The civic Scotland gravy train has finally made it to Bute House. If you listen very carefully, you can hear it rumble over the tracks as it moves on to the next stop on its Tamany Hall tour. “We’re taking the piss; we’re taking the piss; we’re taking the piss. Choo-choo.”

Having looked longingly at the massive pay-offs falling to departing, unelected council officials, it was only a matter of time, I suppose before John Swinney began agitating for a large slice of the action. Even so, the weekend revelation that this unprincipled, supine man wants to award the most underperforming administration in the devolved era a £20k pay increase across the board was still rather breath-taking.

Perhaps an argument could be made for awarding such a large wedge along the lines of “we haven’t had any sort of pay increase for several years”. If so, the First Minister obviously had little faith in it. On being contacted by the journalist who first learned of his largesse, Mr Swinney cancelled his own increase.

Read more

In that swollen cohort of policy analysts, lobbyists and advisers who gather around Holyrood to scavenge on its endless financial reserves there are those who think our elected politicians should be paid significantly more than the £72k (plus eye-watering expenses and emoluments). It’s argued that they’re engaged in work of such monumental importance to the nation that their wage packet should reflect this.

The people making this argument are usually lobbyists whose per diem value to their client roster depends on them attaching their tongues to the fundaments of those who award the big public sector contracts.

This only works though, if the public was confident that........

© Herald Scotland