Voters with a patriotic pride in the fairness and effectiveness of our representative democracy will probably believe it operates something like this. Those who stand for election have a desire to improve the lives of others, and a commitment to change what they see as inefficient, outdated, and iniquitous institutions and practices, based on their own lived experience or what they have learned.

Together with other like-minded people in parliament, they pool their ideas which are then presented to the electorate in a programme for government and, if those chime with the priorities of most voters, they are elected to implement them.

This is an idealised fantasy because, as we know, many politicians are motivated by human instincts like personal ambition, greed, and indolence. The achievement of their goals can be hampered by slow and inefficient systems, obstructive bureaucracies and, of course, by “events, dear boy, events”.

When a party has been in office for too long, when it has run out of ideas and those human instincts are the primary driver for too many of its members, we end up with a cynical subversion of representative democracy, which operates something like this. Politicians ask voters what they want by commissioning opinion polls or hosting sessions with “focus groups”.

They then select the most eye catching of their findings – the ones they think will win them the most votes and give them the greatest chance of clinging to power – and they then put all their energies into shoehorning those through parliament.

We end up with political leaders trying to convince us that the most pressing needs of society can be addressed by setting up traffic cone hotlines, sending illegal migrants to Rwanda or allowing people with penises and rape convictions into girls’ changing rooms.

This week we learned that the Scottish Government has spent........

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