Beyond naive

Albert Einstein told us that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. It’s happening again. The Labour Party that created our flawed devolution settlement wants further constitutional change.

We already have an overmighty executive at Holyrood without the kind of checks and balances that there are at Westminster – for example, the robust select committees which put our poodles to shame. Not content with that, we have had two further Scotland Acts since that of 1997 – those in 2012 and 2016, enacted by Conservative governments, which have given the SNP government extra powers, including some over income tax. These it has used to tinker with rates and bands so that tax revenues will soon be £1.5 billion a year lower than if Scotland had had no tax-raising powers, as Professor John Mclaren has shown.

Why is Labour so anxious to devolve even more power to a regime at Holyrood that fails at everything it touches and that operates in deep secrecy?

The list of failures is long, through Prestwick, Bifab, Gupta, Scotwind, the Scottish not-for-profit energy company that never was but cost us tens of thousands nevertheless.

The apogee of failure can be seen in two recent issues: the tortuous and distinctly dodgy ferries saga; and the botched “independent” Census. Has Labour not got the message that giving Holyrood more powers under the current dispensation is a recipe for disaster?

Reforms are needed: more authority for the excellent Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, who investigates as far as the utterly opaque SNP system at Holyrood permits; beefed up parliamentary committees with strong powers to interrogate ministers and hold them to account. Methods of accountability are required that demand loyalty to the system that is supposed to serve the Scottish people, rather than the current convention of loyalty to the political regime in power.

Wake up Keir Starmer, Gordon Brown, Anas Sarwar! Either you know that the Scottish devolved system has been distorted and manipulated by the current incumbents, or else you are beyond naïve.

Do not afford the SNP any more power that they would only misuse.

JILL STEPHENSON

Edinburgh