A better Scotland is possible, but the SNP is barely capable of defending the principles of devolution

The lack of any mea culpas from Scottish ministers for their many failings is astonishing

After 25 years of devolution, the Scottish Parliament’s founding principles seem relics of a bygone era. ‘Openness, accountability, power-sharing, equal opportunities’ – though much could be said about our government’s lack of commitment to all four ideals, the most serious is the SNP’s repeated lack of accountability for significant failures.

The recent report from Our Scottish Future (OSF), the think-tank founded by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2019, offers a devastating insight into the extent of the problems. Based on interviews with current and former civil servants, council, and charity insiders, it concludes the SNP’s reign since 2007 has been characterised by ‘virtue-signalling on an industrial scale’. One serving public sector chief executive says they essentially rule as a ‘single issue government.’

The SNP is ‘not focused on delivery, but on looking good,’ is one conclusion from the report’s extensive, scathing analysis. It’s questionable they look good to anyone. Yet, due to the vagaries of the voting system and Reform UK winning support from both Scottish Labour and Tory voters, they seem likely to form another visionless, yawning administration next year.

Whether it’s the ferries fiasco; former health secretary Michael Matheson not resigning immediately despite claiming nearly £11,000 of taxpayer money for a data roaming bill incurred on holiday; the deletion of Covid WhatsApp messages; drug deaths, or the significant decline in educational standards, the lack of any ‘mea culpas’ has been jaw- dropping.

Most recently, justice secretary Angela Constance claimed Professor Alexis Jay, author of the 2014 investigation into grooming gangs in Rotherham, ‘shares my view and has put on the record... she does not support further inquiries into child sexual abuse and exploitation.’

This untruth, flabbergasting enough for both Prof Jay and survivors of Scotland’s grooming gangs, wasn’t deemed a sackable offence. In fact, Constance retained the ‘full confidence’ of First Minister John Swinney.

‘The buck seems to stop nowhere’

The buck repeatedly seems to stop nowhere.

Angus Robertson, the culture secretary, is unfortunately yet to get the memo that the jig is – if not up – now indefensible. His response to the OSF’s findings? ‘Scotland has the opportunity to choose a fresh start with independence and escape the failed UK economic model that’s holding us back.’

When SNP politicians say the only solution to very real, very urgent, social and economic problems is something not remotely on the cards legally or practically, it’s difficult to understand how any thinking person could conclude this is a party concerned with the national interest.

Despite their fervent desire for Scotland to be independent, I’ve routinely found myself wondering of late whether the SNP even likes the ‘people of Scotland’ they claim to want it for.

If they’re not driving us all mad by pushing to redefine the category of ‘woman’ in law; judging us such a hateful bunch we need Hate Crime Bills and speech-policing; not fussed enough to support a right to recovery for Scotland’s drug and alcohol addicts; if they’re not trotting out tired lines like Robertson’s, they – epitomised by former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s self-congratulatory book tour around Scotland’s fawning taxpayer-funded literary festivals – simply deny any wrong-doing whatsoever.

There is no accountability – no acknowledgement, even – of the significant, dangerous, cultural and political schisms the SNP have fomented in Scotland. Their complacent agenda is unfortunately mirrored by ‘leaders’ across whole swathes of public life.

To some minds, this is due to ‘Civic Scotland’ having been stuffed full of Sturgeonite loyalists who remain in post, while she enjoys the canapes and deferential hospitality of book festival green rooms, despite still drawing a salary as MSP for Glasgow’s Southside.

This lack of accountability is obvious across several policy areas. But there’s no escaping that one issue above all provides a useful case study in the sheer bloody-minded incompetence that characterise too many Scottish institutions.

Litmus test for integrity

The reason the ‘gender wars’ are so important isn’t simply that they’ve undermined women’s rights. It’s that answering truthfully the question of whether ‘woman’ exists as a material category of female people with sex-based rights is a litmus test for integrity and therefore trustworthiness; i.e., the basic common sense vital for social cohesion.

Unlike other issues, there really is only one truth here. The answer is ‘yes’, in case you’re struggling due to a mind-addling decade of confusion.

Is anyone ever going to be held accountable for punishing the women of Scotland, forcing them to fight – in workplaces, and courtrooms - for their existing rights? Sturgeon isn’t. Carol Potter, Chief Executive of NHS Fife, also seems to be banking she won’t be.

Despite the ongoing Sandie Peggie case, Ms Potter recently announced early retirement. Ms Peggie is the working-class nurse of 30 years who, confronted by a trans-identifying male doctor in her changing room two years ago, was suspended by NHS Fife’s Victoria Hospital for complaining. She’s been on a discombobulating, expensive public battle for justice ever since.

Ms Potter – salary circa £155,000 - £160,000 - leaves NHS Fife ‘immensely proud’ of her time there, thanked for her ‘outstanding leadership’ by chair of the board, Pat Kilpatrick.

Outstanding leadership? The entire saga is disgraceful. The entire issue has been. Yet it rumbles on, with the Scottish Government refusing to budge, continuing to demonise opponents, just as they routinely do when blaming the No vote over a decade ago – therefore, by extension, No voters – for all Scotland’s ills.

The tagline of the independence campaign was ‘imagine a better Scotland.’ The nationalists never had a monopoly on doing so. But never mind independence, the SNP’s barely capable of defending the principles of devolution. A better Scotland is possible. It’d take too much imagination to envisage this government building one.