WHEN you behold the flailing and threshing to which the English language is subjected each day by our MSPs it’s tempting to disparage Holyrood and what passes for debate in its chamber. But we should probably avoid the temptation nonetheless. At these moments we should instead look at Westminster, which likes to call itself the mother of all parliaments.

Certainly, in its esoteric and ancient rituals Westminster carries an authority wrought in the swirl of the ages but ask yourself this: how many of its 650 members at any given time can you name? Outside of that tiny fraction which comprises the geek class you’d be struggling to put a name to more than a dozen or so of these smug, well-fed coupons.

It’s entirely possible to hide away in Westminster’s bars and vennels for five years virtually unnoticed while picking up the fat end of half a million for your slumbers (and the same again for members of your immediate family should you wish to avail yourself of the enhanced employment route that exists for their exclusive benefit).

At least in Holyrood, where there are only 129 MSPs, it’s a little more difficult to while away the hours doing crosswords and waiting dutifully for the division bell to snatch you awake.

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Yet, beyond our traditional and entirely healthy tendency to be eternally suspicious of the motives of these people we have always granted them the benefit of the doubt. When you meet them up close most tend to be decent chiels who seem genuinely to care about making our country the best possible version of itself.

In recent years, though, in both Westminster and Holyrood a new impostor class of political operative has emerged. Previously, their attempts to hoodwink the electorate through broken manifesto pledges and the smart deployment of jargon at least maintained a patina of respect for us.

The act of concealment and camouflage in itself indicated that they still acknowledged that they move and have their being entirely at our whim. Now, it seems, their contempt for us has become more brazen. It’s as though a switch has been pulled in the central nervous system of the body politic which now tells them not to give a Friar Tuck about the consequences because the outcomes already seem assured.

In recent months, on either side of the Border, a succession of political stunts and posturing has been evident which indicate open contempt on the part of this impostor class for the voters. This week, the UK Government announced that an unelected, millionaire Tory donor called Malcolm Offord will be placed in the House of Lords to enable him to serve as a minister in the Scotland Office.

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Mr Offord tried – and failed – in his bid to get into Holyrood via the lists this year when he couldn’t get enough votes in his own party. Even though he’d handed them almost £150k. The ungrateful churls. No matter; we’ll sort out a wee sinecure for him nonetheless. Edmund Blackadder is alive and well at the heart of the system.

Elsewhere, David Lammy, UK Labour’s shadow Justice Secretary re-invented Socialism and made it something gaseous and imprecise in which principles are meaningless. “Principles and values are not set in aspic,” he said, “they move with the times.”

He then went on to demonstrate this by turning on the feminists in his party whose support had helped him obtain his lofty position in the Labour hierarchy. Now, in response to these uppity women seeking to protect their sex-based rights, he described them as “dinosaurs hoarding rights.”

At Holyrood, that grinding sound you hear is of gears being put clumsily into reverse by the two co-leaders of the Scottish Greens as they get their feet comfortably underneath the cabinet table. Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater have wasted little time showing us that they too are signed up to the David Lammy school of political legerdemain. Their principles and values are not set in aspic either, although the speed with which they’ve chosen to “move with the times” is approaching a breath-taking rate of knots.

In just one month of agreeing their new positions and enhanced pension packages, they’ve become curiously coy about getting rid of large scale waste incinerators which they’d pledged in their election manifesto.

A few weeks ago they suddenly became significantly less enthusiastic about establishing a national energy company. Lorna Slater even produced a rhetorical flourish which will surely get her a visiting professorship at Sir Tom Hunter’s proposed new leadership centre. She said that this reverse ferret was part of the “wider policy landscape”.

The cross-party, cross-border political chancer movement (closely allied with the impostor class) have also been busy. It’s all about ‘commissions’ now; this being their new favoured means of keeping old stalwarts on the political teat.

Sir Keir Starmer found time amidst telling us all to be behave ourselves and be patriotic to announce he was getting Gordon Brown to set up one of these commissions. This one will “settle the future of the Union” in the event of Labour gaining power. Which is a bit like me advising Celtic to start negotiations for Kylian Mbappe in the event that we win the Champions League.

Then, Anas Sarwar decided he too fancied a wee commission of his own. His is about green energy and is called the Scottish Energy Transmission Commission, which (frivolous trumpet that I am) puts me in mind of the Coatbridge Commotion Lotion named for the golden elixir of Buckfast Abbey.

Brian Wilson, the former UK Energy Minister (and Herald columnist), who has had what you might call a sparkling career as a lobbyist for the nuclear industry, will head up this one.

It will make Scotland, in the words of Mr Sarwar, “brighter, greener and more prosperous”. Well, I suppose with the help of Mr Wilson’s old nuclear energy chums it might certainly glow a little brighter. But maybe I need to get with the “wider policy landscape”.

While we’re all in the business of setting up commissions I propose another one. This would look into the eradication of all roasters from Scottish political employment, or ERSE for short.

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