LIKE not a few SNP members – especially those of us still grappling with events at Westminster — I thought the decision of the SNP government to vote with Ruth Davidson’s uppity Tories to lift the ban on amputating puppy’s tails quite surreal. Forget the fact the move was opposed by the British Veterinary Association and animal welfare groups. Forget the fact there might be other matters to cope with in the rural areas, such as paying farmers on time.

No, the central problem with the dog amputation vote was that it showed the SNP group at Holyrood is in danger of losing its grip on political priorities. For the past two years the Scottish Government has been on the back foot, having lost control of the political narrative to the media and the opposition parties.

Note: I say lost the “narrative”. For the Scottish Government has done a better job than would either the Ruth Davidson Party (which has no policies bar opposing a referendum) or the anti-Corbyn Scots Labour mafia. SNP ministers have achieved an incredible feat keeping the economy afloat in the wake of collapsed global oil prices while defending a classic social democratic approach to public spending. Curiously there were no mea culpas from Kezia Dugdale when Jeremy Corbyn barnstormed the General Election on a programme of free university tuition fees – a policy Scottish Labour spent years denigrating as a subsidy “for the rich”.

Yet it is necessary to be a little worried about the course of the SNP government in its tenth year in office. There is an ever present danger that caution and routinism begin to take their toll on hard-working ministers. They become too wedded to making departmental government work rather than lifting their eyes to the big political picture.

A case in point is the Named Person scheme. Of course, there is every merit in trying to address child abuse and neglect. But in the run-up to the 2016 Holyrood election, the Named Person legislation became a stick to beat us with, not to mention provoking the ire of major Christian denominations. This was one reason we lost our Holyrood majority. Now we have had the Supreme Court ruling against the legislation. Are ministers going to learn?

Which brings us to the elephant in the room: Scottish education. This is the “live” third rail in politics. For some time the public and media perception – manipulated by our political enemies – is that the SNP government is on the back foot regarding educational delivery. We have responded by adopting questionable moves to circumvent traditional local democratic control of schools and fund headteachers directly.

My worry is that the SNP government’s new education policy is too defensive. Remember that SNP administrations have delivered three revolutionary educational reforms: free university tuition, the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and the modernisation of the further education (FE) sector. We should be proud of that record after the sleepwalking Lab-LibDem Holyrood administrations before 2007.

Of our three radical educational moves, I think we got one right (tuition fees) and one half right (FE reform), while one is still in the dock (CfE). The trouble is that ministers have shied away from a root-and- branch debate about this decade of educational experiment. Instead they have seemed to wilt under bogus banner headlines in ideological comics like the Daily Express and Daily Mail. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has been sending teams of experts to Scotland to review our example.

On free tuition fees, it is the mark of a humane, good society that we educate our young people to the highest standard paid by the taxpayer. As noted, our policy has spearheaded the Corbyn youth revolt in England. We should be proud of it. During the General Election, we should have run attack ad after attack ad reminding Scottish voters that the Ruth Davidson Party wanted to slap them with a university poll tax of £28,000 for every child going to university.

ON FE reform, as someone who spent 25 years the tertiary sector I know our old college system suffered massively from course duplication, wasted resources and a failure to concentrate specialist teaching staff. Recent reforms have focused the system on high-class vocational training. True, college mergers were often brutal. I know of instances where the wrong leadership teams ended up in charge. And the failure to harmonise lecturer pay and conditions has been a disgrace. But overall we now have a modern, vocational training system – specious opposition references to reduced college places are not comparing like for like.

However, a close inspection of subject provision tells me that we are still teaching too many students in “soft” subjects (eg hairdressing) and not enough in advanced technical subjects in engineering. We need to fuse school education with FE technical training to create a German-style, seamless vocational stream that will turn Scotland into a global industrial powerhouse. We are accused of centralising FE. If we are going to be tarred with that brush then let’s do something with it.

Finally, Curriculum for Excellence, the seismic reform to how we teach in our classrooms. Originally a gleam in the eye of earlier Lab-LibDem administrations, CfE was introduced in 2010-11 under the SNP. Confusingly, CfE has nothing to do with curriculum content. Instead it focuses on the manner in which things are taught. In theory — by teaching around themes and projects rather than traditional, segmented subjects areas, eg maths — pupils learn to be creative, solve problems, work in groups and gain personal confidence. It is an encouraging step away from instrumental forms of education that see pupils merely as employee fodder for big business.

Asian countries have taken a particular interest in CfE, because they know their own high scores in international pupil attainment tests do not translate automatically into creativity or pupil happiness. Yet there is clear evidence that Scotland has slipped down those very global rankings. More worryingly, Scottish scores in basic literacy and numeracy, at late primary and early secondary stage, are declining absolutely.

CfE and declining attainment seem to go together. Did one cause the other? Conclusion: ministers must open a public debate on whether CfE needs reforming or should be junked. Just giving cash to headteachers entirely misses the point, even if (as is true) Labour-run councils routinely syphon off dedicated school cash to support their general expenditure.

I’m not rushing to judgment on CfE: perhaps The National could organise a debate? My gut feeling is that it hasn’t worked — though there’s evidence that all that’s happening is attainment scores are being shifted a bit later in a child’s life. To keep perspective, the number of Higher passes is well up since 2007, proving there’s no meltdown in overall standards. However, it could be that by removing the concentration on teaching basic numeracy and literacy early on, we have disadvantaged children from poorer families, which is my guess. Equally, I’ve no stomach for turning Scottish education into the divisive, middle-class rat race it has become in England. SNP ministers, beware!

A decade in, the SNP government at Holyrood needs to rediscover its radicalism. Otherwise there will be more dogs without tails to wag.