The SNP’s list of Holyrood candidates has potential as a warm-up act for the Glasgow Comedy Festival at which Nicola Sturgeon is already billed as an unlikely source of side-splitters. 

Ms Sturgeon and her anointed successor, Humza Yousaf, have put their names down for 2026, presumably as insurance against unemployability in more alluring fields of endeavour. It keeps their options open, though I doubt if six more years of an occasional requirement to visit Holyrood features in either’s bucket list.

The electorate may also be invited to endorse Michael Matheson, of lap-top fame, which begs the question - is there really no limit to brass neck? It remains a mystery how an attempt to claim £11,000 of public money, in the absence of any grounds on which it could have been a legitimate expense, failed to attract the interest of Scotland’s legal authorities, or lead to his resignation as an MSP.

Instead, Mr Matheson returned to Holyrood under the patronage of John Swinney, and gained another two years of drawing a salary. One might have thought he would then count himself lucky and plan a quiet return to whatever he used to do. Not a bit of it – though the good burghers of Falkirk may take a different view.

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Then we have the cherry on the patriotic cake, Stephen Flynn, whose Westminster platoon of the Tartan Army disintegrated overnight from 43 down to nine under his shouty leadership. Now he wants to go to Holyrood while remaining an MP, for which there can be only one of two reasons at this juncture. Or perhaps a bit of both.

The first is that, like many SNP luminaries before him, he actually likes London quite a lot and is in no rush to depart. Alternatively, he knows that offering a by-election as part of his sales pitch to the SNP selectorate in the north-east would scarcely enhance his prospects. So, manfully, he will suffer the indignities of the imperial Parliament for a few more years.

As Joanna Cherry pointed out, the measures taken under the Sturgeon regime to exclude her from Holyrood, and hence a leadership challenge, were “person specific” and can just as easily be overturned.  Whether or not Mr Flynn’s rise proves as irresistible as he assumes may depend on a mere flip of the same SNP rule-book.

Mr Flynn has targeted the intended victim of political assassination with a ruthlessness worthy of the Militant Tendency in its prime. The unfortunate casualty is to be Audrey Nicoll, currently the SNP’s own MSP for the seat Mr Flynn has selected. An apparently blameless person, Ms Nicoll is unusual in SNP ranks – she actually did something useful in her earlier life as a career police officer.

As for double-jobbing, the decision should be taken out the hands of Mr Flynn or any political partyAs for double-jobbing, the decision should be taken out the hands of Mr Flynn or any political party (Image: Jane Barlow/PA)

It will be interesting to observe how the Nationalist sisterhood and career wokey-dokeys respond to the prospect of an older woman being pushed aside by the ambition of Macho Man. Surely it would be comedy gold for a fly on the Holyrood tearoom wall, eavesdropping on tortured discussions about why an exception might be made, for the nation’s greater good.

As for double-jobbing, the decision should be taken out the hands of Mr Flynn or any political party. If the Scottish Parliament had collective self-respect, it would determine its own rule that membership of another Parliament is incompatible with being an MSP.  You can be one or the other but not both at the same time because it is impossible to do both jobs to the required standards. As simple as that.

Across Scotland at present, a clutch of local by-elections is taking place due to former councillors having been elected as MPs at the General Election. In each case, the individual has resigned as a councillor. Whenever, in the past, a newly-elected MP or MSP has tried to sit it out as a councillor, a furore ensued, with the SNP leading the charge so long as it wasn’t one of their own.

Indeed, the self-same Mr Flynn was caught up in a similar dispute in 2019 when first elected as an MP.  After calls for him to stand down as a councillor, he conceded: “It is not practically possible to serve a full term in a Parliament and dedicate time to be an effective local councillor.”  Does being an “effective” MSP matter less, Mr Flynn?

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While this is pretty tawdry stuff, it raises more general questions about how Holyrood views itself and also the make-up of Holyrood after 2026. It is clear from Mr Flynn’s behaviour – like Douglas Ross’s before it – that an assumption persists whereby the actual electorate can be taken for granted. Win the internal battle for selection, they reason, and the voters will rubber-stamp it.

That is an increasingly dangerous assumption for any party or individual.  Voting habits have become more fluid, there is a wider range of alternatives on the ballot paper and opportunities are being taken to express displeasure with a candidate as well as a party.  

One of Holyrood’s great weaknesses has been an absence of expertise. The days of Donald Dewar hoping it would attract the brightest and best in Scotland have long since been replaced with dreary dominance by an apparatchik class who have done nothing but work in and around politics, starting as students, with little or no life experience.

This is particularly true of the SNP and it has created a breed of Ministers, never mind MSPs, who know very little about complex subjects they are dealing with and are putty in the hands of civil servants. It is a formula which leads on every front to an administration characterised by cautious mediocrity.

I very much hope there will be a change in political control at Holyrood in 2026 but equally that the calibre of those in charge will open the door to a brighter, better class of government. In large part, that will depend on the emergence of quality candidates -  and certainly not by reviving the SNP’s comedy cast.