Sutherland Calling

Arkle and Ben Stack from Kinlochbervie

After 183 days, we were able to escape home territory (the Council area) and stay away. As soon as I heard the date was 26 April, I searched for somewhere in the far north (Sutherland) to give us a chance to recover from the stultifying numbness of the Covid lockdowns. 

We were away by 9:30am on a wet day, my plan of climbing Ben Hee in Sutherland on the way to Kinlochbevie was already abandoned because of the heavy rain. We dawdled up the A9; dualling of the carriageway was still under construction north of Perth, and then there were sections being resurfaced. It cost us more time, so we decided to call in at Aviemore to see our niece and her newborn. She was out, so we trundled up to Boat of Garden and stopped at the hotel for some coffee. We were the first customers since lockdown, so we were treated like royalty, if that is still a valid concept. The coffee was extended to a smoked salmon sandwich and salad, and, after a long chat with the owner, Cranachan was served to us on the house.

It felt like a holiday, and the occasional heavy shower made me feel good about not walking. Traffic was light on the A9 as we travelled north to Inverness, Bonar Bridge and Lairg. It has been many years since I have travelled on the long, lonely road from Lairg alongside Loch Shin. As we passed Ben Hee, I was pleased that it was still raining and smothered in grey cloud. We had a brief stop at Kinlochbervie, where there were only two fishing boats in the harbour, fishing had been in the doldrums since Brexit, and then we followed the narrow road to Oldshore Beg, where we found our Airbnb cottage. There was no one around, so we went for a walk on the nearby beach and onto the headland, where we met a local who had moved up to Sutherland from Balfron to enjoy a quieter life than is possible in the central belt. We had not yet got into our accommodation, but it seemed we were already well into the holiday. Different places, different people, time to talk and time to play.

The week continued in the same vein for the next few days. It was cold with sleet and rain showers, a northerly wind, extraordinary light and kindness on tap. I managed 3 days on the hills, ticking off some of the remaining Corbetts. We visited Scourie and Handa Island, Aileen walked to Sandwood Bay and on most days we pottered down to the beach at some stage. On the way back, we called in to see Alan and Glen in their house on the Black Isle and to reprise the events of the last year. It felt as if we had been released and discovered a life that whetted our curiosity again.

Polin Beach, Oldshore Beg

Kinlochbervie looking south-east

Inshegra scrapyard

Kinlochbervie cottage

Oldshoremore Beach

Oldshoremore 

Rocks on Sheigra Beach

Point of Stoer from Scourie

Ben Stack and Scourie

 

An Caisteal and Beinn a' Chroin

An Caisteal from Twistin' Hill

Beinn a' Chroin from An Caisteal

Friday, 16 April 2021

Ascent:     1184 metres

Distance:  14 kilometres

Time:        4 hours 58 minutes

An Caisteal                        995m         2hrs  1min

Beinn a' Chroin                  942m        2hrs  56mins

Beinn a' Chroin, east top   940m         3hrs 19mins  

Another fine day and the first day that we are allowed to travel outwith our Council boundaries as the Covid lockdown is eased. I didn't take advantage but travelled to Crianlarich to climb An Caisteal and Beinn a' Chroin. Others had had the same idea, and the large lay-by on the A82, two miles south of Crianlarich, was almost full by 8:30am, a sign of what is to come as people catch up on all the lost time on the hills. The path drops under the railway line, and then a track follows the river Falloch in a southeasterly direction. 

After a mile along the track, there is a gate and immediately afterwards a narrow path strikes up the slopes towards Sron Gharbh. It is a fairly stiff climb, and in the still air, it was too hot for a jacket. Despite the dry conditions over the past week, there were still boggy sections that sucked in the shoes as the path searched for the most nimble way to reach Sron Gharbh at the northern end of the fine ridge leading to An Casteal. 

I had made reasonable time and was closing in on the two walkers ahead of me. The ridge walk from Sron Garbh up Twistin Hill to the summit of An Caisteal is delightful with twists and turns, and a couple of easy scrambles before landing on the surprisingly flat summit. I had caught the walker ahead, a young police officer, and we walked together for the rest of the day. It was his day off between a change of shifts, and he had seized the chance to escape from his largely urban Council area and get back to the hills. Like so many, he had lost fitness during the lockdown with no team sports, the gym closed and unable to enjoy his hobbies of mountain biking and hill walking. 

We discussed the possibility of popping over to Beinn Chabhair, but the prospect of 700 metres of descent and re-ascent was not appealing, so we ventured on to Beinn a' Chroin. The steep scramble to reach its flattish summit was enjoyable in conditions that were perfect for walking. We passed the summit and went to the eastern top, where we met a couple of other walkers and engaged in more banter. I had decided to descend via the ridge to the north. I had once climbed the 3 munros on the River Falloch skyline on a Friday afternoon after school with my 10-year-old son and his friend. We had taken this route down and camped at the bealach below Stob Glas Bheag on a glorious summer evening. The next morning, we had climbed Beinn Tulaichean and Cruach Ardrain and had finished the walk by lunchtime. 

The descent was at a good pace, and discussion flowed as we related our experiences of lockdown and ambitions for the months ahead as we could return to the hills. I was pleasantly surprised that I could keep pace with thirty and forty-year-olds and still talk at the same time, but it was downhill. I felt slightly envious of them as they had yet to sample the delights of Knoydart, Fisherfield and Glen Affric. It was almost 2pm by the time we reached the road. I had now managed three days on local munros in the past couple of weeks; the daily walks up local hills had given me a modicum of fitness that should help as I begin to tackle the remaining Corbetts. 

On the return home, I had expected the traffic to be heavier as people headed north for the weekend, but it was comparatively quiet before the "wagons roll" as Ward Bond used to holler in Wagon Train.

Tuning Fork at the start of the walk

Looking across the river Falloch to Ben Challum

Twistin Hill towards An Caisteal  

An Casteal summit

Beinn a' Chroin summits

An Caisteal from Beinn a' Chroin

Social distancing from 3 random amigos on descent

 

Tarmachan the Tenth

Mam nan Tarmachan from the return track

Tuesday, 13 April 2021

Ascent:     870 metres
Distance:  11 kilometres
Time:        4 hours 18 minutes

Meall nan Tarmachan, south top     923m     1hr  8mins

Meall nan Tarmachan                    1044m     1hr 36mins
Meall Garbh                                  1026m     2hrs 5mins
Beinn nan Eachan                         1000m     2hrs 42mins

The weather patterns have been unusual over the last few days, with overnight frosts and cold northerly winds, but sparkling clear mornings before cloud cover in the afternoons. I had planned to take a long walk on the Munros near Crianlarich, but on checking the weather, prospects looked less enticing; cloud was expected by 10:00am. I decided instead to head for the Tarmachan, just 4 miles across the border of the Council area and therefore out of bounds in lockdown. I tried to remember all the times I had climbed this hill since my first venture here in December 1973 on a cold day with high winds and snow. What I most remember was a severe chilling in outdoor clothing that was bulky and lacked the insulation of today's equipment. A stiff rustling red cagoule from Nevis Sport, some leaky, leather boots that guaranteed blisters and a pair of corduroy breeches. I made a couple more visits in the 70s and 80s before I started climbing the Munros seriously, and then made two visits during my fourth round. Today would be my tenth visit, which is probably more than any other Munro other than Ben Lomond.

The roads were still quiet as we approached the big escape from lockdown at the end of the week. I was walking before 9:00am from the higher car park at the start of the path to the summit; no other walkers were evident. There were some icy sections on the path, and a mountain bike with extra-wide tyres had left deep tracks that had been frozen into the ground. The cold air took my breath away and slowed me down, but I reached the south top after an hour, took some photos and then dawdled up to the summit across a couple of sections of residual snow. The wind had abated, and I stayed for 15 minutes, looking at the map, eating and drinking before deciding to continue along the ridge. A rather noisy group of walkers with a couple of dogs were just below the summit, and on days like this, solitude is preferred. I had loaded an old playlist onto the phone; it brought back memories of walks from the past.

It is a fine walk over to Meall Garbh, which is a more impressive summit than Meall nan Tarmachan. There were no difficult sections other than the patches of icy snow that were easily crossed with the help of my walking pole. The descent was a different matter, the rock band that provides a steep climb down was encased in ice, and I spent 10 minutes inching my way down to avoid any slips. There was no sign of anyone else making the trip along the ridge; the parties that had reached the summit of Meall nan Tarmachan had returned down by the direct route. The climb along the undulating ridge to Beinn nan Eachan was an enjoyable canter, and I was there by 11:30am. 

I spent some time at the top, eventually, a father and son arrived from the west and we chatted for a while about the chance to get out walking again and the curious way in which the Scottish Government had restricted hill walking, even when sports like golf, fishing and other less socially distanced activities had been allowed. 

I had decided against continuing to the final top and returned to the bealach before Meall Garbh, where I found a good route down. I was able to run most of the way to the track that leads to an old quarry at 650 metres. From there, it is about 5 kilometres along the track to the road and in the spring sunshine, it felt that we had entered a new era where the restrictions of the past 12 months were finally going to be lifted. There were a few other cars about at the end of the walk, the roads were quiet, and Killin looked like a ghost village despite the sunshine. 

Stob Binnein and Ben More from the ascent

Loch Tay and Ben Vorlich

Lochan na Lairige Dam

Meall nan Tarmachan from south top

Meall Garbh and Meall nan Tarmachan

Meall Garbh

 

No Sunday Paper

Ben Ledi

Sunday is normally the only day I buy a newspaper nowadays. After two days of the news and with virtually all TV programmes focused on the life of the Duke of Edinburgh and having scanned the papers online, I decided against wading through more of the same. I would give the Sunday paper a miss and go for a walk instead. It was well below freezing for the third morning running and there was not of a whiff of cloud so I drove the 4 miles north and climbed Ben Gullipen. 

I must have been disillusioned by the overload of news because for the first time since lockdown, I took some earphones and listened to an old playlist. There was no one else on the hill, highly unusual given that the clarity of the views was as good as I could remember. The upper part of the track was frozen hard but the morning sun gave an illusion of warmth despite the sub-freezing air temperature. 

I made it up in under 30 minutes, pottered around for ten minutes before starting the trek down, running most of the way. Two couples were full of smiles as they headed up. On days like this, Ben Gullipen is a good alternative to Lime Craig. Did I miss the Sunday Paper? No, not really, for the first time in years I can hardly be bothered with the news it is so depressing with Brexit, Covid, a tedious election campaign in Scotland and yet more corruption scandals in government, the UK is really going to the dogs. It is too depressing to pay money to read about all these blunders and the squabbles about the arrangements for  the Duke's funeral.

Loch Venachar

Stuc a' Chroin and Ben Vorlich

Frozen hard

 

Sgiath Chuil & Meall Glas

Sgiath Chuil from Auchessan

Friday, 2 April 2021

Ascent:      1335 metres
Distance:   15 kilometres
Time:         6 hours 14 minutes

Sgiath Chuil             921m      2hrs 20mins

Meall a' Churain      917m      2hrs 42mins

Beinn Cheathaich    937m      3hrs 55mins

Meall Glas               969m      4hrs 21mins

Good Friday has always been a day for walking. It had been inculcated by my grandparents, when a ride on a Ribble Bus to Longridge Fell and a picnic of ham rolls, a boiled egg and some Longridge Pop (water) was the annual outing. Today, the hard overnight frost promised a gloriously clear morning. I was away by 7:45am although the roadworks on the A85 slowed progress and it was almost 9am before I started walking. I had planned to climb Sgiath Chuil and Meall Glas, two munros that are within the Council area. These hills are always tough with few paths and much boggy ground whether climbing from Glen Dochart, as today or Glen Lochay. 

I had last climbed them on 30 December 2008 from Glen Lochay with Gregor. It was grey, cold and wet and my feet were giving me some pain. It was in the good old days when you could phone the Doctor and get an immediate appointment. I did exactly that on returning home in the late afternoon and got an appointment at 5pm. The Doctor could find no obvious reason for the feet problem but discovered that I had atrial fibrillation and put me on medication. I was fairly devastated and it was the day that I finally decided to retire before it was too late to do the things I wanted to do on retirement.

The guidebooks said 7 to 9 hours and the last visit had taken 5 hours 30 minutes, I thought that 6 hours should suffice as I needed to be home by 4pm. I found a parking space at the start of the narrow road to Auchessan. It was below freezing but the views were stunning. I crossed the river Dochart, flowing full with a morning mist hanging over the upstream loch. The scattered houses at Auchessan were quiet and the farm boasted a cornucopia of old machinery as I passed through and began the walk up the track and then the path that climbed steadily alongside the magnificent Allt Riobain. The path squelched constantly after recent rains and I was glad that I had put some gaiters on. It took just over an hour to reach the dam at 490 metres. The sun had started to give the day some heat so I removed my jacket and had a brief stop for water and a snack. The next 450 metres were just a long slog up to the summit of Sgiath Chuil. Considering how long it had been since a long walk, I kept going without any stops and reached the summit on my planned schedule.

Its rocky summit provides a fine viewpoint over Glen Dochart and the massive Ben More but over the last half hour the sky had clouded over and I was exposed in the strong northerly breeze. Time to put on the jacket, hat and gloves. I found some shelter, took a few photos and had a drink before starting the easy traverse across to the nearby top of Meall a' Churain. Walking into the teeth of the wind was a reminder of how quickly conditions change on the hills. 

Next was the 300-metre drop down exceedingly steep slopes to the bealach between the two Munro tops. I took a direct route and whilst enjoying the activities of a couple of ptarmigan, I happened upon some crags that had to be circumnavigated. It would have been easier to take a less steep descent from Sgiath Chuil. It was a relief to reach the peat hags at the bealach. I had figured out an ascent route to Beinn Cheathaich using a few snow patches as waypoints and I proceeded steadily until the last 100 metres when I decided to head directly for the summit rather than take my original planned route to the north ridge which had a snow cornice that I decided to give a miss.

Beinn Cheathaich may only be a Munro top but it has a presence and a trig point. From here it is a couple of kilometres along a ridge with a few dips before the final climb to Meall Glas. About halfway along I met a German woman, the only other walker of the day. She had ascended Meall Glas up the steepish and ultra boggy land to the south and was desperate to find a path for her descent. I described the route off Sgiath Chuil with the boggy but picturesque path and she seemed relieved, although less so with the 300-metre steep climb to Sgiath Chuil.

There are fine views to be had from Meall Glas although Ben More was now in the cloud and the excellent visibility of the morning had lapsed. I took 15 minutes for some food, finished my water and plotted a descent route. I found a good line through the crags and the only bother was the boggy ground, it seemed endless and there were no obvious paths until I got down to about 500 metres. A narrow path appeared and I began to follow it as it followed one of the steep-sided burns, I lost my footing on a steeper section and somersaulted down the bank. As I stood up I could feel a searing pain in my adductor muscle, my trousers and jacket were soaked from the bog and I still had 3 kilometres to walk back. Fortunately, as I began to walk the pain subsided but I slowed my pace until reaching the track that served another dam at about 350 metres. 

I was down just after 3pm and after discarding wet boots and jacket began the drive back on the A85. There were two long delays for roadworks, one that looked like a wall construction near Lix Toll and the other to stop a landslip in Glen Ogle. The traffic was far heavier with lots of motorhomes, motorbikes, and open-topped cars. A McLaren sports car zipped past going at a speed nearer to 100mph than the speed limit. Altogether it had been a great day to reacquaint with the Munros although I wished that my grandparents could have come along with a picnic.

River Dochart at Auchessan

Start of the track from Auchessan

Allt Glas below Meall Glas

Meall Glas and Beinn Cheathaich from Allt Glas

Dam below Beinn Cheathaich

Sgiath Chuil summit looking south to Ben Vorlich

Glen Dochart and Ben More from Sgiath Chuil

Meall Glas and Beinn Cheathaich from Sgiath Chuil

Sgiath Chuil from Beinn Cheathaich

Meall Glas and Creag Mhor from Beinn Cheathaich

Creag Mhor from Meall Glas

Meall Glas cairn

Beinn Cheathaich and Sgiath Chuil from Meall Glas 

 

Leckie

 

Leckie estate top left below Gargunnock hills

Birthday Photo

Bridge over troubled waters

Snowdrops and wild garlic

After over 30 walks up Lime Craig this year and accompanying me on sorties to local micro hills, Aileen decided that her birthday walk on a cold and windy day should be less aerobic and not involve any climbing. The view to the Gargunnock hills from the house reminded us that the Leckie estate is a place of interest when it is not the shooting season for pheasants, partridge or grouse. It had belonged to the Younger family (Brewing and the former Secretary of State for Scotland) for many years but has since been sold twice in the last five years. 

The estate comprises a curious hotchpotch of landscapes with the bedrock of red sandstone carved by fast flowing burns, old estate plantations of massive and damaged deciduous trees, new ugly coniferous forests, and the remnants of old mills, sawmills and bridges lost in the vegetation but acting as reminders of the grandeur of Victorian estates. The undergrowth of the older plantations is lush with a carpet of snowdrops, wild garlic and patches of daffodils. An area of rhododendrons has been cleared over the winter and adds to the desolation.

We did a long loop around the tracks and paths. Gregor had been running there earlier in the week and felt that he was being chased by an animal at one point, presumably a deer but who knows what lurks in estates like this that are hoaching with game birds. We walked back via Watson House, now divided into flats, and along the beech avenue back to Gargunnock. The next stop was the Woodhouse for a cake to celebrate the birthday. There were none available so for the second year running I made a Victoria Sponge, successfully, although the strawberry and cream filling would have been annihilated on bake off for taste and presentation. 

Tomorrow I will be back to climb Lime Craig for the 44th time this year, its views are the best value in the vicinity from a mere 300 metre ascent.

Lime Craig

National Anthems

Soweto Gospel Choir - Nkosi Sikelei l'Afrika

We were blowing ideas and nonsense during a Friday night Zoom meet-up during lockdown when the subject of national anthems strayed into the conversation. What was the best and what would we like to see as Scotland's national anthem to replace the dirge that is Flower of Scotland. Our homework for the next week was to make nominations for both categories. The entries included Scotland the Brave, which along with the Flower of Scotland, is often used as the assumed Scottish anthem instead of God Save the Queen. 

The general feeling seemed to be that glorified patriotism, the sentiment "Wha's Like Us? Gey few and they're aw deid" was perhaps no longer the image that Scotland should be promoting. Something more self-effacing and humorous would be better. Hence my colleagues nominated Michael Mara's Hermless and Harry Lauder's offering A Wee Deoch and Doris.

We invited an independent former colleague to judge the suggestions and I was delighted that my nomination, Gerry Rafferty's Get it Right Next Time was chosen. There is no triumphalism here, just the reality of life. It sums up the mistakes of the Scottish Parliament as it steals power from local communities and centralises decision-making.

Out on the street I was talkin' to a man
He said "there's so much of this life of mine that I don't understand"
You shouldn't worry I said that ain't no crime
Cause if you get it wrong you'll get it right next time, next time.....

You gotta grow, you gotta learn by your mistakes
You gotta die a little everyday just to try to stay awake
When you believe there's no mountain you can climb
And if you get it wrong you'll get it right next time, next time.

Next time you-hum

As for the best anthem, well that's easy: It's Nkosi Sikele L'Africa, the South African anthem that is sung in all the main languages and in many ways has brought together a divided nation. Other nominations were France, Italy and Russia as well as a reference to Billy Connelly's choice, Berwick Green, the Archer's theme tune.

Peak Sunak

Half-price on me, anyone?

It was yet another budget day and Rishi Sunak had progressively leaked most of it in advance. He is promoting himself as the most intelligent man in the cabinet, not an impressive accolade, and has been exploiting social media to sustain this image. His Instagram and Twitter accounts have even adopted a new font for his signature.

Unlike his predecessors: George Osborne, Philip Hammond and Sajid Javid, who had been scrooge-like in their custodianship of public services. Rishi Sunak was forced to splash the cash when dealing with Covid and declared he would do whatever it takes to address the pandemic. Covid spending has already exceeded £400bn and still rising. He presented several mini budgets as the grip of Covid tightened, ran up the largest debts in the post-war period of £355bn, and became the most popular chancellor since Dennis Healey.

However, his star began to wane when his Eat Out to Help Out scheme in August 2020 produced indigestion amongst the Sage group. It cost £849m, undermined the public health messaging and was found to have been a major reason for the second wave of the pandemic in October 2020. 

He failed to provide furlough and income support for 3 million self-employed during the first year of the pandemic. His cavalier funding for PPE contracts that were let to companies recommended by Tory MPs and exempt from tendering processes, the phone app that never worked, and the Test and Trace initiative that was centralised instead of using established public health teams have all been hugely expensive failures that have diminished his stature.

These ill-considered spending sprees were then contrasted with his unwillingness to fund more than a 1% rise for nurses and his continued reduction of council funding which includes education and community care. His latest budget heralded £1bn for Town Funds, supposedly part of the government's levelling up Initiative. Detailed analysis by various think tanks discovered that 39 of the 45 towns receiving grants were to Tory-controlled constituencies including Richmond, Rishi Sunak's own constituency and Newark, the Community Minister, Robert Jenrik's constituency. It is a Rishi mystery how Cheadle, Bournemouth and Southport qualified for the Town's fund? His levelling-up claims have been seen as yet another example of how economical he is with the truth. 

His proposal to introduce eight low-tax freeports is a reprise of Mrs Thatcher's previous attempt to introduce them as part of the package of deregulation. They proved largely ineffective and merely shuffled trade away from existing ports so that even David Cameron's government abandoned them in 2012. 

His funding of Test and Trace will go down as one of the greatest financial scandals in the history of any UK government, although the responsibility for this will be shunted to the Health Secretary Matt Hancock and its serially incompetent leader, Dido Harding. But it was the Treasury under Rishi Sunak who authorised spending this avalanche of public money with minimal accountability and who is now reaping the consequences as he levels back on public spending.

His polished ingratiating persona has become tarnished even amongst the Tory right-wing supporters. They have realised that he is no magician, just another oleaginous accomplice to the prime minister. His latest budget has simply extended the inequalities that have been the enduring outcome of the austerity years. Levelling down is not just for Covid but the years that follow. Rishi Sunak's belief in Freeports, Brexit, Hedge Funds and the power of his social media presence is not going to change anything.

Vince Cable when addressing Gordon Brown at PM questions as his reputation was collapsing asked whether "The house has noticed the prime minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks - from Stalin to Mr Bean." A similar putdown for Rishi Sunak might go something like, "the chancellor has become less like Kevin Spacey and more like, well, Kevin Spacey". I suspect there will soon be far more chancellors than Denis Healey ahead of him in the popularity stakes.

Eck v Nic

Control and Command

What a palaver! The past and present first ministers of Scotland, Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, are playing a game of poker with their reputations for chips. Holyrood is the stage and the first ministers are merely players; they have their exits and their entrances.

I watched live on the BBC a fair chunk of the eight-hour interrogation of Nicola Sturgeon by the Scottish Parliament Committee on the Scottish Government's Handling of Harassment Complaints. The first minister's ability to present detailed arguments and recall events is both impressive and legendary, although she uses far too many conditional clauses for my liking. She also tends to apologise when things have not gone well and claims to empathise with whoever is suffering as a result of the issue under discussion. It plays well compared to the UK government ministers' unwillingness to acknowledge any of their mistakes, but she overplays her hand on this.

She did not miss the opportunity to play her apologies and raise Alex Salmond on his dubious claims of being found not guilty of any abuse or his failure to offer any apology to the women who had raised the complaints. 

The purpose of the Committee was to establish how the Scottish Government had failed to conduct the inquiry into Alex Salmond's alleged harassment of women with due propriety. It has always been acknowledged that the senior civil servant originally asked to carry out the inquiry knew the complainants and was therefore unsuitable for the task. The focus of the interrogation was on when the first minister first knew about the complaints and what actions she had taken. The crux of the issue became whether she had lied about first hearing about Alec Salmond's indiscretions with 9 women on Maundy Thursday or Easter Monday. 

According to the provocateur and acting leader of the Tories, Ruth Davidson, this was a resigning offence, and the first minister should resign for forgetting that she had heard this on Maundy Thursday. As an act of political grandstanding, it truly takes the Easter egg, but then Ruth Davidson and Nicola Sturgeon have always been doughty street fighters, both incapable of not having the last word.. 

Not since the Scottish play has Scotland witnessed such bloodletting as the feud between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon. These two formidable politicians have exercised Command (Salmond) and Control (Sturgeon) leadership for the past 14 years. They have stooped to nothing when it comes to ridding their governments of those who do not follow their direction of travel. Unlike Boris Johnson, the SNP leaders have no hesitation in sacking ministers, MPs or MSPs as Joanna Cherry, Neale Harvey, Margaret Ferrier or Derek McKay could testify over the past year. And woe betides any of the Scottish agencies, Health Boards or Councils who gainsay their authority.

With the Scottish Parliament election looming in May, my guess is that the Inquiry will dribble on and then fade away. Holyrood has a tendency to dispatch incomprehensible subjects into the ether. Already, the result of the election has been assumed to be a shoo-in for the SNP and, therefore, the start of another saga of calling for a second independence referendum. The result is becoming less certain as the two most recognised faces of the SNP slug it out. This is likely to be exacerbated by the loss of many of the more experienced and competent SNP MSPs like Mike Russell, Bruce Crawford, Roseanne Cunningham and Stewart Stevenson, who are standing down. So are several able younger women MSPs, such as Aileen Campbell and Gail Ross. This will deplete the SNP of political nous and make them even more dependent on the first minister. There are not many of the current MSPs who have shown any great capacity to govern. The consolation, for the SNP, if not Scotland, is that the same comment could be made of the other parties. 

What most concerns me about this is the loss of the proper scrutiny of Scotland's real issues: the lack of an industrial strategy, the decline and prevarication about the future life of the oil industry, the lacklustre performance of schools, the appalling failure of care homes and the centralisation of public services. Localism has been exorcised by the monoculture of the Scottish Government; all subsidiarity stops with the Scottish Government. Holyrood has allowed its internal squabbles and regular fights with Westminster to dominate politics in Scotland for too long. It is time for politicians to focus on the real issues that will determine whether or not Scotland emerges from Covid with a realistic vision for the future.