Billy Connolly once described Holyrood as a “wee pretendy parliament”. Many of us who love Scotland’s greatest comic quietly wished he’d not been so disparaging about this place. We all surely wanted it to work, didn’t we: including those who had opposed devolution?
It made us uncomfortable because, well … Mr Connolly is usually bang on the money when he holds a mirror in front of Scotland. And besides, he has attained that status, reserved only for an anointed few, of being beyond public criticism.
If he were so inclined, I suspect the Big Yin might be tempted to challenge us all to tell him he was wrong. Each year, the case for the defence seems to become increasingly more threadbare. Last week, our MSPs gathered to congratulate each other on the 25th birthday of Holyrood. They were surrounded by a dreadful host of familiars, bottom-feeders and scavengers in the lobbying industry, the only sector that’s experienced a sharp growth in the devolved era.
Of course, the SNP administration since Nicola Sturgeon succeeded Alex Salmond as First Minister, leads from the front in embarrassing Scotland. But they are ably supported in their thorough inadequacy by most of the other parties. The Scottish Greens are now happily removed from any say in government, but not before they had cost us tens of millions of pounds in their fatuous, toy-town stratagems such as the deposit-return scheme.
From today, a family celebration will cost you more money (Image: free) Their daft plan to impose heat pumps on every home in Scotland was exposed as an expensive whim when a Scottish Government report found that wood-burning stoves produced fewer CO2 emissions than heat pumps.
During the 25th anniversary celebrations, no mention was made of the........