When even using a basic and commonly available artificial intelligence tool can cause a rumpus, the green agenda will do nothing to improve Edinburgh’s public services and further erode what’s left of any belief in local democracy, writes Herald columnist John McLellan

I’d be the first to admit that seeing your former president carted off to chokey isn’t the best way to restore faith in your system of government, so maybe the French have good reason to be turning their backs on Western democracy.

With poor old Nicolas Sarkozy now doing a five-stretch, for a conspiracy to bankroll his election campaign with moolah generously donated by that fine upstanding democrat Colonel Gaddafi, it’s not the best advert for elected representation. And sure enough, the annual "French Fractures" social attitudes survey from pollsters Ipsos for Le Monde newspaper has just found 42 per cent of people under 35 think an alternative to democracy would be at least as good.

It’s the Gallic version of the exasperated, shame-on-all-their-houses rejection of middle-ground politics which has proved so successful for Donald Trump and is propelling Reform to the top of the UK polls. But if being generally rubbish does not look like stopping the SNP hanging onto power in May after 18 years, what does it say about Scotland’s seemingly insatiable appetite for abject mediocrity? Perhaps a lifetime dreaming about what it must be like to have an international football team which can make it to the knockout stage of a major tournament numbs the........

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