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“Totally unacceptable” and “sickening”. That’s how Iain Gray MSP and John Park MSP have described the revelations that the FM and Deputy FM have been auctioning lunches at Holyrood.

Justifiable outrage or cynical politicking depending on your point of view; it is a subject that has proved thorny for some major Labour MSPs in the past, and so it is entirely understandable why they might ‘scent blood’ on this one.

Leaving the cut and thrust of Holyrood’s rancorous party politics to one side for the moment, an important issue lies at the heart of this row; how should we fund politics in Scotland/UK?

If we take the premise that we have a party system and that it needs money to function as a starting point, the next question must therefore be where should this money come from?

Self-funding, as happens now, will inevitably lead to allegations or implications of bought influence and of shady or grubby dealings. It is almost inevitable that all parties who take in any kind of serious cash from donors will run into problems of one kind or another.

The Labour Party is influenced fairly heavily by the Unions who have always been major funders. Likewise, the Conservatives’ relationships with big business are well known.

The SNP is slightly different in that it relies less on such institutional funding and more on the support of its members – which could perhaps leave it more susceptible to the ‘scandal’ in question.

But what is the alternative? In the wake of the expenses scandal and the general public dissatisfaction with our elected officials, I suspect that the idea of taxpayer money going to fund parties would cause near revolution.

Yet that would seem to be the obvious way to remove any questions of influence from our party politics system; not an easy dilemma for a disgruntled and weary public.

And said weariness is only likely to increase as long as parties continue to throw mud at each other over a practice that they all engage in, which serves only to feed a perception of impropriety.

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