We cannot have five more years of incompetence and disappointment

It saw some of the best and brightest of Scotland’s politicians recognised for their hard work and showcased some of the best new talent from the new cohort of MSPs.

We all want to see our politicians doing well. After all, when they do well it is the public who benefits from it. Yet in the past few weeks many voters will have had their heads in their hands at some of the incompetence on display in the Scottish Parliament.

The talk of the steamie this week has been the faux pas of SNP MSP Collette Stevenson (she was even the butt of several jokes at Thursday’s party). The East Kilbride MSP sits on Holyrood’s transport committee, which is responsible for scrutinising some of the country’s most thorny issues like public transport and road dualling.

During this week’s committee meeting, she thought Transport Scotland was a charity (spoiler, it is not). While a punter complaining about the state of the ferries in the pub could be forgiven for this oversight, Ms Stevenson is being paid by the taxpayers to scrutinise the work of the transport bosses.

It really exposed just how little some MSPs are across their briefs.

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Despite it only being a few weeks into the new parliamentary term, it was not the only banana skin at the transport committee.

The new Transport Secretary Stephen Flynn was asked about a faulty valve on a CalMac ferry which led to an uncontrolled release of highly flammable methane gas for 12 minutes while 82 passengers were on board.

It was the top story that morning, so as you would expect, the committee asked Mr Flynn what was going on.

The problem? Mr Flynn did not know. He had not even read the story, as he was FaceTiming his children.

While I absolutely cannot knock a working dad for keeping in touch with his kids, I cannot help but wonder if a female politician would have gotten away with that comment.

There is a lot of expectation being placed on Mr Flynn’s shoulders given his lofty ambitions but, after stellar performances against prime ministers in the House of Commons, he has failed to set the heather alight in his new government job.

He needs to prove that he can do the hard work of government as well as being a good public speaker.

The other big disappointment of recent weeks - Reform UK. They made big promises in the election to shake things up, to be the “disruptors”, to really hold the government to account.

This is yet to materialise. They are nowhere close to being able to get one over on First Minister John Swinney, and have yet to make any government ministers squirm. In fact the other MSPs seem to spend most of their time laughing at them.

I realise most of the Reform cohort are still brand new, but just take a look at the fate of Sir Keir Starmer - the public will not give them long before they turn their backs on them for failing to deliver.

I really hope this string of misfortunes changes course pretty quickly, because we cannot have five more years of the incompetence we have seen in the past few weeks.