Do you think that reform cares about this reduction of one and no longer being tied? Does it really matter?

As you say, it matters a little bit in terms of order of ceremony at FMQ and that sort of thing.

I don't think the drop from 17 to 16 in other respects will bother them that much.

I think the more interesting thing for them to reflect on and think about is where this goes next.

I mean, it wasn't really a surprise to any close observers to Scottish politics that Reform's number has gone down.

I mean, we were just waiting for who the first one was going to be.

I don't think, maybe wouldn't have guessed it was Amanda Bland, but this has been coming and it's also an inevitability.

that, Andy, though, just reflective of the fact that the whole Reform party party brand it centers it orbits around Nigel Farage because if you take him away then does the party really succeed without him I mean it's all around that personality

Is it good news?

Um, uh, not always, 'cause maybe spending it is not that good an idea.

Um, uh, I think that we-- Devolution has encouraged us in the twenty-first century to believe that public spending is good and is always good, and that's demonstrably not the case.

So public spending in Scotland has risen hugely as a proportion of GDP since devolution.

I think I'm right in saying that in 1999 it was forty-two percent of GDP, and it's now, uh, more like fifty-five, I think, if you exclude oil.

Um, so, you know, we are-- And that's way, way, way more than, uh, European peers, incidentally, uh, including Scandinavia.

It's miles more.

Mm.

And there's very

little that's happened since the election that we didn't know before.

OK, we didn't know exactly what Peter Murrell had bought.

You know, we didn't know how many umbrellas there were.

OK, but...

We knew what had gone on.

Everybody knew it was baked in and they still got the landslide that they got.

It's