Everything is an emergency after SNP rule

After nearly 17 years in office the Scottish government has finally accepted the truth: it is incompetent. It has declared a National Housing Emergency – effectively a vote of no confidence in itself. ‘Honest’ First Minister John Swinney has thrown up his hands and said: it’s a fair cop, in anticipation of the Scottish parliament passing a Labour motion to the same effect this afternoon. The ‘emergency’ doesn’t actually commit the Scottish government to doing anything specific, but it is clearly an unprecedented admission of failure.

Perhaps Honest John should now declare a health emergency, since NHS waiting lists have hit 700,000. Or a drugs death emergency since mortality figures, already the worst in Europe have gone up again by 10 per cent.

It is a novel way to govern, it has to be said. After all, the Scottish government is admitting to being negligent, over many years, in addressing ‘one of the defining issues of our generation’ as the social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville called it on BBC radio this morning.