Editorial: The populist SNP government has been forced into u-turns

​The political and legal difficulties of the Scottish National Party are well known across the water here in Northern Ireland, but other SNP setbacks are less so.

​The party is already on to its second leader since Nicola Sturgeon stood down last year, just before the arrest of her husband. Last month the party lost three quarters of its Westminster MPs. It is now a decade since the Scottish referendum vote and something that at times has seemed almost likely – Scotland quitting the UK – is off the agenda for now.

Unionists should never be complacent about such setbacks, because the break-up of the UK is an ongoing risk, but there is another problems with the Scot nationalist project, that is not often mentioned in NI. Under SNP rule, the populism with which we are familiar at Stormont is even worse at Holyrood in Edinburgh. Our MLAs refuse to take difficult decisions around public sector reform, ignore the need for some spending constraint and cross-party politicians supported the wave of strikes. Scottish MSPs are even worse, because the SNP has barely trammelled power, being a seat short of an overall majority. The SNP in power is just as you would expect things to be if Sinn Fein was equally dominatat Stormont: a fixation with leaving the UK, and total support for extra expenditure all round.

In the last week alone in Scotland, the SNP has been accused of failing to build affordable homes, it has cut funding a biodiversity plan to fund council pay awards, it has see a trial of scrapping peak rail fares fail. A notion that there is limitless funding for everything has seen the Scottish government forced into the sort of cutbacks that the SNP, SF and others would condemn bitterly if done by the Tories. Meanwhile the SNP has suffered for its radical stance on trans issues and for gravely damaging once excellent Scottish education.

Infantile politics soon runs into chaos.