I am an advanced devolutionist. Decisions affecting people and communities are best made at the level where they are most effective and those responsible are accountable.
Nobody can claim that political devolution to Edinburgh has delivered that for Scotland. Instead, a new centre was created which hoards powers and resources unto itself; the antithesis of my definition.
Centralisation and constitutional polarisation. These are the two stand-out characteristics from 25 years of Holyrood. It would be pleasing to say instead that the highlights have been lasting social reforms but there have been far too few.
The most pernicious “success” has been to change the dynamic of Scottish politics, which really took hold since 2014. It is no longer about haves and have-nots; the powerful and weak; deep-rooted injustices of poverty - dividing lines which matter and around which change is built.
Holyrood hasn't delivered, says Brian Wilson (Image: free)
Instead, we have a permanent argument about the constitution. I know nobody on the left who came into politics to be a “unionist”. Yet this false dichotomy has become the dominant fault-line of Scottish politics.
In 1979, I opposed political devolution because I feared that Scottish politics would become bogged down in a permanent argument about “powers” rather than outcomes. Maybe I wasn’t all........