How London Labour blew Scotland’s best chance for meaningful change

In fact, it may already be written in the runes that it will get worse. As the revenue-to-expenditure chasm widens over the next few years, even the Scottish Government has recognised that it can’t go on spending money it doesn’t have.

The prospects of Mr Swinney and his friends rolling up their sleeves and taking responsibility for hard decisions are negligible when the alternative will be to turn up the grievance dial, blame everyone but themselves and demand even more from “Westminster”.

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We already have the promise that, on “day one”, our devolved leader will demand a referendum on independence, thereby setting the mood music for what is to follow, interminably and to no avail. Even more depressingly, the only ones he can rely on in this quest are the Greens.

The departure of Angus Robertson was one of the brighter spots in the day but, even for that, the return of Lorna Slater seems a high price for Scotland to pay. The fact there were enough voters in Edinburgh Central who thought otherwise is startling, but that’s where tactical voting leads.

As for the make-up of the parliament, there is the distinct possibility that Scotland may find it has voted for a circus, with Greens and Reformers prominent in the Big Top. If the standard of debate and scrutiny were dismal until now, just wait for what follows.

It is worth recognising the extent to which Holyrood itself is a clear loser. This conclusion tends to be downplayed because it upsets decades of conventional wisdom that, by definition, devolution would produce better, more accountable government for Scotland.

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A Scottish Parliament was supposed to bring government closer to the people. Politics would be more relevant and consensual; decision-making more accessible. None of this has happened. On the contrary, more people than ever feel remote and excluded from politics and government. So they don’t even vote.

Twenty-seven years after Holyrood was opened with high-minded declarations of intent, barely half the Scottish electorate thought an election worth participating in. Abstainers were the biggest party. Go into poorer parts of the country – the places which were supposed to benefit from all these “gaps” that devolution was going to close, but haven’t – and the figure drops further.

It is patronising to attribute this to apathy alone. It is possible to be positively disinterested and there has been very little in the campaign to energise or enthuse anyone, beyond the activist cores. In these circumstances, the status quo is likely to prevail and, in general, that is what has happened.

The great failing and lost opportunity of devolution is that, for the past 20 years, it has not primarily been directed towards the betterment of Scotland through the powers of the parliament but about the constitution itself.

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The dividing lines around social and economic priorities have been pushed to the margins by an endless drone about “powers”. No wonder so many have switched off in disillusionment and the real concern about the outcome of this election is that it offers nothing other than more of the same.

For Labour, it was a profound disappointment that had been two years in the making. At the time of the general election, there was a real prospect that the offer of two governments working in harmony, in Edinburgh and Westminster, would be too attractive for Scottish voters to resist.

Instead, the early mis-steps of Keir Starmer’s government had exactly the same effect in Scotland as in other parts of Britain – as reflected in fairly equal measure as the results came in yesterday. This was Scotland’s best prospect for meaningful change and it was blown by people who seemed to have no understanding that they would be judged within two years – not five.

That was particularly cruel for those who worked so hard to offer that prospect but repeatedly saw the ground taken from under them by events over which they had no control – from winter fuel payments to the Mandelson debacles. Whoever was advising Starmer throughout the past two years has a lot to answer for – and not just in Scotland.

Fortunately, there was also some good news. Reform did not do as well as feared, though the myth of there being no right-wing politics in Scotland can now be abandoned. Take the ‘old’ Tory and Reform votes together and they add up to where the Scottish Tories were in Thatcher’s day. The same people under a new name and with harder-line policies have done the trick.

I am also delighted, as a citizen of the Western Isles, to be represented at Holyrood by a Labour MSP as a result of Donald Mackinnon’s victory. This was the product of sheer hard work by an excellent team who made direct contact with just about every voter in the constituency – and it paid off.

For crucial years, when population decline continued, council funding was cut beyond any other local authority in Scotland, and the ferry saga exerted real human costs upon a weary population, the Western Isles suffered from having no effective voice at Holyrood where these issues should have been hammered regularly. The SNP incumbent paid the price.

So when the dust has settled, let’s see the final picture. And maybe, on day one, John Swinney could surprise us all by saying: “Let’s park the constitution and get on with the job at hand.” I live in hope but not expectation.