EUAN MCCOLM: A rabble of rejects jockeying to replace hopeless has-beens. What IS the point of Holyrood?

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Some of the decisions had seemed inevitable long before they were made public. Nobody seriously expected former First Ministers Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf to seek reelection to the Scottish Parliament next year, did they?

And announcements from Douglas Ross and Richard Leonard, former leaders of, respectively, the Scottish Tories and Labour that they were moving on were just as unsurprising.

What is striking, however, is the number of MSPs who’ve decided to join this exodus from the Scottish Parliament. 

We’re into the dozens, now, and there’s plenty of time for numbers to swell before parties must select their candidates for next May’s election.

There are quitters across the political spectrum but most remarkable is just how many SNP MSPs are among them. So far, more than 20 nationalist members have chosen not to stand again.

Meanwhile, a number of former SNP MPs who lost their seats at last year’s general election have put themselves forward as potential Holyrood candidates.

The stitch-ups and deals playing out right now don’t inspire much hope. Across Scotland, we see rejects vying to replace has-beens.

Reading the list of those preparing to depart Holyrood - a real “who’s that?” of Scottish politics - a thought occurs: How will we know they were ever there?

A number of former SNP MPs who lost their seats at last year’s general election have put themselves forward as potential candidates for the Scottish Parliament, above

Former SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon is among more than 20 nationalist members who have chosen not to stand again

What are the achievements of those ministers and backbenchers who’ll soon be off to spend more time with their fat pensions and their consulting fees?

The most high profile of those ready to leave Holyrood is, of course, Nicola Sturgeon, a politician who can - at least - boast a legacy. 

After almost nine years as First Minister, Ms Sturgeon can be assured she will be remembered as the leader who fought to remove women’s rights at the behest of trans activists while running the NHS into the ground and abandoning her promises to improve standards in Scottish schools.

The majority of those who’ll leave Holyrood next year will go without leaving a trace.

Across all areas of policy, the Scottish Parliament is currently failing to make any kind of positive difference. 

Rhetoric and reality is never in the same vicinity and promises blithely made by ministers about investment and improvement are routinely broken.

Recent polling on public services found Scots are dissatisfied and that they know who to blame. Years of the SNP pointing the finger at Westminster has failed to persuade voters that the Scottish Government is not responsible for its own actions.

First Minister John Swinney humiliated the deputy Israeli ambassador by apologising for a meeting with her after they were criticised by infantile SNP members, writes Euan McColm

When the Scottish Parliament first convened in 1999, there was great pageantry. The country’s first First Minister Donald Dewar spoke poetically of Scotland’s past and of a future of possibilities, the potential of the nation unleashed by the devolution of power.

This was all deeply rousing stuff. But a healthy parliament and good government are not created by the poetry recited by leaders.

Rather, these things need talented, dedicated parliamentarians, intellectually curious and willing to challenge orthodoxies.

Elected members of such calibre are in desperately short supply in the Scottish Parliament today.

As part of her effort to persuade us she was more than just a monomaniacal nationalist, obsessed with breaking up the United Kingdom at any cost, Nicola Sturgeon frequently asked that she be judged on her stewardship of Scotland’s education system. 

The former First Minister made this request safe in the knowledge that her supporters - equally convinced as she of the cure-all powers of independence - would never actually comply.

The bleak truth is that standards in literacy and numeracy among Scottish schoolchildren remain worryingly low because Ms Sturgeon was more interested in agitating on the constitution and on behalf of trans-identifying men than she was in delivering on the promises she’d made.

Anyone who has had the misfortune of falling ill will know only too well the impact of political failure on the NHS. 

No matter how dedicated doctors and nurses may be, they are not miracle workers.

Medical staff are being asked to meet impossible targets on waiting times and treatment by politicians who continue to underfund the NHS and to shy away from any kind of meaningful reform.

Again, Ms Sturgeon’s fingerprints are all over this particular policy crime scene. As health secretary in the first SNP government at Holyrood, she acted as manager rather than innovator, taking the view that the nationalists’ objective of ending the Union was better served by avoiding potential conflict with any vested interest groups.

The sense of wasted opportunity is overwhelming.

The entire point of the Scottish Parliament was to allow politicians to more quickly and effectively respond to the priorities of the people but not only have MSPs failed on the big issues that matter to most voters, they haven’t even tried.

Sometimes it seems Holyrood has become a parliament of symbolism rather than action. 

Decisions made by the government and supported by its cronies in the Greens and Liberal Democrats seem designed not for what they will achieve but for what they might “say”.

When Scots voted, back in 1997, to give the new parliament the power to vary tax rates, I do not believe they did so hoping that one day the government would make workers here the most heavily taxed in the UK.

But in order for Nicola Sturgeon to tell her story of Scotland being uniquely “progressive”, this deeply unfair situation had to be created.

It is of course easy - and often deeply cathartic - for the smart aleck columnist to mock the calibre of Scotland’s politicians. It is easy because they make it so.

We cannot pretend we haven’t seen their displays of stupidity.

We cannot pretend disasters from the failed attempt to allow people to self-identify into the legally-recognised sex of their choosing to the ferries fiasco did not happen. We cannot pretend that the Scottish Government could not even organise a bottle deposit return scheme, for Heaven’s sake.

We cannot pretend that, even now, members of the SNP, the Scottish Greens and The Liberal Democrats at Holyrood are unable to give a clear and accurate answer to the question “What is a woman?”

And we cannot forget that First Minister John Swinney and cabinet secretary Angus Roberston humiliated the deputy Israeli ambassador by apologising for a meeting with her after they were criticised by infantile SNP members.

All of those things and more tell the story of a parliament dominated by politicians detached from the people.

There are those, particularly on the far right, who would close Holyrood down tomorrow. The argument for doing so - wrong though I believe it to be - can only be helped by the ongoing failure of MSPs to show how Holyrood can benefit Scots.

More thoughtful members of Scotland’s mainstream parties worry that anti-devolution voices will have a growing audience next year.

There is space, one senior SNP MSP concedes, for a populist message that says Holyrood has failed.

Scotland’s political class really is its own worst enemy. MSPs from across the debating chamber indulge themselves with posturing speeches on issues for which they have no responsibility and over which they have no power.

From motions at Holyrood condemning Donald Trump to speeches in the chamber about conflict in the middle east, too much parliamentary time is taken up with performance rather than debate.

This sort of behaviour is not without risks, as SNP members have recently been reminded.

For years, the nationalists have used the Holyrood chamber to make arguments over defence that are the preserve of Westminster. Successive SNP leaders relished attacking opponents for their support of the retention of nuclear weapons.

Now, in light of Donald Trump’s “so what?” position on Russian aggression against Ukraine, that SNP anti-nukes position looks naive at best.

Polls currently suggest that the SNP could win a fifth successive Holyrood election next year. 

And by the looks of things, much of the nationalist group will be made up of politicians who previously lost seats at Westminster.

I don’t know about you but that doesn’t sound like a recipe for a dynamic government to me.

Few of those MSP preparing to leave Holyrood will be missed. We are waving goodbye to an unusually uninspiring generation of politicians, to a rabble of also-rans and careerists who’ve not so much made their mark on public life as left it lightly smeared.

The priorities of the Scottish people are clear. Poll after poll tells politicians we want better schools, a stronger NHS, and a healthier economy.

Holyrood is not serving Scots well. If Scotland’s mainstream parties can’t return focus to those things that matter to voters, they will only have themselves to blame when they make space in our politics for dangerous populists.