Art for arts sake, schools for people sake...

Art helps us see who we are as people individually and collectively. A constantly regenerated national art collection helps fill the soul of the nation. Art nurtures our sense of belonging and our search for being as a nation. I get all that.

But I also get that political spending choices are made based on the priorities of a given moment. That mean the same politician may make a different decision on the same subject in different situations. There are always competing moral goods and judgement calls need to be made based on what is needed most.

Which is why the decision by the SNP Government to spend (allegedly) £17.5m on a painting by Titan painting at this moment in time is ill-judged in the extreme. At a time when every politician is saying that what we need to is to spend money of public works to keep the economy going, to choose to spend what could build a primary school on a painting that, for all its merit won't, in itself create one new job nor keep one job safe is can only be described as a seriously bad political judgement call.....but then that's the first of these that we've seen from the SNP