Something is rotten in the state of politics

There was a time when politicians fought over policy. You were on the right wing or the left, you believed in the free market, or nationalisation; in government intervention, or the family. The ideal of the best argument winning maybe didn't exist but the argument was always about who was right and who was wrong.

But something changed, it began to be about personality: who the public liked most. In Britain this happened in the age of Blair, of Cool Britania and the Third Way. Much of the 1997 campaign centred around the positive image Blair projected but it only came back to haunt him. His positive smile of 1997 turned into the smirk of 2007. His downfall came, not in the wake of the Iraq War, but following the cash-for-peerages scandal. Now it is the norm that politicians careers most often end in the scandal. Rather than try to challenge someone on their policies, politicians spend their time scrutinising every detail looking for something improper, hoping that they've found the archilles heel - the scandal that will bring down their rival.

This is often most noticable than at the Scottish Parliament where the opposition are intent on finding something on Alex Salmond that'll stick. The new one borders on the ridiculous. Here are the facts as I see it:

• Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon offered as a prize at an SNP auction lunch in the Parliament with them.
  
• The auction happened outside Parliament and as far as I can tell was not held in secret.
  
• The lunches never took place.
  

This is apparantly a massive scandal, more important to MSPs than the recession or any other issue they should be concentrating on. More important than any other issue to some of Scotland's newspapers who splashed it all over their front pages.

If I were cynical I would say this issue has only miraculously appeared because the Legg report on MPs expenses was published, with some of the worst offenders being Labour MPs. But am I that cynical?

People will rightly be asking, why are our politicians focusing on finding the next scandal, chasing headlines over spurious issues instead of helping improve the country?