I spoke to former UK minister, and political activist since the 60s, Lelslie Huckfield about the increasingly dysfunctional Holyrood inquiry and what it tells us about the failures of the devolution era. It's bigger than Salmond vs Sturgeon 1/

The inquiry itself is bad enough. It's completely apparent that the Scottish Government is dragging out proceedings as long as it can, presumably with the hope that it will be cut-off by the May elections... 2/

When evidence has finally been dragged out of leading figures, it has been, frankly, unbelievable. There are all kinds of questions surrounding the fitness of the inquiry itself 3/

Then there's the weakness of the Scottish media. It's come to something when leading figures in the inquiry are sending out press releases based on Craig Murray's blog. Indeed blogs and the London Spectator magazine have become some of the main outlets covering the inquiry...4/

In the past, when major public institutions like the press and the legal system come under this kind of pressure from an overbearing and over-centralised government, you would expect pushback form the liberal intelligentsia. Where are they in Scotland? 5/

They are onside, apparently. The SNP's famous patronage model (combined with the near eradication of working class representation from public life) means we live in a highly uncritical public environment. Scottish democracy has become the poor man of the piece 6/

One of the well-springs of this whole situation is the grossly over-centralised and undemocratic culture at the heart of the SNP: created by Salmond, taken, if anything, even further by Sturgeon. The structural failures of devolution have institutionalised this culture 7/

This all has consequence for the independence movement that go beyond the current embarrassment. We should be worried that British establishment figures are watching all this and preparing to use it against independence. 8/8