Our sewage system was first designed for a simpler time. A time more than a hundred years ago when we used far less water, when toilets were generally out in the garden and people washed infrequently.

Now in addition to there being far more of us, flushing the loo on average six times a day, that system has the impact of the climate emergency to contend with as well.

The Scottish Monsoon, which visits tropical downpours on us with regularity these days as a result of our warming planet, sees our ageing waste water system regularly overwhelmed.

You can see it for yourself if you take a walk down say the Water of Leith where there are “unsatisfactory” sewer overflows – an official and polite description for what is happening.

Last year government-owned Scottish Water had to dump sewage in our rivers and beside our beaches on more 14,000 occasions. The real number could be far higher because only four per cent of sewage outflow points are currently monitored.

This weekend, the Scottish Government’s Environment Secretary Mairi McAllan was left with egg on her face when a freedom of information request by the Daily Express revealed she’d asked civil servants about differences between Scotland and England.

Want to see more SNP fails? – Health Matters