Finding a replacement ethics adviser for the tawdry Boris Johnson is a futile endeavour.
What is the point in having anyone in the role when we have the most ethically-challenged Prime Minister in history?
Lord Geidt, who has made a career out of discreet establishment diplomacy, tried to make out he was leaving his post suddenly because of a disagreement over an opaque piece of trade policy.
This was just an attempt to paper over the true reasons the second ethics adviser in three years walked out on the duplicitous Johnson.
Geidt was blatantly misled by Johnson in an investigation into which private donor paid for the PM’s flat to be wallpapered.
Sick to the back teeth of having to put up with Johnson, Geidt took the last train out of dodgy Downing Street.
He returns to his Hebridean farm steading with his reputation and honour singed but not consumed on the bonfire of lies the Tory party continues to dance around.
His parting broadside – accusing the Prime Minister of being in complete contempt of the rules of public life – is a character reference that exactly defines Boris Johnson.
But you don’t need to be an ethics adviser to have the measure of a man who has never been fit for high office.
Johnson’s premiership has been built on dishonesty from the start.
Trust in British politics cannot be restored until he and his acolytes are removed from power.
Drugs debacle
Scotland's drug deaths crisis shows little sign of disappearing.
We were promised by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Drugs Minister Angela Constance that they would do things differently and better when the health emergency came to a head last year.
And all players in the drugs policy field agreed that radical voices would be heard, that those with lived experience of addiction and recovery would be at the front and centre of our new strategies.
We now hear howls of complaint by the most prominent group representing those in recovery from drug addiction.
FAVOR claims it is virtually blacklisted and ignored by the Scottish Drugs Forum which hosts a major event in August.
There will always be disagreements between groups vying for influence – even anger when the stakes are so high.
But the squabbles and mistrust that exist between prominent organisations amid this enduring nightmare will do little to improve the situation.
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