“I knocked the best part of 200 doors this morning. Actually talking to people out there in the real world who want some hope, who want to know that politics isn’t all about WhatsApp messages, iPads and ferries. It’s about bigger stuff than that. It’s about dealing with the priorities of the people of Scotland.”

Fine words from Alyn Smith MP, explaining that the scandals surrounding the SNP are not really of interest to people in the “real world”. It is the classic refrain of governments which are long in the tooth and coming up short in the polls.

The WhatsApp reference was of course about the SNP-Green government’s deletion of reams of messages pertaining to the Covid pandemic, despite knowing that a public inquiry was coming. Accountability and transparency on decisions which affected the lives of millions – small stuff, that. The iPad relates to a Scottish Cabinet minister trying to charge £11k to the taxpayer for his personal data use, while blaming his sons for the mistake. A trivial matter of course.

Then there are the ferries. Lifeline vessels for the west coast, soaring from a £97 million contract in 2015 to a £360m black hole today, six years overdue – and still not delivered. Just a wee “political bubble” story this one. After all, why should people worry about the little things – like the handling of a once-in-a-century pandemic or lifeline transport services – when they could be worrying about “bigger stuff”, like what sort of flag you wave?

This has always been the tactic of the nationalists. Questions about the reality of SNP government – or indeed the practical issues about their project to leave the UK – are attacked as being “negative” or “small”. People in the “real world” are not interested in the political decisions behind care home deaths or transport breakdowns because ‘No True Scotsman’ would care about such petty matters.

Alyn Smith seems to think that ferries are not a priority for “the people of Scotland”. It tells a tale about “the people of Scotland” that Alyn Smith and his government consider worth listening to. There is a reason why people on South Uist were up in arms earlier this year, showing their anger at the way that ferry connections to the mainland have been chipped away. More than 500 islanders turned out on the quayside in June, in one of the biggest protests seen in the isles in a generation. If that does not show the priorities of the people then I am not sure what would.

They have lived through the slow degradation of their transport services under this government. They have seen the damage caused to their economy and their wider services from the knock-on effects – missed shipments, lost tourism and steady harm to the viability of island life. Ferry replacement has slowed to a crawl under the SNP. Even when – or if – the two hulks on the Clyde come into service, it will only be a temporary patch, if more investment is not made. I am sorry that these issues are not big enough for Alyn Smith.

Of course, if complaints about ferries are concentrated on the west coast, outrage over the Scottish Government’s response to the Covid inquiry is spread across all corners of the country. The SNP set the standard for opacity and obfuscation in government, as any journalist who has tried to get a straight answer or a Freedom of Information response over the past decade will tell you.

It is little wonder that ministers and officials thought they could shred their Covid WhatsApp messages without a second glance. Even after committing to a public inquiry, the SNP’s reflexive secrecy came first – and accountability and basic good governance second.

To be clear, I have always believed that politics should be about more than fixing potholes. Inspiration and ideas are at the heart of what makes politics worthwhile and give us hope for a better future (though it is a little galling to hear that argument made by a nationalist like Alyn Smith, for whom the priority is not ideals but identity).

Those “big picture” political values, however, cannot come at the cost of getting the basics right. It is not petty to expect standards of good governance in Holyrood, in Bute House, or in our public services. Those potholes still need to be fixed.

There is something distasteful about a party which has sat in power for over 16 years telling the rest of us that what Scots really care about is anything but the consequences of those 16 years. It is the height of arrogance. It speaks to a complacent culture which has set in amongst the SNP – an assumption of their right to rule. Witness Keith Brown’s outrage this week that the BBC might ask him a question about Michael Matheson that he hadn’t pre-agreed – or Michael Matheson’s own order to reporters: “Don’t follow me around."

Too many amongst their number in both Holyrood and Westminster have only ever known what it is like to have the wind at their back, getting away with lazy answers and lazy thinking. Alyn Smith kindly gave his own example of that in his speech at the weekend, when he called for the nationalisation of the Post Office – an institution which is already publicly owned. Lazy answers and lazy thinking. They have been in power for so long that they have forgotten the difference between their own interests and those of the people they serve.

The only way that you break that complacency is through political change – by banging the drum until the drumbeat can no longer be ignored. Judging by the attitude seen from Alyn Smith last weekend, that drumbeat will have to get louder still.

Alistair Carmichael is Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland

SNP MP Alyn Smith reveals the arrogance and lazy thinking of a party in power for too long – Alistair Carmichael

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