead to a catastrophe”.

In December last year, the Royal College of Psychiatrists spoke out once more, about £30m in cuts, saying its members were “in disbelief as direct funding for mental health services was lashed again in the Scottish budget”.

The Royal College said cuts and high inflation meant the budget “fell by 16% in the last two years”, and warned that the “toll on the mental health needs of Scots cannot be ignored”.

Meanwhile, "urgent referrals" to child mental health services increased 30% in four years. Referrals are considered urgent if children are "actively suicidal’" have "acute psychosis", or there are concerns about eating disorders.

This spring it emerged there had been an increase in suicides in Scotland. According to the latest research, mental wellbeing in Scotland is at its lowest level ever.

Currently, it can take up to 18 weeks for the vast majority of children to get mental health support. That’s four and a half months.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison announces her package of cuts in the Scottish Parliament on TuesdayFinance Secretary Shona Robison announces her package of cuts in the Scottish Parliament on Tuesday (Image: PA)

Now picture yourself, at home, with the child you love in such intense mental distress they need immediate medical help. Can you imagine the fear, pain and heartbreak? This is happening to families every single day.

Polls show 53% of Scots are no longer confident they or their family can access mental health support; 58% say not enough is spent on mental health.

You don’t need me to quote endless statistics at you. We can see from events all around us - even from what’s happening within the families of friends and loved ones - that mental health is declining alarmingly.

Yet the SNP dares to say it champions the "wellbeing agenda". John Swinney and his cabinet may claim to champion all the good causes in the world, but if their actions undermine those good causes, then they aren’t champions of anything, they’re enemies.

Yet some spending remains ring-fenced by the SNP, like Angus Robertson’s "external affairs" budget, worth £26.4m. That’s £7.5m more than the cut to mental health.

A nation thrives or dies on the health and happiness of its citizens. Currently, the mental health of Scotland has never been worse. Yet "the party of Scotland" is exacerbating the crisis.

What wounds so much is that SNP politicians - as with politicians of all parties - regularly tell us of the impact to their mental health which comes from being in the public eye. They speak of the stress, the anxiety, the dark thoughts, the depression.

My heart goes out to anyone in pain. But this I know: those who are wealthy, like politicians, can pick up the phone and pay for immediate private mental health care and the services of therapists who will metaphorically hold their hand and get them through the bad times.

Given that luxury, how can politicians ever understand the lives of the people they hold power over, and the real price of their destructive and cruel decisions?

Neil Mackay is the Herald’s Writer at Large. He’s a multi-award winning investigative journalist, author of both fiction and non-fiction, and a filmmaker and broadcaster. He specialises in intelligence, security, crime, social affairs and foreign and domestic politics.