There is good reason for thinking that the elections to the Scottish Parliament next May could be something of a genuine game-changer.

The hope is that this could lead to the renewing and refreshing of the popular preference for Holyrood to be a “people’s parliament” as many wished for in the mid to late 1990s. This would mean a considerably closer connection of citizenry to the lawmakers in the legislative chamber, reflecting the former’s expectations and aspirations.

First, there are desires shown by the recent findings of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) Scotland survey. It highlighted a clear decline in the levels of trust in political parties and politicians at Holyrood. Indeed, those political parties and politicians are ranked even lower in the trust table than their counterparts at Westminster.

And investigations by The Ferret on “who runs Scotland” in 2021 and 2025 have shown that corporate lobbyists have too much influence over Scottish governments and Scottish governments have been too willing to be influenced by them.

Those polled by ERS Scotland also wanted a certain type of consensus politics to operate, showing that they have not given up on all hope that the situation could be rectified. They also favoured more decentralisation of democracy.

Second, there is the means to have a considerable changing of the guard at Holyrood. Of the current 129 MSPs, 25% have already indicated they will no longer stand again for re-election. Critically, of these MSPs, 75% are SNP MSPs. Among these are the likes of Nicola........

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