How much money wasted?

How much public money do you think has been wasted by Labour Party members making entirely spurious complaints about the behaviour of members of the Scottish Government?

There was the lunches complaint (there was also a complaint made about this to the Standards Commission which doesn't investigate MSPs) - complaint dismissed; there was the escaped prisoners complaint - complaint dismissed; there was the Scottish Inter Faith Council complaint - complaint dismissed; there was the class sizes complaint - complaint dismissed; even the partisan inquiry into the Balmedie planning process dismissed the complaints.

Now more public money is being wasted on yet another inquiry that will result in the complaint being dismissed - Ofcom is to investigate the STV Homecoming programmes.

How much of our money has Labour (and the Lib Dems just a little) wasted on these complaints whose purpose appears to be nothing more nor less than the gaining of a few newspaper headlines and some scandalised reporting? No wrongdoing (intentional or not) in any one of these cases, just cheap headline-grabbing by politicians who have nothing positive to say. What a scandalous misuse of public money, what a sad way for politicians to end up - snuffling around the regulatory institutions of our public life looking for scandal like an olfactory-impaired boar hunting for truffles.

There should always be proper scrutiny of the actions of Governments, and opposition parties should forever be keening their political tools in the probing and testing of Ministers - that makes for good democracy, for good government, for a good legislature. What is not acceptable is for politicians to abdicate their responsibility for scrutiny and, instead, to attempt an ordure shower. Scotland deserves better from her opposition parties than this dreadfully poor attempt.

They should up their game!