Guy Stenhouse

The Scottish Government has developed a calamitous skill in producing daft legislation. That the Hate Crime Act would bring out every grievance crank, of which there are many, who would report anybody who had looked at them the wrong way to poor old Police Scotland, which had made the dreadful mistake of promising to investigate every report, was entirely predictable. Not just predictable but predicted, by many people, many times.

Guy Stenhouse: Scottish Government ferry consultation papers are a worthy but guaranteed failure The Scottish Government has recently launched two new consultation papers as part of its Islands Connectivity Plan. These are called Strategic Approach and Vessels and Ports Plan. More on these later.

The Scottish Government has not learnt from its past stupidities. The war on landlords continues with new variations of rent control proposed and a requirement to meet tighter energy performance targets long before owner occupiers have to do so.

Is there anybody who believes that councils in Scotland don't need more money?

Labour's pension cap plan penalises good investment decisions, worse, it leaves people in a position of uncertainty many years before they retire.

The UK Covid Inquiry sitting in Edinburgh has been revealing. The view that the Scottish Government did a better, more honest and transparent job than the UK Government of dealing with the Covid pandemic has been shown to be entirely untrue. The truth is both governments struggled as did those all around the world.

Juries don’t have targets to hit, they don’t get any money either way, or promotion or fame, they don’t get re-educated if they reach the wrong answer, they are not picked because they think a particular way, they just do their job and fade way.

The ministers in the present Scottish SNP-Green administration are, from top to bottom, of remarkably low calibre. Few have done anything of note

Those who are supposed to serve us take us for idiots. They degrade themselves and politics and our country. They decrease our interest in the democratic process and corrode our faith in our leaders.

A few months ago the excellent family-run ironmonger in a village near where I live announced it was seeking a buyer. More recently it has announced that in January it will close for good.