Jordan Linden was a politician with a big political future.
Rising through the ranks of the SNP, he was a leading light in the party’s youth wing, chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament then leader at North Lanarkshire Council.
But he engaged in a string of harrowing sex attacks on young men and boys during his meteoric rise.
And when victims tried to raise concerns, they were ignored, silenced or even targeted for vitriol.
The former SNP leader of North Lanarkshire Council is a predator whose crimes finally caught up with him – and it was right that he was jailed yesterday.
But the Linden scandal raises wider issues about how the SNP deals with concerns about senior figures.
Linden was a rising star who was earmarked for Holyrood and perhaps high office one day.
But a number of councillors who later left the SNP came forward with concerns and the response of the party was woeful. History tells us that the SNP tends to close ranks when there is a whiff of scandal and that is what happened in this case.
For senior Nationalist figures to continue to defend Linden after allegations came to light was a disgrace.
They put party loyalty over doing the right thing. Some people might say there is a poetic justice in Linden being sentenced on the day before the Holyrood election.
The last five years have become a byword for SNP scandal, including the Linden affair, Operation Branchform and the row over Michael Matheson’s data roaming bill.
John Swinney has steadied the ship but a feeling persists the SNP is only transparent when it absolutely has to be.
The SNP must end its culture of cover-up and put victims first.
With election day upon us it’s fair to say that the reputation of our political class is at an all-time low.
But it would be wrong for voters to simply fling up our hands and say “a plague on all your houses”.
Voting is a right that generations before us had to fight to retain in the face of extremism and fascism.
It remains one of the most important acts we can carry out as citizens of Scotland – a country with a long, proud tradition of noisy but peaceful political discourse.
Even though times are tough, democracy will always be our best option at building a fair and free society.
So whatever your political views, please get out and vote today.
And hopefully we’ll get a Scottish Parliament full of new ideas, hope and vitality.
Article continues below
Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google’s preferred sources. Click HERE.