After another depressing read through the political stories throughout the last few (long) months I think it’s time we all faced an uncomfortable reality about the way Scotland is currently governed.
Which is that the devolution experiment has stalled, and it’s turned into a no-win situation for the public.
Instead of delivering effective governance, the current setup has just created a permanent, built-in excuse machine. We are trapped in a cycle where both Parliaments can constantly blame each other for every failure and lack of progress, even when the truth is that both are at fault, or the blame is entirely misplaced.
It’s easy to look at how predictably the political point-scoring plays out when scandals break such as one side relentlessly focusing on the ferries fiasco but completely look the other way when it comes to the eye-watering costs and mismanagement of HS2.
Then the other side will hammer Westminster over Covid procurement scandals (Our beloved Lady Mone) while actively downplaying the police investigation surrounding Peter Murrell and the SNP's internal finances.
More importantly though we see this same dynamic obscuring the truth on the issues that actually matter to day-to-day life, like education and the NHS.
When school attainment gaps widen or NHS waiting times skyrocket, the text-book response from Holyrood is that their hands are tied by Westminster austerity and funding constraints.
Meanwhile Westminster fires back that Holyrood has the budget and the devolved powers, blaming pure incompetence.
The actual truth gets completely buried under a mountain of spin and in a lot of cases both are true to a certain extent.
What this fundamentally means is that politcians on each side are permanently handed a free pass.
They don’t actually have to deliver real progress or solve deep-seated societal issues because they have a pre-fabricated scapegoat waiting across the border. If everything goes wrong, it’s always the other lot's fault.
To make matters worse, look at what’s on the horizon. Andy Burnham is currently pushing his national platform for deep, decentralising reforms across the UK, including his "No. 10 North" initiative and proposals to bypass central power by taking devolution "deeper down" to local regions.
Although I’m old and cynical I genuinely believe if this is extended to Scotland it’s only going to add yet another layer of bureaucratic complexity.
Instead of fixing accountability, it will create an even larger web of bodies to absorb the flak as long as it’s outwith their own party.
It will give politicians a brand-new shield to alleviate their own responsibilities, encouraging further stymieing, buck-passing, and finger-pointing without delivering an ounce of actual progress.
The real truth here is that regardless of which side of the constitutional debate you sit on the status quo is serving none of us.
Unionists shouldn't be happy with a devolved parliament that acts as a permanent grievance engine, and Nationalists shouldn't be happy with a halfway house that restricts full power/economic levers.
A future referendum shouldn't be a rehash of the old "status quo vs. independence" debate. It needs to be a definitive, clear-cut choice to break the deadlock.
That choice should be ‘Full Independence or abolish the Scottish Parliament entirely?’
We either need all the power at Holyrood so there are zero excuses left, or we return to a single unified parliament at Westminster so the buck stops firmly in one place. The middle ground is broken, and it’s time to make a real choice.