One of the things I observe is how special interest groups try to create bandwagons to effect a change they want or resist one they don’t like.

The basic formula is fairly simple. Wrap the issue in a broader mantle such as fairness, justice or equality so it appears that you are fighting for a social good rather than your own self-interest. Engage and feed the media with carefully selected facts, have a march with some placards sporting a natty slogan. Lobbying your MP is an especially good idea because they are particularly prone to lurching into misguided action to safeguard a few votes.

Sometimes even with all this effort the campaign fails to catch on. Sometimes, however, it works.

Take the Waspi campaign for example. Women Against State Pension Inequality. Sounds like a worthy campaign to stop the cruel state being nasty to older women. Petitions signed by hundreds of thousands are handed in, MP’s join the campaign, the Government is under pressure to change - but so far stands firm.

What is actually happening is the state retirement age for women is being equalised with that of men. In other words an advantage which women had is being removed - just like lots of advantages which men used to have are, rightly, also being removed. There are transitional arrangements which can mean women born only a short while apart have retirement ages which are 3 years apart but, at no point does it take any woman longer to achieve the state retirement age than any man. Seriously annoying for those on the wrong side of the transition? Yes, Unfair? Absolutely not.

Closer to home an SNP MSP is trying to get a daft bandwagon up and running. The campaign is misguided and specifically anti-business but some of the media have been fooled and the public mood is such that progress in the wrong direction is being made.

This issue is MSPs having other jobs. A campaign is underway to legislate to stop this being allowed. The SNP have noticed that the Tories (pronounced Tawrees by SNP High Command) have more outside jobs than they have so let’s have some fun by making them look bad. In fact this campaign, if successful, is bad for business and our democracy.

One of the unfortunate things in recent years has been the rise of a professional political class. They may have never held a non-political job, they have little experience of the real world and yet they make our laws.

Would it not be much, much better if the Scottish Parliament had a diversity of people who had real current experience of the wider world? Doctors who treat people, teachers who teach and, from a business perspective, men and women who are actually engaged in real live businesses. Would the Scottish Parliament be more effective if Brian Souter, Tom Hunter and Willie Haughey were members - you bet it would. Sadly, I think the prospects of them joining are low but not allowing MSPs to have paid outside interests makes attracting talent like this impossible. Is that smart? No it is stupid. If there was greater overlap between lawmakers and business that might help our economy.

There is a solution. We have two types of MSP , those who represent constituencies and List MSPs .The former have busier jobs than the latter. Instead of preventing MSPs from having paid outside work we should allow any MSP to have it (and declare it publicly so that we can see what it is) and we should make it compulsory for List MSPs . A better and more effective Parliament would be the result.

Pinstripe is a senior member of Scotland's financial services community.