Occasionally the human race experiences episodes of mass madness, when everyone behaves stupidly. The South Sea Bubble, the Dutch Tulipomania, the Salem Witch Hunt, the Jonestown suicides and the rise of Nazi Germany. We had another such episode last week when Scotland voted to change 50 of its 59 Westminster seats, the SNP now has 56 MPs while Labour, Lib Dems and the Conservatives retain single seats.

The stupidity of this is amazing, here’s why:

• William Gladstone, Henry Campbell Bannerman, Herbert Henry Asquith, Andrew Bonar Law, Sir Alec Douglas-Home and Gordon Brown were all British Prime Ministers who represented Scottish constituencies. Very many more Scots have been government ministers. That has all been thrown away, SNP MPs will have zero government power.
• The SNP is not very good at what it is elected to do. Governing. In Scotland it is making a mess of every public service that it is in charge of, despite having more money per person than England has. Its problem is that to it leftie dogma is more important than providing good services. Here is a list of 100 of their broken promises. And, for example, there has been no progress in reducing the gap in school attainment between children from deprived and non-deprived areas. Also despite having no university fees these are still largely middle class institutions, unlike in England.
• The people of Scotland do not want independence, they proved that in a recent referendum and in opinion polls since. Yet the SNP is determined to achieve independence by fair means or foul.
• Scotland is very highly dependent on handouts from English taxpayers to fund their government. Pressure will now come to reduce the huge subsidies. Barnett will be up for revision. Remember that Scotland costs English taxpayers £7.6 billion a year, which makes it a very expensive hobby!
• The West Lothian Question will be very quickly addressed. Scottish MPs will now lose, for all time, a great deal of their power.
• We are at a time when powers are being devolved from Westminster to Scotland. The Conservatives can now dictate terms and the SNP can do nothing about it. It will be done how Cameron wants, no matter how much Sturgeon squeals.
• A bloc of 56 Scots SNPs will have zero power for 5 years, they will be twiddling their thumbs because their numbers are insufficient.
• The Conservatives are going to put through boundary changes that significantly reduce the number of Scottish MPs. This will be imposed on the SNP, there will be no Scottish say in the matter.
• Sending 50 fresh, inexperienced Scots to Westminster is a joke, they will be utterly out of their depth and will be totally ineffective. They don’t know how government works, never mind how Westminster works. They are going to be the butt of many jokes in the Westminster village.

So why did the Scots have this madness and inflict so much self harm on themselves? The answer is very simple, they thought that the SNP would hold the balance of power in Westminster and so would rule the roost, dictating terms to Miliband on every issue. But they were wrong, Great Britain wanted nothing to do with Miliband, so Cameron has a working majority that enables him to totally ignore Sturgeon, Salmond and the SNP.

With 20:20 hindsight what the Scots should have done is glaringly obvious. Vote Conservative. Then they would have become part of a great and successful government. Let’s hope they take all these lessons on board for the Scottish Parliament election in May next year.