It’s been another week of Tories thumbing their nose at the rule of law and getting away with it. Of course, the big news was the fines imposed on the PM and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for breaking their own lockdown laws. The right thing to do would be for them to resign. Particularly as the PM misled parliament with repeated assurances that no rules had been broken. If this was deliberate - and how could it not be – then the ministerial code of conduct states he must resign. But, of course, he won’t.  

If you watched PMQs this week you will have seen several of my SNP colleagues ask very pertinent questions. Carol Monaghan on why Westminster is punishing Scotland’s renewable sector with exorbitant grid connection charges, Chris Stephens on why the UK Government has cut food waste funding to zero, and Patricia Gibson on the Tories abandonment of their manifesto promise on the triple lock on pensions.

It’s been a frenetic week in the phoney war over indyref2. Several storms caused by ill-advised analogies with the situation in Ukraine, another tedious Broontervention and at least one attempt to breathe life into the local government elections by suggesting that they are about winning the case for independence. Newsflash – they are not.

I have a few requests for my SNP colleagues and indeed the wider independence movement.

Whether or not indyref2 happens next year – and readers should appreciate that I am completely out of the loop on the plans– our parliamentary democracy is due an overhaul. It’s easy to criticise Westminster but there are problems closer to home. This is not just my view but the view of Prof James Mitchell, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Edinburgh, and a seasoned commentator on the Scottish political scene.