It shouldn’t need saying again but here we go: the Scottish Parliament, any parliament, should attract the biggest brains in the country. The cleverest, the most able, the most talented. Men and women with the ability and experience to represent voters, challenge the government, and ask all the right questions on our behalf; the charismatic, the skilful, the bright. The best of us representing the rest of us. It is, self-evidently, the way it should be.

But instead, we have representing us in the citadel of Scottish parliamentary democracy Ms Collette Stevenson, member for East Kilbride, Ms Kate Nevens, member for Edinburgh Lothians East, and Mr Stephen Flynn, member for Aberdeen Deeside and North Kincardine and actually a government minister. The problem isn’t unique to Holyrood of course: Westminster has Hannah Spencer, who released a video this week of her talking to a toy beaver, and Lara Bird, the woman with interchangeable accents, including a Scottish accent for use with common SNP words and phrases such as “referendum”, “freedom!” and “Peter Murrell”.

To be fair, the problem with the likes of Ms Stevenson and Ms Nevens and Mr Flynn only emerges when they talk. Ms Stevenson, for example, was sitting on the transport committee last week and having listened to two hours of evidence on transport including evidence from Transport Scotland on the subject of transport, she asked, with a quizzical look on her face, if Transport Scotland was a registered charity. She has said other things as well that make you wonder about her grasp of the facts. Such as: the Scottish Government will put a “minimum cap” on staple food items. And: “I’ve always wanted an independent Scotland”.

Another example is Ms Stevenson’s colleague, cabinet minister Stephen Flynn, who was also appearing at the transport committee and, assuming the cabinet secretary for economy, tourism and transport has read all the way to the end of his job title,........

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