Remember back when Nicola Sturgeon and Patrick Harvie were in government and we thought that, like winter in Narnia, it would never end? Well, here we are in 2025 and Sturgeon’s standing down as an MSP and Harvie’s standing down as co-leader of the Greens and I would like to mark the occasion with a message to Mr Harvie: goodbye and good luck, but there are some things you need to take with you.

Before we proceed, I should warn you that the silver lining of Mr Harvie’s announcement does come with a cloud. Firstly, he’s standing down as co-leader only and intends to stay on as an MSP. Secondly, Lorna Slater doesn’t want to quit the leadership, presumably so she can keep tabs on the bottle return scheme which is still, I’m sure, going “very well”. And thirdly, there’s a chance one of the new leaders will be Ross Greer, the only man in Scotland, the UK, the world, who can make you stop and think: heh, maybe Patrick Harvie isn’t so bad after all.

But let’s focus on the positive for now, which is the hope (you may say the distant hope) that the departure of Mr Harvie may signal a move away from some of the worst bits of recent Scottish politics. This depends on the people who are in charge now – principally John Swinney – learning the lessons of the Harvie and Sturgeon era. But it also depends, as I say, on Mr Harvie taking with him some of the trends and tropes and attitudes that have characterised public discourse in Scotland in recent years. Let’s go through them.

The basics: I’ve already mentioned the Greens’ bottle deposit scheme which Lorna Slater insisted was going splendidly in much the........

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