EUAN MCCOLM: No amount of pageantry could conceal the naked reality that our parliament is failing the people who cheered it into existence

Its not often I agree with the sentiments expressed in the endless steam of statements issued by the SNP’s press office but I couldn’t help but nod along as I started to read the party’s take on the 25th anniversary of Holyrood.

“Scotland’s parliament has,” the nationalists claimed, “transformed people’s lives.” And it truly has.

If only the press release hadn’t gone on to state this transformation had been “for the better”, I’d have found nothing with which to disagree.

But the truth is that, no matter what the excitable spin monkeys of the SNP’s communications team might wish us to believe, the Scottish Parliament’s first quarter of a century has been a crushing disappointment, a wasted opportunity on the grandest possible scale.

Holyrood truly has transformed lives for the worse.

Charles and Camilla were preceded by a procession of the Royal Honours of Scotland – the Scottish crown jewels 

The King and Queen graced Holyrood with their presence yesterday, lending events an air of solemnity, but beneath all the pomp was an institution that has failed in its declared mission of improving the lives of Scots.

I’m far from alone in believing so.

A survey by the Diffley Partnership, published in March, revealed that only two in five Scots think Holyrood has served them well and scarcely half think devolution has had a positive impact on the country.

That same survey found only 42 percent of Scots believe MSPs do a good job of representing them, which seems overly generous from where I’m sitting.

It was all supposed to be so different.

Having led Labour to a landslide general election victory in 1997, new Prime Minister Tony Blair swiftly set about delivering a promised referendum on devolution. 

One one side of the campaign, making the case for a new parliament, were the unlikely bedfellows of then Scottish Labour leader Donald Dewar, his SNP opposite number Alex Salmond, and the Scottish Liberal Democrats’ Jim Wallace. 

On the other, the Conservatives - recently humiliated in the general elections - and led by the relatively unknown Edinburgh lawyer, David McLetchie.

The result - 74 percent supported the establishment of a devolved parliament while 62 percent favoured giving it tax-varying powers - was decisive.

When MSPs gathered in their temporary new home - the Church of Scotland Assembly building at the top of Edinburgh’s Royal Mile - to be addressed by Elizabeth II - the streets outside were lined with crowds. The mood was celebratory, as if the country was on the brink of something special.

It did not take long for the national mood to change. From the off, MSPs seemed determined to show themselves every bit as out-of-touch with voters as their Westminster counterparts ever were. 

A decision to approve the production of commemorative “medals” to be given to all inaugural members of the new parliament was widely mocked.

Alex Salmond’s decision in 2000 to quit Holyrood to focus on his career in the House of Commons added to the sense all was not well in our new parliament.

The biggest blow to the new institution, however, came in with the sudden, tragic death of First Minister Donald Dewar. 

His passing, aged just 63, in October 2000 led to a sometimes performative national outpouring of grief, A statue, which he would not have wanted, was erected in his memory on Buchanan Street in Glasgow.

Mr Dewar’s death exposed a paucity of talent on the Labour benches at Holyrood. Certainly, there were fine minds there - the late Sam Galbraith, for example - but when it came to selecting a successor to a leader of considerable substance, the choice offered to Labour MSPs was uninspiring. 

Henry McLeish defeated Jack McConnell and lasted a year a before resigning amid questions about his office expenses.

Mr McConnell was elected unopposed to take over from Mr McLeish, ushering in a period of relative calm.

There was important reform of the National Health Service under Mr McConnell but he was overly-cautious and when Alex Salmond returned as SNP leader in 2004, Labour’s man looked tired.

Mr Salmond and his protege, Nicola Sturgeon, led the SNP to a narrow victory in the 2007 Holyrood election, a result that fully destroyed the belief among some Labour figures that devolution would “shoot the nationalist” fox.

Between 2007-11, Mr Salmond and Ms Sturgeon maintained the pretence that they had the slightest regard for the beliefs of those who did not support their desire to break-up the United Kingdom. After the SNP’s landslide in 2011, the mask came off.

Years of divisive nationalist grievance-mongering, of angry rhetoric about democracy denied, of endless demands for a second referendum the majority of Scots don’t want has left our politics in tatters. 

Good faith debate is non-existent in a Holyrood chamber stuffed with over-promoted intellectual lightweights, time-serving nonentities, and cranks whose obsessions never align with the priorities of voters.

First Minister John Swinney leads an SNP group that’s out of ideas and almost devoid of talent.

And what, after 17 years in power, do the nationalists have to be proud of?

According to that always-open press office, achievements include: free prescriptions; no tuition fees; the baby box; the Scottish Child Payment; and “our precious NHS being kept in public hands”.

Well, let’s look at those achievements. Before the SNP introduced its “free prescriptions” policy, 50 per cent of those receiving prescriptions did not pay while 80 per cent of all prescriptions were fulfilled without charge. 

The SNP’s policy is aimed at those it benefits - the wealthiest. We must call this “progressive” policy what it is, which is cynical retail politics.

Parents and anxious teenagers across Scotland have long since realised the potentially devastating impact of the abolition of tuition fees. 

In order to fund this policy, universities are obliged to take in a higher proportion of overseas students who pay exorbitant fees and this means a strict limit on the number of places available to Scottish students.

King Charles and Queen Camilla visited the Scottish Parliament to mark its 25th anniversary

The baby box is just a box of useful things for the first couple of days at home with a new baby. 

Many of you will, like me, remember in those dark pre-baby box days, receiving bags of useful things, sponsored by nappy, formula and baby food vendors, on leaving the maternity ward with a baby. 

The baby box is like that but it’s in a box and some nationalists think it’s the greatest step forward for society since the establishment of the NHS.

The Scottish Child Payment is a rare example of an SNP policy that makes sense and meets an identifiable need. But the thing about keeping our precious NHS in public hands is nonsense.

The only way in which the NHS in Scotland could have been privatised at any point in the last 17 years would have been for the SNP to do it. Nationalist scaremongering about threats to the health service ignore the fact that responsibility for it is fully devolved to Holyrood.

The SNP boast that it has kept the NHS in public hands is akin to it saying “we haven’t sold the Trossachs to the Saudis”.

If it wasn’t for its obsession with promoting dangerous gender ideology, the Scottish Government would have nothing to do just now.

What a miserable pass we’ve reached.

There was pomp and ceremony at Holyrood, yesterday, but no amount of pageantry could conceal the naked reality that Scotland’s parliament is failing the people who cheered it into existence.