2001 - Henry McLeish resigns over a missing entry in the register of members' interests.
2005 - David McLetchie resigns after he was found to have wrongly claimed expenses for taxis.
2008 - Wendy Alexander resigns after being cleared of wrongdoing over a political donation.
Political leadership in Scotland used to carry with it the implicit understanding that even small transgressions reflected badly, both on your own party and on politics as a whole, and decency was maintained by swift acknowledgement of failure and selfless acts of sacrifice.
Meanwhile in 2020: https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1325821955652657154
And: https://twitter.com/HTScotPol/status/1325847752576802816
And not a hint of contrition, never mind resignation. The era of principled self-sacrifice ended quite some time ago, didn't it? The politics of all-eyes-on-the-prize did for it. The transformation of party supporters into hyperpartisan enablers didn't help either. Curious times.
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