Donald Trump's erosion of US democracy should be a warning about blind faith in the SNP – Ian Murray MP

But the election of Rev Raphael Warnock as the first black senator in Georgia is one such moment. He is a senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Trust where Dr Martin Luther King Jr worshipped, which won’t be lost on many.

“Because this is America, the 82-year-old hands that used to pick somebody else's cotton went to the polls and picked her youngest son to be a United States senator," he said in a landmark speech.

The Democrats were last night on course to win the state’s other Senate seat, ensuring President Joe Biden will have enough support for his policies.

It may not have matched the international jubilation of Biden’s victory over Trump last November, but this election is still a cause for celebration.

Trump, unwittingly, even helped to bring this about. He has railed against democracy in a series of fake tweets, prompting his supporters to have doubts about the voting process. Doubts led to a lower turnout, which led to defeat. Trump leaves office as a loser, a description he hates.

There have been suggestions he wants to fly to Scotland to play golf rather than witness Biden’s inauguration, which is a reason, if one were needed, for the UK to have checks on arrivals coming into the UK. Trump has shown what happens when trust in our leaders is undermined.

And there are lessons for us too on this side of the pond.

Boris Johnson’s buffoonery and U-turns, and his damaging defence of Dominic Cummings, have done nothing to increase trust in the UK government’s ability to handle the ongoing pandemic and its vital processes, such as the rollout of the vaccine.

Recent research by the John Smith Centre found trust in British politics is low among women, people on low incomes and the young. These represent the three groups most exposed to the Covid-related economic crisis.

How governments and politicians respond to the pandemic will affect their lives more than most, so the degree to which they trust those people and institutions matters.

In Scotland, where politics has been poisoned by the constitutional divide for so long, we have a more unusual situation, with many placing blind trust in SNP politicians. Anyone who asks questions is somehow undermining the nation.

While it doesn’t compare with the way that Trump has eroded democracy in the States, this isn’t a sign of a healthy democracy either.

Take the vaccine rollout. I have been contacted by a growing number of people with concerns about the process; there is simply not enough transparency coming from the SNP government.

As reported in the Edinburgh News this week, elderly people in Edinburgh were given dates for their first jag, then sent letters delaying the appointment by up to a month.

People must follow the new restrictions, but we all have a right to demand that governments keep their side of the bargain, support families and key workers, protect businesses, and get the vaccine rolled out as quickly as possible. The vaccine offers us hope for the future and people need trust in the system.

When hope is such a rare commodity these days, it is something we must never lose sight of.

Ian Murray is the Scottish Labour MP for Edinburgh South

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