In Scotland, we have the cult of personality and nostalgic nationalism that demands the rewriting of Scottish history to portray a glorious nation wickedly suppressed and oppressed by a stronger neighbour. There is a dominant party that has infiltrated the state apparatus as classically happens in dictatorships. Public money is used for party projects – including the £20 million of OUR money set aside for a referendum that only a restricted minority wants any time soon. It now also includes the £49 million of Covid support funds that has been used to bail-out the failed ferries project.

How Scots have regarded the Murrell-Sturgeon partnership at the head of Scotland’s political establishment as healthy is a mystery. But, together with the absence of a revising chamber and of parliamentary committees with real authority, and with totally inadequate record keeping, the entire SNP project lacks the features of a liberal democracy.

Scots are at the mercy of a system run by very small clique of Sturgeon family and longstanding friends. This is the Scottish elite that can act as it wishes without constraint. The only genuine opposition in Scotland is the Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, who has produced a series of reports critical of the modus operandiof the Sturgeon regime. We can only wish him a long and productive tenure of office. But we will need to be vigilant to ensure that his professional and impartial conduct of his office is not impeded by the regime or its followers. By this slender thread hangs the future of any semblance of democracy in Scotland.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Health Matters