The 19th-century American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson was an early critic of what we now know as virtue signalling.

Long before social media was clogged up with politicians desperate for likes and shares, he had the number of those who make a point of declaring their moral rectitude.

‘The louder he talked of his honour,’ wrote Emerson, ‘the faster we counted our spoons.’

This warning to be wary of people who boast of their own integrity could not be more apt for our times – days when self-styled ‘progressive’ politicians solemnly declare their intention to be ‘on the right side of history’ while hysterically attacking anyone who deviates, even slightly, from their worldview.

This new breed of politician cares not for voters but for the nourishment of his or her ego. Theirs is the ultimate example of devolution in which they each represent a single constituent – themselves.

All of this would be bad enough if it wasn’t for the fact that so many of them are willing to waste huge sums of public money along the way.

Recently, SNP finance minister Hannah Mary Goodlad announced she was hiring an artist-in-residence, at taxpayers’ expense, and then reacted with outrage when she was criticised.

Those who had suggested Ms Goodlad’s constituents might be better served by the engagement of another caseworker rather than someone employed to artistically interpret policy (or whatever nonsense this propagandist will be expected to do) were attacked by her as sexist.

So poor is Ms Goodlad’s judgment – and so colossal her ego – that she cannot conceive of the possibility that she might have been criticised for doing something incredibly stupid.

But, when it comes to mixing ego and virtue signalling, Ms Goodlad is an amateur compared with Scottish Green Kate Nevens, who must surely now lay claim to the title of Holyrood’s most pointless MSP.

Ms Nevens – elected in May as a regional MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East – has used £30,000 of taxpayers’ money to hire a ‘migrant justice officer’, despite immigration being a matter for MPs.

Rather than using her lavish expenses allowance to engage a member of staff to work on matters for which Holyrood actually has responsibility, Ms Nevens prefers to waste that money on an employee whose sole purpose is to make her look good among the wider ‘woke’ community.

Appearances, after all, are everything for this new generation of politicians.

Kate Nevens is a crank, an ideologue who excuses herself from the burdensome activity of critical thinking by believing, with absolute certainty, that she is right about everything.

Ms Nevens first came to public attention when she suggested the abolition of prisons, something even her colleagues in the Scottish Greens found difficult to justify.

But that was just an idiotic proposal. At least it did not cost the taxpayer a penny.

The Green MSP’s decision to waste tens of thousands of pounds is rather more serious.

I have no doubt that Ms Nevens – unblinking, unsmiling, entirely unbearable – is fully convinced she was quite right to hire a member of staff to work on immigration issues, but she is wrong.

And not only is she wrong but a system that allows her to do this is broken.

Scotland has 57 MPs, each of them with real authority when it comes to immigration. These are people with the authority to vote on matters relating to who may settle in the UK.

When it comes to this area of policy, Ms Nevens has no more authority than any other campaigner. She should stop her campaigning at the public’s expense.

Back in the foreign country of the late 20th century, elected members were in no doubt about their responsibilities when it came to the use of public money.

Local councillors lived with the very real threat that they could be held personally responsible for the reckless waste of taxpayers’ cash.

The abolition of the threat of a ‘surcharge’ in 2000 was the moment at which elected members were, effectively, told to do what the heck they liked with public money so long as they didn’t mind the occasional smack on the wrist.

Of course, supporters of Kate Nevens will insist that to concentrate on matters such as her democratic responsibilities is to lose sight of the bigger picture. Those who concern themselves with trifling details are no better than culture warriors.

But the truth is that Kate Nevens’s decision to hire a migrant support worker represents – at the very best – a disgraceful waste of money.

On Monday evening, Ms Nevens was detained, alongside the Nationalist MP Lara Bird, by Israeli forces as they attempted to enter the West Bank. This, of course, was precisely the outcome those two politicians wished for.

What use would it have been to go to Israel and not have had the opportunity to talk about how awful Israelis are?

That Israel – victim just three years ago of a murderous Islamist terror attack that left 1,200 Jews dead – had earlier on Monday announced it was stopping all West Bank land crossings as part of increased security measures during yesterday’s national elections was ignored by Ms Nevens and Ms Bird, who exploited the situation in the most cynical way.

The politicians turned up at the West Bank border knowing they would not be allowed to pass – and that they would then be able to talk, loudly, of their honour.

Ms Nevens described the experience as ‘frightening’ before adding that the group was able to ‘leave safely’.

‘What we experienced,’ she said, ‘was only a small fraction of the terrifying reality Palestinians face when they try to cross the same border to reach their families or simply go about their lives.’

Right now, around one-sixth of the residents of Edinburgh live in poverty. Among children, the proportion is close to a quarter. This is the sort of crisis (for what do child poverty levels like those represent if not a crisis?) that Holyrood was designed to tackle.

Scotland’s devolved parliament was supposed to bring elected members closer to the people they serve.

MSPs were supposed to offer up ‘Scottish solutions for Scottish problems’.

A new generation of ‘progressives’ have forgotten that founding principle.

For Kate Nevens, Hannah Mary Goodlad and others, elected office is little more than the opportunity for them to declare their honour.

We should all be counting our spoons.