SNP has cowed civil service into utter submission and rule of law could be next
Unlike at Westminster, Scotland’s civil servants appear unwilling to challenge SNP ministers even as they treat the courts with disdain
Sometimes small stories speak to a wider truth. In this context, the selfie-post on X/Twitter by Maree Todd who is, lest you were unaware, Scotland’s sports minister is worthy of attention. Ms Todd was in Miami to represent the Scottish Government at Scotland’s final group match in the World Cup. Nothing wrong with that. She would have been greeted by the hosts, Fifa, and given appropriate hospitality with other dignitaries. Nothing wrong with that.
Except that Ms Todd posted a picture of herself, inside the stadium, adorned by a large SNP symbol attached to her attire. Even the most elementary student of politics would be aware what’s wrong with that, but Ms Todd appeared oblivious.
If she was in Miami to represent the Scottish Government (and hence the Scottish people), then she was obliged to leave her party paraphernalia at home. By mixing ministerial duty with party politics, she was in clear breach of the Ministerial Code and should be censured and surcharged accordingly, which won’t happen because it never does.
A nationalist hallmark
Every minister knows the dividing line between party activity and government representation. If they ignore this key principle, an apolitical civil servant should be on hand to remind them, which presumably did not happen in Ms Todd’s case. And that leads on to that wider truth.
It is the hallmark of all nationalisms that they believe in the right to conflate the ‘national’ party with the nation itself. This has a nasty habit of drifting from ideological error to underpinning the routine arrogance of power. The nation and the party is one, so suck it up. And what civil servant will take the employment risk of telling them otherwise?
Over the past 20 years, the same mentality has led to the dismantling of many safeguards which separate party interest from government responsibility. The Scottish civil service is the most obvious example, given it has now pretty much assimilated low expectations of political neutrality.
One measure of this is the disappearance of ‘ministerial directions’ within the Holyrood system. These are instances in which a political action is sufficiently controversial in terms of propriety for a ministerial direction to be specifically sought in order to clarify where responsibility lies.
There have been almost 50 of these at Westminster since 2010 and there were five in Edinburgh in the early years of devolution. Since 2007, there have been none at all, so that even the most dubious and costly political decisions have not been challenged by civil servants to the point of them saying: “We know this is wrong and are only doing it because you’re ordering us to.”
Bad for democracy
If even that safeguard existed, some of the worst spending fiascos might have been avoided. The ferries scandal is a case in point since, as it subsequently emerged, it emanated from a purely political decision in face of multiple warnings about risks. But what civil servant who valued his or her job was going to force that issue?
While a house-trained civil service within a culture where challenge is regarded as disloyal affront is bad for democracy, it becomes more concerning when the same degree of subservience threatens the legal system. This is the most serious public interest aspect of the Murrell affair and, accordingly, the one that is in greatest need of serious, forensic inquiry. In a case which demanded the highest separation of powers between the political and legal systems, the evidence points in the opposite direction.
There are plenty of aspects of the affair which cry out for answers and there is not the slightest hint of John Swinney allowing them to be found. However, the case for an inquiry into the Crown Office continues to grow.
One puzzling aspect of the saga is why Nicola Sturgeon, having provided no answers other than “no comment” when interviewed by Police Scotland, was then allowed to offer a written statement, which was not subject to further examination. Is this option to be available to everyone who adopts the same tactic under police questioning?
We now know that police officers investigating the case wished to follow up with further questioning but the direction not to do so came from the Crown Office – yet another significant intervention. To the public, it does seem remarkable that police were denied the opportunity to probe a written statement in order to get at answers which the interview itself had not provided.
Curious form of patriotism
The courts are always a nuisance to governments which believe in the absolutism of their own powers. On that front too, the arrogance displayed by SNP ministers has, by any normal standard, been astounding. From being used as a vehicle for spurious appeals to ignoring even the clearest instructions, our highest courts – another lynch-pin in Scotland’s legal system – are treated with disdain.
In the most recent humiliation, the Scottish Government was ordered by the Court of Session to enforce a Supreme Court ruling and end its practice of accommodating individuals with male characteristics in women’s prisons. Once again, For Women Scotland had to go to Scotland’s highest court to achieve an outcome which the Supreme Court put beyond doubt more than a year ago.
The recurring theme is that the self-styled “Scotland’s party” is willing to undermine Scotland’s most distinctive institutions and spend vast amounts of money in the process, in order to advance its political agenda. It is a curious form of patriotism.
And yes, they won an election because 20 per cent of the fabled “people of Scotland” voted for them. But when it comes to the way they use that mandate, then just like lesser mortals, they speak only for themselves.
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