This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

It's a long-standing staple in first year university philosophy class: just how representative of the will of the people should a functioning democracy be?

Clearly, we’re long past the stage when ‘our betters’ sat in parliament deciding what is best for us whilst we humbly and quietly bowed to their wisdom. World War Two killed that nonsense off.

On the other side of the balance sheet, evidently, parliamentarians are there to add some caution and measure to the will of the people. Whilst we may wish for policy X to be enacted, parliamentarians are elected to ensure that policy X becomes law in an orderly, measured fashion.

If we accept those two points - that parliamentarians do not know better than us, and exist to enact our will in a reasonable way - then it is hard to look upon the rejection of the assisted dying bill at Holyrood as anything other than a distinctly undemocratic moment in recent Scottish history.

An opinion poll on behalf of Dignity in Dying Scotland which canvassed the views of more than 4000 people across the country found that around 80% of the Scottish people support assisted dying legislation. Polling also shows huge support in every Scottish constituency and region, rising as high as 87%. 

Yet, 69 of the 129 MSPs at Holyrood believe they do know better than the majority of Scots, and so can bat public opinion away as if it is of no consequence.

This unedifying moment was topped only by the crowing of the fundamentalist religious right in Scotland about........

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