Many of those interested in the politics of Great Britain will already have, due to mounting evidence, come to the conclusion that Scottish politics in the devolved administration gives the impression of being a corrupt cess pit. Governance by the Scottish National Party and its Green Party allies has been marked by incompetence, waste, authoritarianism and much much more, including whispers of missing public money and a culture of corruption. Personally I would not like to be a Scot living under the current failed administration there, it must be awful.

A writer called Robin McAlpine has put out a piece that is excoriating about the SNP and its current leadership election. Mr McAlpine has gone so far as to claim that the election is ‘rigged’ in favour of Humza Yousef who in my view is little more than ‘continuity Sturgeon’ with all that this moniker entails. Mr McAlpine has also taken aim at the commentariat in the Scottish Press who he believes should have done much more to inform the public about the shortcomings of the SNP/Green administration.

Here’s some sections of Mr McAlpine’s piece published on the blog ‘Yours For Scotland’. It makes for interesting if troubling reading and I would advise readers to take the time to read the whole piece to put the quotes in some sort of context.

Mr McAlpine said:

The rigging of this SNP leadership election makes Scotland look pathetic. The Scottish media’s failure to understand or reflect what is going on makes it look ridiculous. These are dark days for Scotland’s reputation.

Politics in Scotland as we know them are falling apart. As they do the light that is being cast on Scotland as a modern, developed democracy is humiliating. The scale of this is becoming breathtaking. The implications of this are not yet being taken seriously.

Where to start in my attempt just to spell out how pathetic things have become? I think I’ll kick off by asking how it can possibly be the case that the election of a new First Minster is being wholly run by the husband of the previous leader, a man who is subject to a recently-escalated police inquiry into fraud who is expected to be interviewed under caution imminently?

Or more specifically the question, how this has passed without comment in the Scottish media? Name me a country anywhere in the world where a Chief Executive in that position would not be removed from immediate responsibilities or where the media would pretend it wasn’t an issue.

The rigging of this election is so blatant that even a political ingenue couldn’t miss it. Let’s start with its seriousness. We are telling people that Scotland is a major democracy, a true nation, a serious viable prospect as an independent country. In fact so serious is it that the First Minister is to be selected based one week for nominations and three weeks of campaign, from a cold start, on a total budget of £5,000.

Candidates were left no time to fundraise (I can imagine why they didn’t want people to see which candidate would attract donors) even with a ridiculous cap. It means that none of the candidates has a hope in hell of sustaining a professional team. The First Minister of Scotland is such an august role you are expected to win it with a team of volunteers you had one week to put together.

I knew that Scottish politics was bad but this article gives me more idea of just how bad it is and its really really bad. From what Mr McAlpine is saying it looks as if Humza Yousef is the preferred candidate of those who previously backed Nicola Sturgeon and they are taking no chances in getting their man into the top job.

Sadly the likely outcome of the leadership elections in the SNP is that the SNP will continue to mismanage Scotland. The political classes will continue as they have done so far but it will again be the ordinary Scot who will suffer from the negative affects of the miasma of corruption and incompetence that appears to characterise Scottish politics today.