Scotland being failed by two governments - Ian Murray

The British tradition of sharing formal letters with the Prime Minister when leaving a Cabinet post – or being sacked from one – may appear very odd to those with only a passing interest in politics.

David Cameron is back in politics after a seven-year gap

But these letters can tell us a lot about the state of a party. And it’s fair to say that the Tory Party is one in utter revolt. Suella Braverman’s despatch after finally being shown the door by Rishi Sunak was brutal.

She accused him of a litany of broken promises in office and suggested he reneged on a deal with her. The backbench rebellion behind Sunak is only going to grow following the UK Supreme Court’s rightful ruling that plans to deport migrants to Rwanda are unlawful.

The PM’s attempts to steady the ship by bringing back David Cameron to his government has already failed. It’s no wonder that the first opinion poll after the reshuffle gave Labour a 30-point lead.

But the Tories’ implosion means little to households across Edinburgh, Scotland and the UK who are struggling with the cost of living. Yesterday’s fall in inflation is undoubtedly a relief, yet it’s certainly not a moment to rejoice. Bills and prices will continue to rise – just more slowly and critical food inflation remains above 10 per cent.

It’s sickening to see the Tories patting themselves on the back about these figures when the whole economic situation was created by their own incompetence in the first place, and families will still have to pay more for everyday goods. The economic mismanagement began with David Cameron and his ideological austerity agenda of course, and now there is he back around the Cabinet table.

But away from Downing Street, 13 years of Conservative chaos means working people are worse off with higher mortgage and rent bills and steeper costs at the supermarket checkout. And let’s not forget that inflation is still twice as high as the Bank of England target.

A party embroiled in backstabbing and recrimination is simply incapable of fixing this mess. Rishi Sunak is too out of touch and his party is too divided to help people who can’t afford their bills. We need a Labour government which will prioritise making working people better off by boosting wages, cutting bills, and getting the economy growing again.

Instead, until the next election (which can’t come soon enough), we are stuck with a government that has already spent hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ pounds on its failed Rwanda asylum scheme, and looks set to spend even more as it searches for an alternative.

It means that Scotland is being let down by two governments with their eyes off the ball. While all the political attention has been at Westminster this week, in Scotland we have recorded the longest A&E waiting times since January, GP access is in chaos, education reforms have been delayed, and the ferries saga continues – not to mention the revelation that the Health Secretary racked up an £11,000 bill on his iPad while on holiday.

And what is the Scottish Government prioritising this week? Yet another independence paper, due to be published on Friday. Households are rightly getting fed up with governments that don’t focus on what really matters to them. Change is urgently needed at both Westminster and Holyrood.