Barely a day goes by without more scaremongering about the rise of Reform UK, as if the collapse of civilisation as we know it is just round the corner. All it needs is a wee man with a placard pacing up and down outside Waverley Station with “The end is nigh” on one side and Nigel Farage’s face on the other.

But if only reform was nigh. Not the political home for misfits and golf club bores but the real thing; actual change for the better which transforms public services and the economy at the same time. Not the magic wand of independence, which would just be more of the same with a saltire and a bigger trade deficit, but real, rip-it-up-and-start-again reform which has value for money and efficiency at its core.

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Politically difficult almost certainly, but as services of all shapes and sizes face up to a financial crisis exacerbated by the hypersonic missile of the Labour Government’s decision to jack up employers National Insurance Contributions (NICs), the time for bold action is surely upon us.

But of course in the legal drug consumption rooms of the Scottish Government and town hall finance departments there is little chance of rehab in the shape of truly radical reform in a nation addicted to the easy fix of ever increasing taxation.

The now abandoned National Care Service plan promised only to burn millions in its creation and, like Police Scotland, reduce local accountability while making no meaningful difference to outcomes. But the prize for this week’s most miserable read was the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ paper on........

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