The first thing that made me angry this week was the sight of journalists being held behind newly erected barriers at Holyrood which mean they can’t approach politicians anymore and ask them questions. The second thing that made me angry was Greer of the Greens swanning past the barriers and appearing to suggest the journalists only had themselves to blame. It is incredible to me – and I hope it is incredible to you – that, after all the scandal and shame that has plagued this wretched parliament, the people who run it think restricting the press is the way to go. It stinks. It is a disgrace. It is the lowest low.

But wait, we have a tie! You may have seen this week that the Scottish Government has been in court (again) and spent lots of taxpayers’ money on expensive lawyers (again) and crashed and burned and lost the case (again) and I mention it because the reaction of the government, and its agencies, represents one other low in the behaviour we’ve come to expect in Scottish public life. In fact, it seems to me that all of it – the barriers in Holyrood, the lost court cases, the refusal to hold an inquiry into you-know-who about you-know-what – amounts to the same thing: the arrogance of the SNP (and its helpers), facilitated and encouraged by the rolling years in office, the endless Narnian winter, and the expectation that whatever happens, the SNP will win the election anyway.

But court cases aren’t so easy to win are they? The reason the government was in court this time was because they were brought there by For Women Scotland, the campaign group that took the government to court last year to establish the meaning of "woman" in law. The Supreme Court ruled in that case that woman, man and sex refers to biological sex rather than gender identity, but I recall some time after the judgment talking to one of the founders of For Women Scotland, Marion Calder, and her telling me that they were in a back-and-forth with the civil service and were........

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