Any party which is serious about winning next year’s Scottish elections should be thinking hard about big ideas. Alternatively, it will come down to a contest around who is best qualified to administer the status quo.

Mainly, that is what current political debate is about. There is no shortage of targets for the SNP’s opponents to aim at. Nothing it touches works well. The NHS is in crisis (copyright, J. Swinney), local authorities are broke, the streets are filthy, the schools are under-performing and the trains don’t run on time.

There are multiple reasons why getting rid of the SNP, who have sterilised Scotland’s progress for 18 years while pursuing their own big idea, is a worthwhile end in itself. But it will not be enough to galvanise the masses in sufficient numbers for real change.

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My own offer of a big idea can be summed up in one word – localism. Wherever one looks, the case for giving powers back to regions and communities, urban and rural, within Scotland is overwhelming. It has the potential to unleash creative thinking about how Scotland could be energised with far, far better outcomes.

I was interested this week to hear Michael Heseltine recalling how his experiences in Liverpool in the 1980s shaped his views. National policies had failed the city but give local people the powers and the money and they were capable of leading transformation. If only someone would make the same case now for Glasgow!

Some of the arguments are encapsulated in the fate of the National Care Service legislation. To a large extent, it has........

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