IT seems that every day brings a new attack on the devolution settlement and the Scottish Government by the Conservatives and their allies. This is what happens when the British nationalists believe that the SNP has been wounded, and it is a foretaste of what would come to pass if Scotland is foolish enough to be seduced by the false promises of Keir Starmer's right wing British nationalist Labour party at the next UK general election.

In just the past week we have had an amendment being put forward by a Conservative peer in the Lords which if passed would give British Government ministers the power to overrule environmental decisions taken by the Scottish Government.

Now, we learn that the Conservative Government is to consider "sanctions" on the Scottish Government over its spending to develop the case for independence. This is ultimately in response to efforts by the Labour 'peer' - an oxymoron if ever there was one - George Foulkes to prevent the democratically elected Scottish Government, which was put into office on the basis of a manifesto commitment to bring about a vote on Scottish independence, from developing the policies which it was elected to enact.

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If Foulkes is successful it will prove two things. Firstly, that the Labour party is as authoritarian and anti-democratic as the Conservatives. Secondly, that the claim that the British state is a voluntary union of nations is a nothing but a cynical and self-serving lie with no basis in truth.

It will mean that the British Government is free to spend what it likes on completing the transformation of the Scotland Office into an anti-independence propaganda unit – but the Scottish Government will be prohibited from developing and articulating the case for independence.

Due to Scotland's hopelessly skewed media landscape in which the great majority of outlets are hostile to independence and give preferential treatment to anti-independence and ‘SNP bad’ stories, there is already no level playing field in Scotland's constitutional debate. This move would take us even further into authoritarian territory in which only one side in a supposedly democratic debate has the lawful right to make and present its case.

Tories whine over new independence paper - before it's even published

This development comes amidst the predictable Conservative performative anger about the news that the Scottish Government will shortly publish a new paper on citizenship in an independent Scotland.

Produced by civil servants, this document will be the fifth independence paper in a series looking to lay the groundwork for a new country after a Yes vote and to give the people of Scotland clarity about what they would be voting for if they vote for independence. Unsurprisingly, even before seeing it, the Tories have called the new paper a "blatant misuse of public money and resources".

Which is pretty rich coming from a party that spaffed hundreds of millions of public money on useless PPE contracts awarded to their cronies; which cost the public purse billions in Liz Truss's mercifully sort lived economic vandalism; and which this week gave a 45% rise in the public money forked over to the already obscenely wealthy King Charles, in exchange for a spot of grumpy waving at the plebs, even as it tells doctors there's no money. But a couple of grand on an independence paper, that's where the Tories draw the financial line.

More unelected Tory peers clog the House of Lords

In more evidence, if you really needed more evidence, that the British state is fundamentally and irredeemably corrupt, a 30-year-old former aide to Boris Johnson has become the youngest life peer in British history after officially being sworn into the unelected chamber where she will be entitled to claim an attendance allowance and expenses for the next sixty years or so. Charlotte Owen was nominated for a peerage in the disgraced former prime minister's controversial resignation honours list released in June.

Owen has been given the peerage after working for a couple of years as an intern, first for Johnson and later for Liz Truss. She was described as an 'advisor' although what she was advising them on is a moot point. Her career has certainly not been particularly distinguished. There have been unverified claims on social media that one of her main duties was to babysit Johnson's ever-expanding brood.

Another relatively young and inexperienced Johnson lackey, the 31 year old Ross Kempsell, has also taken a seat in the Lords this week thanks to Johnson's patronage. Kempsell, who was formerly a writer with the Tory right wing froth site Guido Fawkes, was responsible for the infamous interview in which Johnson claimed that his hobby was making model buses, conveniently ensuring that a Google search for Boris and bus would first bring up this puff piece and not stories about the debacle surrounding the replacement Routemaster buses he had ordered for Transport for London while serving as London mayor which were decried as causing more problems than they solved. The new hybrid buses often had battery failures and were smaller and more expensive than alternatives.

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Tory broadcaster Iain Dale insisted that those who complained about the appointments were guilty of breathtaking hypocrisy as the criticisms come from the same people who rejoiced in Mhairi Black's election and the election of a 25-year-old on Thursday in Selby. "Their crime is not to be young. Their crime is to be Conservatives." he harrumphed on social media.

However, the key word when it comes to Mhairi Black and the Labour party's youthful victor in Selby is "election." There's a bit of a difference between being elected in a democratic ballot and being appointed for life by a notoriously corrupt and lying Prime Minister for personal services rendered. Any MP, no matter how young, can be removed at the next election. Owen and Kempsall can never be removed and will be able to influence public policy for decades to come.

The crime is not that they are Conservatives, the crime is that the Conservatives are just laughing at us all now in their blatantly corrupt use of patronage and privilege.