Why loss of Kate Forbes will be bigger blow than SNP may realise

The question is, therefore, why would they do this. The answer, as ever with the SNP, is simple: the pursuit of independence, the guiding light behind too many decisions in government.

Wanting to appear progressive and to the left of Labour, they clearly felt the need to seem sympathetic to the idea of a minimum income. Commissioning a report was a way to signal this.

Of course, the SNP may argue that it is a policy which could be considered in an independent Scotland and that the money was as well spent as that used to produce the Scottish Government’s near-forgotten ‘independence papers’. On the latter point, we would not disagree.

Dreamers vs pragmatists

However, any such justification would only highlight what should be considered as a fundamental dividing line within the party – between the dreamers who think selling a vision of a promised land is the best way to achieve independence and the pragmatists who recognise it is important to run Scotland well in the here and now.

The decision of Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes, a pragmatist with at least a degree of understanding of the needs of business, to stand down at the next election will therefore be a blow not just to the SNP government but to Scotland as a whole.

The simple truth is that there is no prospect of another referendum, let alone independence itself, while support remains at its current level. Selling dubious visions of the future is an easy, glib and ultimately empty way of trying to increase it.

Actually making life better for people in Scotland – by cutting NHS waiting lists, restoring discipline in schools, reducing drug and alcohol deaths, ensuring we have a reliable ferry service etc – is much harder but would be more rewarding for all concerned. Wasting public money on pipedreams is not only unhelpful, it actively hinders the kind of progress that the country so desperately needs.