Centralising, illiberal, catastrophic: the SNP’s one-party state

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[/audioplayer]Imagine a country where the government so mistrusted parents that every child was assigned a state guardian — not a member of their family — to act as a direct link between the child and officials. Imagine that such a scheme was compulsory, no matter how strongly parents objected. Imagine that the ruling party controlled 95 per cent of MPs, and policed the political culture through a voluntary army of internet fanatics who seek out and shout down dissent.

Welcome to Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland in 2015. The First Minister is admired the world over. She has a few curious notions — chiefly, the idea that the political and cultural differences between Scots and the English are so great that the only solution is to sue for separation. But there is no denying it: she is intelligent, thoughtful and spirited. She has even mastered the Billy Connolly technique of giving a little giggle to her own jokes. Those outside Scotland have the sense of a charismatic insurgent, already looking forward to a new referendum that she’d have a good chance of winning.

But what is far less known south of the border is that the SNP have been in government since 2007 — and that its rule has been a disaster. Their central premise, that control from Edinburgh is inherently better, has been tested to destruction. Their stream of illiberal reforms and their mistrust of the Scottish people has led to power being centralised to an unprecedented degree. The SNP avoid proper scrutiny by always steering the conversation back towards independence.