Scots are paying a high price for the SNP’s independence fixation

Nothing works anymore. If there is a mantra for modern Britain, including Scotland, this is it. If Westminster’s shame is the farce around HS2, Scotland’s is the two unlaunched ferries on the Clyde, spiralling inexorably in cost with a launch date disappearing into the future. They are emblems for so much else: after 16 years in power, the litter of the SNP’s unmet promises – from reform of education, to the closing of health inequalities, to the missed targets on net zero – continues to rise. Today, the sixth white paper on independence has been published. And its publication exposes the problem: the constitutional question has meant other serious policy-making has ground to a halt.

There is a name for this: in policy circles it’s called ‘the implementation gap’. It isn’t just a Scottish problem. But in a report by the think tank I help to run, Our Scottish Future, we decided to try and find out what common causes lie behind this failure to deliver, and which of these problems were specifically Scottish.