These struggles probably say more about the parties in power at Scottish and UK levels at a given time than they do about the the Scottish Parliament itself.
That is not to deny there is scope to revise the way Holyrood operates to make it better equipped to hold the Scottish government of the day to account.
All parties that have been consistently represented at Holyrood have had a shot in government, except for the Conservatives.
It was Labour’s one time Welsh secretary, Ron Davies, who was fond of saying that devolution was a process, not an event.
There has been much evolution in the first 25 years and no doubt more to come.
There were points in the early years when the Scottish Parliament’s continued existence seemed far from secure.
It got off to a shaky start with the sudden death of the founding first minister, Donald Dewar; the resignation of his successor, Henry McLeish, in a property sub-letting row; and the scandalous delays and cost increases to the Holyrood parliament building project.
