Is our Scottish Parliament at Holyrood fit for purpose or is it time to reconsider whether it has been a hugely expensive mistake and scrap it?
Does it really represent the interests of the Scottish people or is it a simply a gravy train for increasingly unaccountable and out of touch politicians on big salaries with guaranteed pension pots.
With almost everyone in the country talking about the case of nurse Sandie Peggie and her employment tribunal hearing against NHS Fife, the Scottish Parliament is refusing to allow questions from some MSPs to discuss the issue.
Despite attempts by Murdo Fraser and others to raise the issue the presiding officer Alison Johnstone has refused to allow the their questions in the chamber.
On Tuesday, a Conservative-led vote to have the issue discussed in parliament was defeated 64 to 47.
Few matters galvanise an entire nation but the case of the long serving nurse who claims she was unlawfully harassed by being made to share a changing room with trans doctor Beth Upton is “the talk of the steamie” as my old mum would’ve called it.
Irrespective of differing views on the case, the Scottish people voted originally for a parliament which would reflect our supposed openness and democratic nature as a people.
Yet here we are with a case which has exercised the minds and voices of folk everywhere and we’re refusing to discuss it in our national parliament.
A national hush has been decreed in the place which supposedly exists to debate and discuss matters of great importance.
“Wheesht for Scotland” was the cry uber nationalists invoked to crush any dispiriting or negative stories lest they imperil the chances of fair Caledonia wining independence from Westminster.
That grim anti-democratic mentality appears to still be alive and kicking in the very place which was supposed to renew and revive Scottish self confidence.
Our inability to face and confront harsh truths and opposing views lessens the value of Holyrood, where increasingly we’re represented by second rate, second division, and second class intellects, chosen for party subservience over independence of mind.
I recall the now clearly pompous phrase bandied about in the early days of Holyrood, when we were flushed with the possibilities of what we might be once we were running our own affairs.
“Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation” the great and the good pontificated like a quasi religious mantra.
As it turns out we’re not a better nation.
We’re no more moral, or decent, or honourable, and no less sleazy, than any other nation with its fair share of self serving, career advancing charlatans.
The small number of good men and women in Holyrood (and there are honourable exceptions among the herd) are fighting a losing battle against those who’ve put institutional self interest at the heart of the place.
The primary function of the parliament appears increasingly to be its self survival and the pursuit of individual MSP hobby horses, as witnessed by the madness of the gender wars which have captured an entire generation of politicians.
We’ve arrived at the totally undemocratic situation in parliament where matters which truly impact on the Scottish people, such as whether a woman has the right to get dressed for work in a changing room along with other biological women and not men who claim to be women, can’t be discussed.
Those who dominate the parliament are fond of vacuously proclaiming anything emanating from Scotland as world class.
On this occasion they can accurately claim that their refusal to debate an issue of national importance to the men and women of the country is truly a world class embarrassment.
